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

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The Performance of Seaport Clusters
the national background. It can be argued that in North-west Europe ports are low trust
environments given the national context, but not necessarily more low trust than African or
US Gulf ports. A similar reservation is relevant for the research outcome that collective
action regimes are especially well developed in South African ports.
12.1 Strengths and weaknesses of Rotterdam’s port cluster
Table 76 shows the score of Rotterdam compared to the scores of Hamburg (H) and
Antwerp (A). The average score of the 6 port clusters is used to analyze whether strengths
and weaknesses apply when related to ports outside the competitive environment. The
variables are ranked from weaknesses to strengths.
Table 76: Strengths and weaknesses of Rotterdam’s port cluster
Variable R H A Conclusion
The level of land prices and office rents
Significantly worse than Antwerp,
-1.5 -0.2 1.9 Hamburg and the average of 6
ports
The quality of collective action regimes
1.0 1.6 2.2
Significantly worse than Antwerp
and average of 6 ports
The presence of a labor force 1.4 1.0 2.3 Significantly worse than Antwerp
The presence of a culture of trust 0.8 1.7 1.8
The presence of internal competition 0.9 0.5 1.4
The presence of cluster exit barriers
(immobile staff and fixed investments)
The presence of cluster entry barriers
0.2 -0.3 0.4
(access to local knowledge, networks
and capital)
0.1 0.9 0.2
The level of congestion 0.2 0.8 -0.4
The presence of embedded leader
firms
2.0 1.5 2.3
The presence of intermediaries 2.1 1.7 2.5
The diversity of the cluster population
3.0 1.3 2.4
Significantly better than Hamburg
and average of 6 ports
The presence of customers and
suppliers
3.0 2.0 2.6
Significantly better than Hamburg
and average of 6 ports
The presence of knowledge spillovers
2.7 2.2 2.0
Significantly better than Antwerp
and average of 6 ports
Average scores on a scale from –5 (very bad) to +5 (very good)
* Significantly higher score than in other two regions
** Significantly lower score than in two other regions