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

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The Performance of Seaport Clusters
the governance of seaports. One could even argue that the quality of regimes becomes
more relevant in port competition: when firms become active in various port clusters,
technological differences between ports become smaller and regulations to create a ‘level
playing field’ more strict, these potential sources of competitive advantage become smaller.
In such a competitive environment, the quality of collective action regimes becomes more
important.
14.6 Port authorities as cluster managers
The role of port authorities has traditionally been described with the ‘port models’ landlord,
toolport and service port. It has become clear that these port models are of limited use for
understanding strategies of port authorities (see Heaver et al, 2001). The case studies show
that this distinction does not capture the involvement of port authorities in the governance,
regardless their port model. On the basis of the case study evidence and theoretical insights
stemming from the analysis of governance in clusters, the concept ‘cluster manager’ was
developed. Figure 21 shows the newly proposed scheme to analyze investments of port
authorities.
Figure 21: The port authority as cluster manager
Contribute to the
performance of
the port cluster
Investments
Necessary for
effective
transport node
Port authority
as cluster manager
Landlord
port authority
Port authority
as cluster manager
Port authority
as cluster manager
Direct recovery Indirect recovery
Cost
recovery