Building sustainable competitive advantage from knowledge in the region: The industrial enzymes industry

Abstract

This paper analyses 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.

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank David Finegold and Steven Casper for their ideas and support to work on this article during the author's stay at Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences, Claremont Graduate University, California, Spring 2004. Also the author would like to thank Ulrich Hilpert for his valuable comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. Novozymes was established in the year 2000 after a de-merger from their original owner the Pharmaceutical Company Novo Nordisk. Before that the Novo Nordisk Enzymes Division was one of two divisions within Novo Nordisk.

2. Fingeret, a former graduate student of the authors, spent a year doing interview studies and participative observational research in Novo Nordisk Enzymes Division for her master thesis.

3. Later on Nordisk Insulinlaboratorium changed its name into Nordisk Gentofte. In 1989 Novo Industri merged with Nordisk Gentofte and turned their name into Novo Nordisk, but at that time the two founders and Professor Krogh had past away.

4. Trypsin is a proteolytic enzyme of the pancreatic juice, capable of converting proteins into peptone.

5. Detergents vary greatly between nations and therefore the enzymes have to be designed differently depending on it being a compact powder or a fluid detergent (Wiley, 1992).

6. UC Davis has a very strong competence in biology especially in agriculture.

7. Ideally this could have facets such as knowledge production within the field of enzymology and other related areas. The author has reduced the data collection to concentrate on the patenting behaviour within the field of industrial enzymes. These data have been generated from the US patenting database (www.uspto.gov). Special emphasize has been on the contribution of the individual countries in order to qualify that industrial enzymes is an area of specialization in Denmark. Also whether the old competences are still in fashion when coming to the firms eager to patent their knowledge in competition and collaboration with regions.