The Performance of Seaport Clusters - RePub - Erasmus Universiteit ...

Chapter 11 – Governance and Performance in Seaport Clusters; Results of the Cases 169
On the contrary, various firms in the LMPC oppose the project and some port authorities are
also skeptical. This illustrates the shortcomings of the innovation regime in the LMPC: no
institutional support for innovative ideas and an environment not conducive for innovation. In
this context, one expert remarked: ‘if someone is fired in Houston, he/she starts a new firm,
if someone is fired in the LMPC, he/she moves to Houston’.
The innovation regime in Durban
The innovation regime in Durban is at best moderate. The scope of coordination is limited.
The experts in Durban have realistic ambitions: Durban is not positioned to develop
innovations. The firms in the cluster are mostly part of internationally operating firms, with
limited involvement in innovation. The ambition is to become an ‘early adopter’ in the African
context.
Given this ambition, an opportunity is to encourage the knowledge transfer between large,
internationally operating leader firms and local firms that are related to these leader firms.
Such a project enables these local firms to become early adopters. Such a project also
could also support the empowerment of the ‘previously disadvantaged’ (mainly black South
Africans), an important policy objective in the South African context.
The innovation regime in Rotterdam
The innovation regime in Rotterdam is moderate, according to the experts. The port is not
an ‘innovation prone environment’, even though some of the conditions for such an
environment are fulfilled: knowledge centers are present (especially the Technical University
and the national research center TNO in Delft, and Erasmus University in Rotterdam),
government subsidies for innovation projects are available, and organizations that
encourage innovation and knowledge transfer are present. Furthermore, the port authority
encourages and initiates innovative projects.
The experts frequently mentioned four explanations for the relatively bad regime given the
favorable conditions. First, profit margins of the majority of firms in the cluster are small. The
industry is to a large extent cost driven and not willing or able to free up resources for
innovation. Second, cooperation proves to be very difficult. Firms in the port cluster are not
willing to share information and knowledge. The threat of opportunistic behavior prevents
cooperation. Third, even though governments (national and regional) encourage innovation,