Risk Management in Seaports: A Community Analysis at the Port of Hamburg

The aim of this work is to detect communities of stakeholders at the port of Hamburg regarding their communication intensity in activities related to risk management. An exploratory mixed-method design is chosen as a methodology based on a compact survey and semi-structured interviews, as well as secondary data. A compact survey at the port of Hamburg is utilized to address the communication intensity values among stakeholders. Based on 28 full responses, the data is extracted, cleansed, and prepared for the network analysis using the software “Gephi”. Thereafter, the Louvain community detection algorithm is used to extract the communities from the network. A plausibility check is carried out using 15 semi-structured interviews and secondary data to verify and refine the results of the community analysis. The results have revealed different communities for the following risk categories: (a) natural disasters and (b) operational and safety risks. The focus of cooperation is on the reactive process and emergency plans. For instance, emergency plans play an important role in the handling of natural disasters such as floods or extreme winds