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

Chapter 13 – Conclusions for Analyzing Clusters 193
towards an explanation that incorporates behavioral aspects. Our study demonstrates
the importance of governance in (port) clusters.
• The incorporation of analytical tools to analyze governance, most importantly, the
theory of ‘collective action’, the concept ‘leader firms’ and the concept ‘regimes’. These
three analytical tools enrich the analytical framework.
• Recognition of the effects of the diversity of a cluster. The positive effects of diversity on
economic growth and innovation performance of regions have been acknowledged, but
this insight has not been incorporated in cluster research. Industry experts do agree
with the positive effect of the diversity of a cluster on its performance, indicate that
diversity of international scope is especially important, and rank diversity as a relatively
important determinant of cluster performance.
13.3 The role of entry and exit barriers
One important adaptation of the framework resulted from the case studies: the effects of exit
barriers are not in line with the theoretical arguments presented in the theoretical part. The
argument that exit barriers increase the embeddedness of firms in the cluster is dismissed.
Embeddedness arises when the cluster environment offers advantages, not when barriers
prevent exit. The empirical results show that exit barriers do not contribute to the
performance of the cluster, as suggested in the theoretical part, but reduce the performance
of the cluster.
Two reasons explain this effect: first, exit barriers are also entry barriers. Since entry barriers
reduce performance, exit barriers reduce performance as well. In this sense, the answers of
the experts are coherent. Furthermore, exit barriers reduce dynamism in the cluster. When
firms exit, entrants take their place. This dynamism has - according to the survey results - in
general positive effects on the cluster. The experts rank exit barriers as by far the least
important variable of the performance of clusters. Entry barriers are regarded as more
important. In this respect, it is important to note that exit barriers are entry barriers, but the
reverse is not true. For instance, the inaccessibility of networks is found to be a relevant
entry barrier, but is not an exit barrier.