Research on the high-performance development path of China's seaport shipping logistics based on Fs-QCA method

Taking 51 coastal ports in China as research samples, this study adopts fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (Fs-QCA) method to explore the linkage effect and path selection of enhancing port shipping cargo performance under the three dimensions of location resources, accessibility, and opening up. The study finds that the high-performance development of port logistics in China has diversified development modes, which can be summarised into three types: resource-balanced, location-access dual dominant-driven, and access-driven. When port cities have inherent deficiencies in certain conveniences, they can achieve high cargo performance through other paths. The study also finds that although the high access capacity of ports is not the necessary condition for any of these modes, the lack of high access capacity is the common reason for the low performance of related ports in terms of cargo.