Henrik Sornn-Friese

Linkage lock-in and regional economic development: the case of the Øresund medi-tech plastics industry

This paper examines the role of interfirm linkages in influencing the dynamics of regional economic development. Developing a conceptual framework, we claim that switching costs (real or perceived) can lock firms into existing linkages with the potential effect of impeding regional economic development. A main argument is that in dynamic and competitive environments a class of switching costs, learning opportunity costs, might arise out of the relative importance of learning and innovation. We apply our framework to understand what goes on in the Øresund medi-tech plastics industry, taking as a starting point the lack of cross-border linkage participation in this industry. Through a case study research design we obtain evidence about the characteristics and dynamics of linkage lock-in and switching costs in this particular context and explain that learning opportunity costs prevail and make increased linkage participation across Øresund tardy. Promising future research arising from the present study includes enquiry into dissimilar industries, the possible intermediating role of third parties and the complementarities of the Danish and Swedish areas with a focus on the potential of cross-border regional specialization. All this would potentially add to a more complete picture of the notion of switching costs.

Downfall delayed: Danish shipbuilding and industrial dislocation

This article analyses the decline of the Danish shipbuilding industry. European shipyards dominated global shipbuilding markets in the first half of the twentieth century, but began to be challenged by the Japanese from the 1950s and by the South Koreans from the late 1970s. More recently, China has taken over large slices of the global shipbuilding market and currently is the worlds largest shipbuilding nation. As a result of this new competition, European shipyards closed en masse and Europe experienced a process of maritime deindustrialisation in the 1970s and 1980s. Danish shipyards were not immune to these challenges, although maritime deindustrialisation in this country was almost two decades later than in many other European countries. This article examines how Denmark was able to escape this general maritime deindustrialisation for so long and offers three explanations: institutional, entrepreneurial and political.

The establishment of the Danish International Ship Register (DIS) and its connections to the maritime cluster

This article discusses the development of second ship registers and their interconnections to the policy idea of maritime clusters. Through a narrative of the contemporary history of Danish maritime policy, the article shows how these apparently different policy measures were closely related and together constitute a coherent framework based upon specific values, views of cause–effect relationships, and perceptions of major challenges and their context. Danish maritime policy provides an excellent case for the study of the contemporary history of maritime policy-making. Denmark was among the first of the traditional shipping nations to set up a second register, and the concept of maritime clusters became part of Danish maritime policy before it emerged as a construct in European Union maritime policy. We provide detail on the unfolding of some of the most important recent events in Danish maritime policy and highlight its development as a process of learning that involves the prolonged drafting and fine-tuning of statements and ideas, and the borrowing and adjustment of policy ideas developed elsewhere.

‘Knowing the Ropes’: Capability Reconfiguration and Restructuring of the Danish Shipping Industry

The development of Danish shipping over the 50 years from 1960 to 2010 has been characterized by an overall fleet growth. However, there have been important dips disrupting the general development, some of which have been long-lasting and had distressing results for individual entrepreneurs. Half a century ago, around 1960, Denmark owned about 1.75 per cent of the world fleet and Danish shipping companies engaged successfully in all the main shipping segments. A decade later, Danish shipping proved more resilient to the downturn in world shipping markets than its Nordic competitors. The survival rate for Danish companies was higher than that in Sweden and Norway. In the mid-1980s shipowners cut costs and started reflagging their ships into open registries. Throughout the 1990s Danish shipping was in the doldrums, as it were, with some companies prospering and others failing spectacularly. In the initial decade of the twenty-first century Danish shipping companies proved able to exploit the global growth opportunities created by the demand-driven upswing in North America and South East Asia. By the end of the period covered in our analysis Danish shipping proved more successful than ever, controlling almost 5 per cent of the world fleet in 2008 and, according to the Danish Shipowners’ Association (Danmarks Rederiforening, 2010), carrying 10 per cent of world trade as measured in terms of the value of the goods carried.