Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Mohamadreza Molayari ¹
• Hassan Danaeefard ²
• Ehsan Soltanifar ³

¹ PhD Student in Public Policy Faculty of Management and Economics, Tarbiat Modares University

² Professor of Management Faculty of Management and Economics, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

³ Assistant Professor, Department of Business School of Management, Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, University of Tehran, Tehran / Iran

Abstract

This study, grounded in the philosophy of Critical Realism and employing the three-stage logic of abduction-retroduction-causal modeling, explores the institutional structures that influence the chronic phenomenon of cargo congestion in Iranian ports. From a purely commercial perspective, this phenomenon equals a slowdown in the flow of imports and customs clearance. At the level of reality, however, it represents the outcome of hidden causal forces and reverse synergies among the currency, customs, regulatory and logistics domains manifested as a persistent pattern of organizational inefficiency. Qualitative field and documentary analyses conducted at Shahid Rajaee Port through systematic coding led to the identification of six recurring demi-regs: structural entanglement of monetarycustoms systems, bureaucratic circulation of permits and systemic delay, mission overlap and supervisory duplication, regulatory path dependence, opportunistic behavior of importers and logistical misalignment of the transport chain. These institutional mechanisms operate within a web of mutual feedbacks, producing a closed cycle of delay, waiting and extension that has itself become a generative force in the formation of cargo congestion. Retroduction revealed that these demi-regs are fed by deeper, fundamental causal clusters namely fragmented governance, defensive bureaucratic culture, structural economic instability and the historical pressure of sanctions. These intertwined clusters transform the decision-making system of foreign trade from a coordinating to a defensive mode, imposing the logic of “survival over efficiency” upon institutional complexity. Based on this analysis, cargo congestion is not an operational incident but a symptom of institutional functional erosion in logistical and border chokepoints, leading to the decline of the Logistics Performance Index (LPI), rising transaction costs and weakening of national transit competitiveness. The final model of the research illustrates a causal-structural network in which the dynamics of cargo congestion emerge from the enduring interplay between underlying forces and actualized institutional mechanisms. Breaking this cycle requires intervention at the real layer through reintegrating institutional islands, internalizing intersectoral trust and reconfiguring the logic of policy coordination.