Exploratory spatial analysis of maritime clusters

Abstract

For decades, maritime clusters have been relishing distinct attention from policy, practice, and academia. The regional phenomenon coined as a cluster has been found to provide an excellent framework for the formulation of a competitive advantage for not only the firms situated within, but also the region, and in many cases, the nation harbouring the cluster altogether. Despite the attention directed towards maritime clusters, their body of knowledge is still crystallizing. Within this body of research, a definitive allocation, categorization, and classification of the different geographical stances with reference to the strategic elements of clusters, is absent. This work introduces a topology of the governing constructs within maritime clusters and provides a rudimentary, yet conclusive, classification of the different locational approaches in the strategic maritime clusters of the world. In addition, this research provides indications as per the tone of regional culture that dictates the competitiveness of maritime clusters. These indications are fostered through exploratory factor analysis on a dataset compiled of Likert-type questionnaire data. Structure detection based on the locational origin of the responses is conducted, contributing to a pertaining research gap in the literature, as studies providing geographical classification of maritime cluster competitiveness’ factors are scarce. Various reliability statistics calculated validate both the quality of the dataset and the methodology applied.