Chapter 26 Conclusions and Research Agenda

This chapter reviews the literature on devolution outcomes from a broader spectrum of industries. Having derived reasonably conclusive evidence in Chapter 18 as to the inadequacy of existing models of port governance, a more appropriately complex model has been proposed. This model exhibits greater detail in the definition of groups of port activities for which governance decisions must be taken and a much greater refinement of the range of governance typologies available to decision-makers. Drawing conclusions from the content of previous chapters, an agenda for future research into devolution, governance and port performance is set out. The key objective lies with investigating, and possibly identifying, the nature of the relationship between this newly expanded range of port governance configurations and port performance. Finally, this chapter proposes a conceptual framework for analyzing the firm-governance relationship and how this affects the performance of both ports and devolution programs.