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

Chapter 11 – Governance and Performance in Seaport Clusters; Results of the Cases 175
11.6 Conclusions: cluster governance and performance
Table 73 summarizes the most important conclusions on the relation between the structure
of a cluster and the performance of that cluster.
Table 73: Research findings on cluster governance and performance
Issue Research finding
Trust Trust is the most important variable for the quality of the governance of the cluster. Ports
are not regarded as high trust environments.
Intermediaries The presence of intermediaries is the least important variable for the quality of the
governance of the cluster.
A relatively large part of large firms do not agree intermediaries improve the quality of
cluster governance.
Cargo related intermediaries are more important than ship related intermediaries.
Leader firms Leader firms contribute to the quality of cluster governance.
Collective action
regimes
In all three cases, leader firm behavior takes place.
Leader firms make their international knowledge/networks available for local firms in the
cluster.
Leader firms improve the quality of collective action regimes.
The five collective action regimes (innovation, training and education, marketing and
promotion, hinterland access and internationalization) are relevant in seaports.
Hinterland access is the most important regime and very important in all three cases.
Internationalization is the least important regime.
The role of public actors, the infrastructure for collective action and the role of leader
firms are especially important for the quality of collective action regimes.
None of the studied regimes (15 in total) is evaluated very positively, for all regimes
opportunities for improvement are present.
Innovation is the most difficult regime, because of need for cooperation and funding.