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

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The Performance of Seaport Clusters
Various case studies of clusters (such as Mistri, 1999) suggest that the quality of
governance in a cluster (quality so defined that a higher quality leads to a better
performance of the cluster) can differ between clusters. However, no satisfactory framework
to analyze the quality of coordination in a cluster has been proposed. Based on a
comprehensive literature review, we develop the framework to analyze the quality of cluster
governance given in Figure 10.
Figure 10: The quality of coordination in a cluster
Trust
Intermediaries
Low coordination
costs
Leader
firms
Quality of
cluster governance
Scope of coordination
beyond price
Collective
action regimes
Sub-variables
-Infrastructure for collective action
-Role public organizations
-Community argument
-Voice
-Leader firms
Two factors determine the quality of governance. First, the level of coordination costs, or
transaction cost. These costs include the costs of searching for partners, the costs of
specifying contracts, the costs of ‘monitoring’ performance, and the ‘pure’ interaction costs
such as time and travel expenses (Williamson, 1985). Clusters do not ‘by nature’ have low
transaction costs, but it is frequently claimed that transaction costs in clusters can be
relatively low (Albertini, 1999).
Second, the quality of coordination in a cluster depends on the ‘scope’ of ‘coordination
beyond price’. Examples of coordination beyond price include setting of standards,
investing in the labor pool, cooperation in innovation projects and information sharing. For at