Policy Response to COVID-19 in Global Shipping: Systematic Review and Analogical Application

COVID-19 has had one of the greatest impacts on global shipping across maritime trade and logistics. Its impact transcends shipping, affecting worldwide trade and disrupting maritime services and supply chains. We applied an analogical knowledge transfer mechanism that follows attribute retrieval, mapping, transfer, induction, and interpretation of lessons learned from COVID-19. The retrieval process was based on a systematic review, a novel approach to implementing source retrieval in an analogical knowledge transfer mechanism. The knowledge transfer analysis suggests that key policies including cargo and vessel mobility, emergency management, resilience, risk management, autonomous integration, crisis management, international cooperation, stakeholder engagement, lockdown policies, digital integration, sustainability, and supportive measures are also potential mitigating measures to other crises including the impact of extreme weather events on global shipping. This article contributes to the literature by consolidating the effectiveness of the transfer of inferences from COVID-19 through the knowledge transfer mechanism, utilizing a systematic review of the analogical retrieval process, and providing theoretical insights into an analogical knowledge transfer mechanism and application of lessons learned from COVID-19 to governments and policymakers, shipping and port managers, and crisis management professionals.