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Economics and Management of Shipbuilding Clusters: Possibilities for Integrating Croatian Shipbuilding in the EU Shipbuilding Industry

If managed properly, the shipbuilding industry could have a high multiplication effect. This is why it is often considered as the key industry in economic development in many national economies, especially those in transition. The three major players in the global shipbuilding industry are South Korea, China and Japan. Europe is positioned forth, but its market share is decreasing rapidly. This is also the case with the Croatian shipbuilding industry. This paper aims to critique the level of adaptability of Croatian shipyards to the rapidly changing environment of global industry. It also relates the question of survival and sustainable development of Croatian shipbuilding and strategic positioning of European shipbuilders. The results of this research had shown that without clusterizing the shipbuilding industry at EU integration level, and not at national levels, Europe will soon loose the struggle for market position improvement or even maintenance to the far more organized Asian rivals. Findings regarding the Croatian shipbuilding industry indicate the absence of a viable strategy on the national level. Furthermore, the paper tries to prove that success will be based on the possibility and will of Croatian shipbuilders to form strong collaborations and business networks with subcontractors and other institutions. This should not be limited only at national level, but should incorporate different kinds of EU shipbuilding consortiums and clusters as well as other forms of strategic alliances.

shipbuilding; cluster; business network; Croatia; EU

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