Maritime Auxiliary Services (MAS) and value contribution of a global value chain non-integrated segment: the case of Port of Santos and the footwear industry (São Paulo/Brazil)

Abstract

A new context has emerged when World Trade Organization (WTO) was founded in 1995. That new scenario has brought a fragmentation of the value chain, where facilities are spread worldwide. Nevertheless, this fragmentation needs linkages in order to give unity to the value chain, and maritime auxiliary services (MAS) at ports are part of those linkages. Our purpose was to define a framework, focusing on Port of Santos container’s terminals, and on the footwear industry from the São Paulo region (Brazil), where can be assessed the value contribution of the MAS, in order to integrate effectively and efficiently local-specific assets into global value chains. Methodology adopted applied an hypothetic-deductive approach; two propositions emerged from literature review; afterwards quantitative methods were conducted (principal components analysis, clusters analysis and bivariate statistics; random sample of 115 SMEs), and two latent variables have been extracted: MAS contribute to enhance local competiveness?; MAS are easily integrated into local companies operations?. Based on results a framework in order to classify MAS value contribution to local-specific assets was developed. Our conclusions have shown a negative perception about MAS at Port of Santos, which can be classified as ‘Poor and Operational Non-Adjusted Linkage’.