Christian Richter Østergaard

Regional Employment Growth, Shocks and Regional Industrial Resilience: A Quantitative Analysis of the Danish ICT Sector

Holm J. R. and Østergaard C. R. Regional employment growth, shocks and regional industrial resilience: a quantitative analysis of the Danish ICT sector, Regional Studies. The resilience of regional industries to economic shocks has gained a lot of attention in evolutionary economic geography recently. This paper uses a novel quantitative approach to investigate the regional industrial resilience of the Danish information and communication technology (ICT) sector to the shock following the burst of the dot.com bubble. It is shown that regions characterized by small and young ICT service companies were more adaptable and grew more than others, while diversity and urbanization increased the sensitivity to the business cycle after the shock. Different types of resilient regions are found: adaptively resilient, rigidly resilient, entrepreneurially resilient and non-resilient regions.

What Makes Clusters Decline? A Study on Disruption and Evolution of a High-Tech Cluster in Denmark

Østergaard C. R. and Park E. What makes clusters decline? A study on disruption and evolution of a high-tech cluster in Denmark, Regional Studies. Most studies on regional clusters focus on identifying factors and processes that make clusters grow. However, sometimes technologies and market conditions suddenly shift, and clusters decline. This paper analyses the process of decline of the wireless communication cluster in Denmark. The longitudinal study on the high-tech cluster reveals that technological lock-in and exit of key firms have contributed to decline. Entrepreneurship has a positive effect on the clusters adaptive capabilities, while multinational companies have contradicting effects by bringing in new resources to the cluster but being quick to withdraw in times of crisis.

Patterns and Collaborators of Innovation in the Primary Sector: A Study of the Danish Agriculture, Forestry and Fishery Industry

Based upon a large-scale survey and case studies of innovation we explore patterns of innovation activities in the Danish agricultural, forestry and fishery industries. Our primary focus areas are the sources and capabilities of innovation. We demonstrate that despite the fact that this industry is often regarded as low-tech there are still substantial innovation activities going on. Around 23 per cent of the 640 firms surveyed had product and/or process innovation, 24 per cent had other types of innovation. A total of 46 per cent had some type of innovation. Firms delivering directly to end-users were more likely to be innovative than those delivering to the processing or wholesale links of the value chain. Many of the innovative firms had no collaboration on innovation, and respondents generally claim that stimuli for innovation were primarily internal. We also demonstrate that the industry has a very well developed extended knowledge base, which is a vital source of information and knowledge for innovation. This may explain why traditional survey instruments do not fully capture the external sources of innovation.

Exploring determinants of firms’ collaboration with specific universities: employee-driven relations and geographical proximity

ABSTRACT Exploring determinants of firms’ collaboration with specific universities: employee-driven relations and geographical proximity. Regional Studies. This analysis of the determinants of firms’ collaboration on innovation with specific universities assesses both the separate and the overlapping importance of geographical proximity and employee-driven relations for collaboration. It is argued that social, cognitive and functional dimensions of employee-driven relations can help firms to overcome geographical distance. Based on a sample of 2301 innovative firms in Denmark, the study demonstrates that employee-driven relations (measured by employees’ and top managers’ place of education and scientific discipline) strongly influence the likelihood that firms will collaborate with specific universities. The study confirms the existence of separate and overlapping effects of employee-driven relations and geographical proximity.

Destruction and reallocation of skills following large company closures

This paper analyzes what happens to redundant skills and workers when large companies close down and whether their skills are destroyed or reallocated. The analysis is based on a combination of qualitative and quantitative data of the closure of four companies. Getting a job in a skill‐related industry or moving to a spinoff firm leads to skill reallocation. Thus, the result depends on regional idiosyncrasies such as industry structure and urbanization. If local policy makers and the owners exert a coordinated effort, it is possible to create success stories of less skill destruction in urban as well as peripheral regions.

The Dual Role of Multinational Corporations in Cluster Evolution: When You Dance with the Devil, You Wait for the Song to Stop

This chapter shows that multinational corporations play a dual role in cluster evolution through the case of the wireless communications cluster in Northern Denmark. On the one hand, they bring in resources to the cluster, such as financial resources, technology, knowledge, innovation networks, and access to new markets. On the other hand, they cause changes in local interaction, decision making in firms, and the scope of activities in the value chain. This chapter highlights the positive and negative effects of multinational corporations (MNCs) and makes the claim that greater emphasis should be placed on MNCs when studying cluster evolution. Draft version: A revised version is published as Østergaard, Christian R., Kristian H. Reinau and Eunkyung Park (2017), “The Dual Role of Multinational Corporations in Cluster Evolution: When You Dance with the Devil, You Wait for the Song to Stop” in Fiorenza Belussi and Jose-Luis Hervás-Oliver (eds), Unfolding Cluster Evolution, Routledge. Regions and Cities Series, Ch.3, p.39-55