Competitive low-tech manufacturing and challenges for regional policy in the European context--lessons from the Danish experience

Abstract

Today, low-tech firms in high-wage countries are focusing on increasing investments in highly skilled labour and advanced machinery, incremental innovation and high value-added niches. Danish policy, however, gives little attention to the new specificities of low-tech manufacturing, and the understanding of innovation in national and regional strategies is dominated by a science-based perspective. There is a strong policy focus on human capital and R&D in manufacturing. Human capital is vital to manufacturing in general, but the latter is of less importance for low-tech firms.Conversely, user-producer interactions and machinery investments, which are critical to low-tech competitiveness, are disregarded by policies.

Incumbents in the Transition Towards the Bioeconomy: The Role of Dynamic Capabilities and Innovation Strategies

“…Table 1 summarizes the incumbent's involvement in such research projects. In contrast to the case studies conducted by Hansen and Winther [99], which indicate low levels of external collaboration, the firm under study collaborated actively with external partners in order to acquire the knowledge it lacked. As the valorization of organic by-products was a new area, and prior knowledge was limited, collaborating with knowledgeable actors in various research projects proved pivotal in enabling the incumbent to develop its knowledge base and explore various technological solutions for by-product utilization.…”

“…The incumbent under study had R&D personnel chiefly in the mainstream production and lacked human capital in the valorization field. Hansen and Winther [99] note that shortage of labor with desired skills (intangible assets) may generate big challenges. This was also the case for the firm in question because the by-product valorization was a new business area.…”

Are High-Tech Companies More Competitive Than Others? An Empirical Study of Innovative and Exporting French SMEs

“…This study therefore highlights various questions in our current understanding of technological intensity. First, the definition of technological intensity in the form of R&D expenditure proposed by the OECD can be questioned because, even if the return on investment on such expenditure may be limited in the case of low-tech firms in view of the less significant competitive pressure they suffer (Hansen & Winther, 2014), these investments nevertheless remain important for setting up a long-term innovation approach (Kafouros et al, 2008). R&D expenditure is therefore not necessarily representative of a technological intensity, but rather of a proactive vision of companies.…”

Supporting SMEs’ internationalisation through a deeper understanding of human and technology barriers

“…Dar and Mishra (2019) the term is used to cover aspects ranging from educational capacity to skills development as enablers (Ren et al, 2015) of performance (Booltink and Saka-Helmhout (2018). Something more special is needed in SMEs' hostile operating environment (Hansen and Winther, 2014). Skill generally includes the capability or the development of the capacity to do something.…”