Michael Slavensky Dahl, PhD

PhD Thesis

My PhD thesis was submitted on the 3^rd of November 2003 and successfully defended on the 26^th of January 2004. The scientific evaluation committee consisted of:

• Associate Professor Esben Sloth Andersen (Chairman, Aalborg University)
• Associate Professor Stefano Breschi (CESPRI, Bocconi University, Milan, Italy)
• Professor Maryann Feldman (At that time: Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto, Canada).

“Knowledge Diffusion and Regional Clusters: Lessons from the Danish ICT Industry”, pp. 250.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction
- Dominant schools of geographical agglomeration and regional clustering
- Theories of entrepreneurship and organizational inheritance
- Clusters, agglomeration and concentrations – How are they defined?
- Research questions
- Structure of the thesis

Chapter 2: On the Danish ICT Sector – Published (2006, edited volume on Routledge)
- Structure and performance in an international perspective
- What is behind the relative weakness
- ICT “consumption” pattern
- Regionally clustered strong niches

Chapter 3: Knowledge Diffusion through Informal Contacts: Myth or Reality – Published (2004, Research Policy)
– Knowledge diffusion and informal contacts
- Testable propositions
- Wireless communication cluster in Northern Denmark
- Importance of informal contacts

Chapter 4: New Firm Formation and Inherited Organizational Capabilities – Submitted to an international peer-review journal
– Entry and pre-entry organizational capabilities
- Role of new firm entry in the history of the wireless communication cluster in Northern Denmark

Chapter 5: An Exploration of Regional Labor Mobility – Developed in to several new papers (currently in the pipeline)
– Labor mobility and clusters
- Sociological factors and labor mobility

Chapter 6: Geographical Differences in Firm Growth – Published (2004, International Review of Applied Economics)
– Firm growth and factors of dependence

Chapter 7: Role of Universities in Regional Development – Published (2006, edited volume on Copenhagen Business School Press)
– Knowledge diffusion and the role of local universities
- Case-study: Three universities in outer regions in Denmark, Sweden and Finland
- University-industry interactions

Chapter 8: Conclusion and Policy Perspectives
– Future research implications

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Summary in English
Summary in Danish
Download the complete thesis in PDF-format (250 pages ~ 2 Mb)