The relationship between operational efficiency and financial efficiency in the shipping industry: An example from privatized ports in Türkiye

¹ Privatization Administration of Türkiye, Ankara, Türkiye
² Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Industry and Technology, Ankara, Türkiye
³ Atılım University, School of Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering, Ankara, Türkiye

^* Corresponding author: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Received: 7 October 2024
Accepted: 2 October 2025

Abstract

Since the ports are the backbone of international trade they need to be managed efficiently. This study addresses to analyze the operational and financial efficiency of the selected privatized ports that have been belonged to TCDD (Republic of Türkiye State Railways). For this purpose, EATWOS (Efficiency Analysis Technique with Output Satisfying) method is employed, and the weights of the inputs and outputs are determined using LOPCOW (Logarithmic Percentage Change-Driven Objective Weighting), MEREC (Method Based on the Removal Effects of Criteria), and CRITIC (Criteria Importance Through Intercriteria Correlation) methods. After obtaining the weights from these objective methods, the comprehensive weights are calculated using TPOP (Technique of Precise Order Preference) method. Finally, Spearman’s rank-order correlation shows that there is no relationship between the operational and financial efficiency of the ports. The number of studies that address both operational and financial efficiency of ports is limited, and this study distinguishes itself by investigating the relationship between both efficiency types.