Critical factors in organisational effectiveness: the case of Saudi Arabian seaports

Seaport management environment has continually changed over the last few decades due to increasing external pressure for seaports to be more competitive, active, dynamic and growing sustainably. These changes have created the need to manage organisational effectiveness in order to monitor port performance and achieve organisational objectives. While organisational effectiveness has been well known in organisational management and important in port management, its application to the seaport sector is limited. This paper presents exploratory research into critical factors of Saudi Arabian seaports’ organisational effectiveness. A Delphi method was applied. Data were collected from a two-round survey of the Saudi Arabian seaports, and interviews of 43 senior staff from Saudi Arabian seaports. A mixed method combining quantitative and qualitative analysis was conducted. A total of thirty-one (31) factors from six different dimensions, namely human resource management, customer service, finance, operation, marketing, research & development, were identified to be influential to OE. The gathered data are no doubt important to seaports because only limited research has been conducted on the application of the organisational effectiveness concept to the seaport sector. Findings of this research regarding selecting and evaluating the most influential factors of OE are relevant to decision makers in managing seaport organisations.