Collaborative Research: Air Cargo Services and Competitive Advantage in Industrializing Economies

航空货运在当代全球经济中是一个日益重要的环节，尽管研究得很少。然而，航空货运服务的可用性和质量因城市、地区和国家而异。该项目将研究航空货运服务的变化如何影响出口制造商及其运营所在地经济的竞争力。 通过问卷调查和对航空货运公司和出口制造商的深入访谈，将评估马来西亚、菲律宾和新加坡航空货运服务的供求情况。 利用定量和定性方法，将开发模型，以显示航空货运服务的使用如何随着公司的业务国际化而发生变化，外资和本地公司在与航空货运公司的关系方面有何不同，以及信息技术的更多使用如何改变了航空货运业的关系。虽然关于生产者服务的描述性文献很多，而且越来越多，但几乎没有一个文献涉及航空货运。 因此，航空货运一直被简单地视为某些特殊货物的运输方式。 然而，新的国际劳动分工的加速出现以及公司为获得竞争优势而进行的相应努力，使航空运输业的技术复杂程度和组织结构发生了演变。 航空公司开发了不同速度服务的更广泛的产品线，利用通信的进步来加速航空货物托运人和承运人之间的信息流动，并建立了国际联盟，以更好地为跨国公司服务。 从本质上讲，已经开发了一套更加丰富的服务。 对这些复杂的服务、提供这些服务的航空公司以及在三个充满活力的东南亚经济体中使用这些服务的出口商的探讨，将表明航空货运对发展中经济体竞争力的影响。

Air cargo is an increasingly vital, though little researched, link in the contemporary global economy. Yet the availability and quality of air cargo services vary among cities, regions, and countries. This project will examine how variation in air cargo services affects the competitiveness of exporting manufacturers and the local economies within which they operate. Through questionnaire surveys and in-depth interviews with air cargo carriers and exporting manufacturers, both the supply and demand dimensions of air cargo services will be assessed in the context of Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative methods, models will be developed to show how the use of air cargo services changes as firms internationalize their operations, how foreign-owned and locally owned firms differ in their relationships with air cargo carriers, and how greater use of information technology has changed relationships in the air cargo industry. While there is a significant descriptive and growing theoretical literature on producer services, virtually none of this addresses air cargo. Heretofore air cargo has been treated simply as a means of transport for certain special goods. However, the accelerated emergence of a new international division of labor and concomitant reach by firms for competitive advantage have produced an evolution in the technological sophistication and organizational structure of the air transport industry. Airlines have developed broader product lines of different speed services, used communication advances to accelerate the flow of information among air cargo shippers and carriers, and formed international alliances to better serve multinational corporations. In essence, a much richer set of services has been developed. An exploration of these complex services, the carriers that provide them, and the exporters that use them in three dynamic Southeast Asian economies will demonstrate the role of air cargo as an influence upon the competitiveness of developing economies.