From the old path of shipbuilding onto the new path of offshore wind energy? The case of northern Germany

Wind energy-related employment has been surging recently in Germany: it rose from 9,200 in 1997 to 90,000 in 2007 and is estimated to be 112,000 in 2020. The industry particularly emerged in coastal, northern Germany. Recently big hopes are particularly set on the offshore wind energy industry. Two recently discussed evolutionary concepts explain the emergence of new industries, such as wind energy, in space in different ways: the windows of locational opportunity concept stresses the locational freedom in the earliest stages of industrial development, whereas path creation emphasises the role of existing industrial development paths, such as shipbuilding, from which new paths, such as wind energy, emerge. The paper aims at analysing whether the new path of offshore wind energy emerged out of existing paths, mainly shipbuilding, in the five states of coastal Germany. It concludes that shipbuilding only indirectly affected the emergence of the new development path of offshore the wind energy industry in northern Germany.

An exploration of industrial agglomeration, regional trajectories and regional inter-industry labour flows in Germany

The challenge for Old Industrialized Areas (OIAs) consists of both mastering to recover from the longlasting effects of severe crises of the former predominant industries and to adapt to ongoing multiple structural changes. In the first part of this compilation the papers provide insights in which ways different factors affect the adaptability of OIAs. Fragments of mature industries contributed to adverse effects of the industry mix on regional growth in OIAs. Weakly embedded mature manufacturing clusters in an OIA’s industry space imply limited opportunities for knowledge spillovers and innovation due to missing links across old and new clusters. In the second part of this compilation, the papers provide insights on the impact of the regional industrial mix on individuals’ post-redundancy re-employment opportunities, to which industries workers move after plant closures in industrial agglomerations and whether they remain in the region or not. The papers show that the likelihood of displaced workers to take up new employment does not rely merely on individual characteristics, but also on the ‘absorptive capacity’ of the regional labour market, the regional industry structure, and the local conditions. The concluding section in this compilation provides policy recommendations for improving the coherence of the regional industrial portfolio of OIAs and thereby their resilience and adaptability to structural change

Economic importance of the Belgian ports: Flemish maritime ports, Liège port complex and the port of Brussels – Report 2009

This paper is an annual publication issued by the Microeconomic Analysis service of the National Bank of Belgium. The Flemish maritime ports (Antwerp, Ghent, Oostende, Zeebrugge), the Autonomous Port of Liège and the port of Brussels play a major role in their respective regional economies and in the Belgian economy, not only in terms of industrial activity but also as intermodal centres facilitating the commodity flow. This update paper provides an extensive overview of the economic importance and development of the Flemish maritime ports, the Liège port complex and the port of Brussels in the period 2004 - 2009, with an emphasis on 2009. Focusing on the three major variables of value added, employment and investment, the report also provides some information about social balance and the financial situation in these ports as a whole. These observations are linked to a more general context, along with a few cargo statistics. Annual accounts data from the Central Balance Sheet Office were used for the calculation of direct effects, the study of financial ratios and the analysis of the social balance sheet. The indirect effects of the activities concerned were estimated in terms of value added and employment, on the basis of data from the National Accounts Institute. In terms of maritime cargo traffic, the downturn recorded during the last quarter of 2008 continued throughout 2009. Direct value added declined in all the ports in Flanders. Maritime branches as a whole contracted. Only the value added of the maritime branches in the port of Ostend remained stable. The non-maritime branches as a whole saw a contraction in all the Flemish ports. It was the port of Antwerp that suffered the most from the drop in the value added. Its maritime branches shrank by nearly one third. While the non-maritime branches were slightly down. The port of Ghent recorded a bigger decrease in the non-maritime branches. Conversely, the value added in the port of Zeebrugge fell more sharply in the maritime branches. Direct employment in the ports of Flanders as a whole declined during the year 2009. Except in Ghent, direct employment in the maritime branches fell in all the Flemish ports. Similarly, only one of them, the port of Ostend, recorded a rise in employment in the non-maritime branches. Thanks to this, it has been the only Flemish port to register direct employment growth. Investment decreased in all the ports in Flanders. The decline in investment was between one-sixth and one-fifth in the ports of Ghent, Antwerp and Zeebrugge. While Ostend recorded a cut of more than one third in its investment levels in 2009. The volume of cargo handled in the port of Liège decreased strongly in 2009. Direct value added and employment registered a significant decline. Maritime and non-maritime branches were down for both value added and employment. Thanks to the "other services" branch of activity, investment rose steadily. The volume of cargo handled at the port of Brussels declined in 2009. Value added in this port remained steady. But employment contracted slightly. After the growth seen in 2008, investment was down by more than a quarter. This report provides a comprehensive account of these issues, giving details for each economic sector, although the comments are confined to the main changes that occurred in 2009.branch survey, maritime cluster, subcontracting, indirect effects, transport intermodality, public investments

Large-scale structure of a nation-wide production network

Production in an economy is a set of firms' activities as suppliers and customers; a firm buys goods from other firms, puts value added and sells products to others in a giant network of production. Empirical study is lacking despite the fact that the structure of the production network is important to understand and make models for many aspects of dynamics in economy. We study a nation-wide production network comprising a million firms and millions of supplier-customer links by using recent statistical methods developed in physics. We show in the empirical analysis scale-free degree distribution, disassortativity, correlation of degree to firm-size, and community structure having sectoral and regional modules. Since suppliers usually provide credit to their customers, who supply it to theirs in turn, each link is actually a creditor-debtor relationship. We also study chains of failures or bankruptcies that take place along those links in the network, and corresponding avalanche-size distribution.Comment: 17 pages with 8 figures; revised section VI and references adde

Key antecedents and practices for supply chain management adoption in project contexts

An adequate identification of antecedents is recognized as fundamental in order to set the basis for connecting the inter-organizational networks in a SCM perspective. This work aims to identify key antecedents of SCM in a project-based environment by using Interpretive Structural Modelling (ISM). This is firstly useful in order to highlight the relationships among the antecedents and to deduce priority for their achievement. The findings provide a hierarchical perspective of the 16 identified antecedents. In particular, three macro-classes of prerequisites were defined: cross-organizational cooperation, rules and procedures — accessibility, and super-ordinate goals. Moreover, results from a longitudinal and illustrative case study are also presented in order to compare the out-coming ISM model with evidence from a success case in the Yacht-building context so offering interesting insights about the implementation process. From a managerial perspective, the proposed model offers a conceptual path for SCM adoption, emphasizing most critical issues that have to be considered and organized in this complex and unpredictable setting

Safeguarding export and import transactions through relationships and networking

This paper provides insight into some notable factors in safeguarding business transactions. Firms in the Sunnmøre region of Norway use a variety of governance forms to secure and safeguard international business transactions. These governance forms impact on the quality of international buyer-supplier relationships and export performance. Institutionally embedded governance forms should take into consideration: the export market condition; product characteristics; documentation requirements/payment methods; and type of customer and the destination of exported goods. The choice of governance form(s) depend on these underlying factors due to the uncertainty/complexity of international trade and the investment in specific assets. Multiple case examples elicit the commonality of themes despite differences in firms’ products, strategies and business models. Though findings of this study cannot be generalised due to the limited case examples and explorative nature of the study, it may be possible to transfer some of the general statements across industries and regions. Keywords: international buyer-supplier relationship; networking; contracts; trust-based relational contracting; export-import relationships; securing; safeguarding; governance.publishedVersio

Cluster Complexes: A Framework for Understanding the Internationalisation of Innovation Systems

The literature on clustering that has developed over the last two decades or so has given us a wealth of information on the formation and competitiveness of places in the global economy. Similarly, the systems literature on innovation has been valuable in moving the debate around technology from a focus on the entrepreneur to one than encompasses institutions, government, suppliers, customers and universities. However, there remains an important limit to this research; the borders of political jurisdictions, usually nation states, typically delineate the studies. It is argued in this paper that during an era when the international architecture of production relationships is changing, this view of systems is hindering its further development. This paper briefly examines what we have learnt of innovation systems, including clustering and also explores the limitations of this work. From this foundation it is proposed in this paper that a framework which understands clusters as nodes within extra-territorial networks is a promising approach for internationalising the systems of innovation perspective. The advantage of the approach presented here is that it can simultaneously capture regional specialisations and be disaggregated enough to apply on a technology / sectoral basis. Another principle advantage is that such a framework goes someway towards an understanding of interregional and international trade that is consistent with what other studies have shown of the development of innovation within particular geographic locations. The paper draws from extensive data analysis of industrial interdependencies that cross national borders to support the case for cluster complexes that transcend regional and national borders.innovation systems; clusters; internationalisation

Sustainability in Shipbuilding – Observations from Project-Oriented Supply Network in Cruise Ship Construction

Sustainability is one key future driver regarding which kind of changes cruise and tourism industries will face and how related ecosystem can anticipate such drivers. Sustainability-oriented innovations might emerge as a differentiation factor for suppliers as a new competitive advantage. To understand more about emerging opportunities on these topics within Finnish maritime industry, Sustainability and Transparency in Shipbuilding Networks (SUSTIS) research and development project was launched in 2015 to develop a holistic approach for sustainability in shipbuilding. As part of the project’s second phase an explorative interview study in 17 organizations was carried out among cruise ship interior related suppliers which main findings are presented in this report. The goal of the study is to summarize previous research on shipbuilding’s construction phase sustainability impacts, point out practices with linkages on sustainability. Also, perceptions of cruise industry’s future and related drivers are discussed. The findings of the study support previous results related to project-based industries that sustainability-oriented innovations are complex to implement into the industry’s decision-making. The tendency of the industry’s actors to focus on business-driven on-going customer projects leaves usually room for incremental initiatives. Therefore results encourage long-term development across projects and introduction of new ideas must happen in early phase. Existing quality and supply chain management information capabilities are examined and considered useful for sustainability requirements. Safety is found as a priority in social sustainability but additional diversification is possible. Results are reflected against supplier-driven agenda construction for sustainability transition

"Scientific and technological density of regions : the impact on firms’ competence to innovate"

The purpose of the paper is to present possible approaches of the innovative potential of the regions, with an empirical application concerning the relation between characteristics of regions (scientific and technological density) and the firm’s competencies. Regions, which are territories with specific institutional and techno-economic characteristics, will be considered here as significant contexts for innovation processes. By using the word “context”, we want to underline the importance of regional characteristics, even in a globalised economy, but we are reluctant to speak of regional “system” without carefully analysing the possible meaning of such a notion. RIS is a useful concept if it one stresses its cognitive content – a way of interacting that leads to specific competence to innovate – but can be misleading if understood as an ex ante given network of actors and infrastructures. An important characterisation of territorial specificity in evolutionary terms is the cognitive potential of actors. For instance, firms’ capabilities vary to a large extent following the type of innovation under consideration : outcome of science-based R&D, particular competitiveness in marketing innovative products, incremental improvements through learning by using (N. Rosenberg) or other sort of learning by interacting (B-A. Lundvall). To give an empirical example, we will use the results of a survey of the French industry focusing on the innovative competence of the firms. We have developed an econometric model for testing the influence of the regional scientific and technological context on the nature of the “competence to innovate” declared by the firms in the inquiry. This study is an opportunity to cast light on the concept of critical interfaces evoked by K. Pavitt (1998), by underlining several schemes of industrial development according to specific characteristics of industries and regions. Designing differentiated regional policies on the basis of such an analysis seems to be possible.