Augmented Collaborative Advantages: Vestas and the Danish Wind Energy Strategy

Abstract

The question of how countries achieve economic advancement and what role the state plays in this context has been discussed for decades. Nahm (2021) combines neo-liberal and neo-structural models when considering the emerging wind industries, such as the cases of Germany, the US, and China. The early industrial formation of the emerging wind industry integrated firms into the global market to take advantage of new opportunities for specialization. The emerging wind firms were incentivized to follow patterns of innovation based on the domestic capitalist institutions. By combining a demand drivers of growth framework, an empirical review of the development of the Danish wind industry, and social network analysis, the thesis uncovers how the case of Denmark deviates significantly from Nahm (2021), as the Danish wind industry's firms only specialized to a relatively small degree. On the contrary, Danish wind firms are still involved in all steps of the wind industry value chain. The thesis argues that the wide specialization can be explained by the augmented collaborative advantages that Denmark enjoys, which combines the collaborative advantage with macroeconomic- and institutional advantages. The augmented collaborative advantage has bolstered the industry in times of crises, increased competitiveness, and pushed the development of the industry. Thereby granting Danish firms within the wind industry unique capabilities for becoming global leaders.