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Abstract:
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This paper analyzes the foundations of regional knowledge and its long-term impact on
the region’s companies’ and how a particular knowledge has developed an ability to
stay competitive within a specific technological field. The case illustrates how the
Copenhagen region has been able to develop a dominating position in the global market
for industrial enzymes from 1870-2004. The case of industrial enzymes shows how a
region has been able to build sustainable competitive advantages from its distinctive
competencies. This is done through a mixture of outsourcing and in sourcing of
competencies, knowledge and technologies from other regions in a ramified set of
interacting networks. The key personnel within the regions firms are deliberately
allowed to engage in the formations of these non-disclosure network activities so that
professional knowledge communities has been established across regional boundaries
and thereby formed the basis for globalization of the knowledge and the markets for
industrial enzymes. Last but not least the paper demonstrates how the region’s major
firm, Novozymes, the world-leading manufacturer of industrial enzymes, even before
the term virtual organization came into fashion, positioned itself as an interactive
partner in the center of a globalized system of academic institutions, customers and
clients. |
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