OF PIRAEUS
3. The Concept of Maritime Clusters
Experience around the world has shown that the concept of clustering suits particularly well to maritime businesses. There are numerous benefits,
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ranging from specialized labor to targeted training, from increased mar- ket awareness to connections with R&D institutes and from strategic co-operations to inter-related maritime activities (Wijnolst, 2009). Despite the large maritime industry in Europe and worldwide, we have little sys- tematic information concerning the degree of interaction between maritime firms. The European network of maritime clusters is one of the pioneering initiatives concerning the cross-country maritime cluster of Europe. Several country reports, as Norway’s’ and Netherlands’, have been published there revealing the structure and some quantitative data of their maritime cluster (Wijnolst, 2006).
The need for a flexible theory to base our research on, has directed us towards a bottom-up approach to the maritime cluster concept. Therefore, the first task was the conceptual definition of the maritime cluster, hence, maritime cluster as per se in our research can be defined as: ‘The outcome of one or more spatial consolidations, of cooperating — competing firms and institutions within all sectors, sub-sectors and economic activities directly or indirectly linked to the shipping industry, maritime transport and generally the utilization of the sea’.
Based on the above definition, it is then necessary to define the sector and sub-sectors that make up a maritime cluster. The European commission has identified the following traditional maritime sectors in Europe (E.C.
Report, 2009), as shown in Table 1.
However, many differences exist per country and maritime cluster regarding the scope of the maritime industry and its specialization. The European Network of maritime clusters give us a more narrow or more pragmatic perspective on the sectors of European maritime cluster. Here, we have eight sectors: Shipping, Shipbuilding, Marine equipment, Seaports,
Table 1 Traditional maritime sector according to EC study (E.C. Report, 2009).
Traditional Maritime Sectors (EC study)
Shipping Scrapping
Shipbuilding Offshore supply
Ports & Related Services Cable & Submarine telecom Classification Societies Inland Shipping
Repair & conversion Naval Shipbuilding
R&D and Education Dredging & Maritime works Equipment Manufacturing Recreational Vessels Support Services Fishing & Aquaculture
Maritime services, Yacht building, Offshore services and Fishing (E.C.
Report, 2009).
Much of the literature on clusters has ignored the issue of market structure. On the other hand, literature on maritime clusters is dedicated on replicating the market networking structure that exists without inves- tigating in depth the reasoning for such networking. In the framework of approaching the concept of maritime clusters, there is the need to analyze the structure of the network and identify the key relationships that control the supply and demand in the maritime sector. The study on the maritime service sector in London (Grammenos, 1992) gave us an insight on how different firms in the shipping industry are interconnected. The study came to a model with a core centre of three main sectors: Charterers, Owners and Brokers around whom ancillary services revolve. The model proposed here is based on one fundamental value that shall govern the behavior of the cluster; there is supply and demand of knowledge between the different categories that live in the cluster and among the firms that populate each nod in a micro perspective. In practice, the demand and supply of knowledge can be translated into exchange of services and goods among the firms.
The triangle of charterers, owners and brokers (Grammenos, 1992) has been replaced by one triangle incorporating Ship-owners, Ship-managers and Charterers and another inverted triangle included in the previous one, presenting brokers as the intermediary activity between supply and demand. The following scheme presents the idea of the double inverted triangle.
Fig. 1 Double inverted triangle, market modeling.
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As Fig. 1 above implies, the demand for shipping is expressed in the market by charterers who seek vessels for the movement of their cargoes while on the other side the supply is expressed by Ship-owners and Ship- managers who offer ships to charterers for their needs. The most usual case is that the supply side and the demand side employ brokers to match their needs. This is the reason why brokers absorb demand information from Charterers with the one side of the triangle and supply information from Ship-owners and Ship-managers with the other two sides respectively.
The purpose of this model is only to present the core of shipping activity around which satellite services revolve and they constitute as a whole a universe of maritime activities — the maritime cluster. For the moment, this model is simplified and relieved from complexity issues that certainly exist in the market. Further on, the addition of satellite services around the core activity creates a network that can be considered as a maritime cluster, shown in Fig. 2 below. In order to harmonize the above model with the definition of maritime clusters we should also consider the factor of localization. It is therefore essential to enhance the model with the spatial dimension, meaning that the players of the core activity with the firms that offer the satellite services are co-locating in a region that can be therefore characterized as a Maritime Cluster.
Fig. 2 Double inverted triangle, market modeling.