ABSTRACT
The success or failure of any business depends to a large extent on valid and reliable assessment of performance. Despite the importance of performance measurement, there is a relative gap in the context of the shipping industry. The gap is refl ected in the absence of a consistent and coherent stream of research and literature that deal with the issue of how shipping companies measure their performance and what techniques, methods and measures are actually available to improve the process and outcomes of performance measurement. For instance, performance may be related to economic or fi nancial performance and measured using accounting ratios or other fi nancial measures. Performance may also be related to effi ciency and the effective utilisation of inputs into a production process, which in this case, includes not only the provision of transportation services but also the process of managing the transportation business and the performance of the business entity. A key issue in the context of the shipping industry is to develop a stream of research that would deal with the different approaches to performance measurement and their application to the major sectors of the shipping industry viz. dry bulk, tanker and container shipping. A stream of research dealing with the measurement of business performance in shipping would also provide useful managerial implications, not least because it will enable managers to assess the performance of their companies and operations and therefore provide a basis for further improvement.
