Year of grant: 2017 Research Area: Náttúra og náttúrutilfeingi Project type: Ph.d.verkætlan Project title: Hvørjar eru mekanismurnar handan deiling av vitan grundað á royndir í nýskapan í føroysku fiski- og alivinnuni? Grant number: 0448 Project manager: Tórheðin J. Jensen Institution/company: Varðin og Henleys Business School Other participants: Jane McKenzie, Torger Reve Project period: 01.10.2014-31.10.2018 Total budget: 907.061 Grant from the FRC in DKK: 270.000 Project description: Original The culture of Faroese fishing companies can be characterised as traditional. Fishermen learn their skills in a apprentice-master setting. The profession does not require an academic background. Tradition is the key to catching fish, training skippers and handling fishing equipment and fish. The industry is characterized as a low-tech industry amd experience based knowledge and tacit knowledge are important important in the industry. Tacit knowlege is context specific The salmon industry is also regarded as a part of the sea food industry, thus, the seafood industry cluster. There are similarities between fishing and salmon farming. Salmon is fish, they are in net cages, the salmon farmers have to sail out in the sea to the farms in all weather, also similar equipment is used to process salmon and e.g. cod. The contexts of the fishing and salmon farming are partly similar. However, compared to the fishing industry a the salmon farming industry is a fairly new industry. The success of any company depends upon the organisation’s ability to produce (or improve) new products and processes or. Innovation occurs at the boundaries between mindsets, not within the provincial territory of one knowledge or skills base. Most innovation happens at the boundaries between disciplines or specialisations. Working across boundaries is a key ingredient of competitive advantage, but also why innovation proves so difficult to create and maintain. The more easily explicit knowledge can be accessed, the more crucial does tacit knowledge and experience based knowledge become for sustaining or enhancing the competitive position of the firm because tacit knowledge is not easily transferred. The focus of this research is on the role of the experience based knowledge and tacit knowledge and its connections with explicit knowledge and its role in innovations in the Faroese seafood industry cluster, including both the fishing industry and the salmon farming industry. Clusters encompass an array of linked industries and other entities important to competition e.g. suppliers of products and services, and providers specialized infrastructure. A cluster is an economic concept indicating that a nation’s successful industries are usually linked through vertical (buyer/supplier) or horizontal relationships” (common customers, technology etc). The Faroese seafood cluster includes fishing companies, salmon farming companies and firms that are supplying and competing with these companies e.g. fish processing companies, trawl makers, mechanic companies, ship yards etc. The context of this research is innovations that have occurred in the Faroese seafood cluster because innovations are knowledge intensive and exacting. The research will include two case studies. One for fishing and one for salmon farming and these two will be compared to see the differences between the two sub clusters, e.g. does the explicit knowledge play a different role in either of them? Does either of them have a closer relationship with foreign clusters? What role does experienced based knowledge and tacit knowledge play in the innovation in the cluster, and what role does the explicit knowledge play - and how do they interact? How are firms in the cluster linked together in intricate and intimate ways? This will be a qualitative study and critical incident technique interviewing will be used. Final Little is known about innovation in small low-tech clusters in peripheral locations. Moreover, little is known about how tacit knowledge dynamics contribute to the innovative power of clusters. The Faroese seafood cluster is a highly tacit environment, yet despite its small, remote and low-tech nature, it stands out as highly innovative in the seafood industry. This exploratory, process organisational study (Langley and Tsoukas 2016) provides insight into the tacit knowledge dynamics underlying the cluster's innovative capacity by comparing two case studies of major innovators in different parts of the cluster: Salmon farming and one in traditional pelagic sea fishing. Process studies focus on how and why things emerge; the primary aim of this work is to understand how innovation emerges from tacit knowledge dynamics in each of the two subclusters by comparing the interactive knowledge practices in operation. Traditionally, research on industry clusters apply quantitative methods, including economic data seeking explanation at a macro level. This research adopts a social constructionist epistemology within a largely qualitative case study design, given the nature of tacit knowledge dynamics at all levels. It uses the critical incident technique as the primary method for investigating the pattern of tacit knowledge dynamics in each case. 30 semi-structured interviews were conducted with key individuals involved in 35 innovations: 20 in fishing and 15 in salmon farming. Data were triangulated with multiple datasets, including micro-data. Findings show that the tightly know Faroese community supports particularly close trusted ties which contribute strongly to tacit knowledge access in innovations. This is particularly true in fishing, where relationship ties are may be described as intricate and intimate. Ties in salmon farming are strong but supplemented with dialogue in weaker network ties outside the cluster. Both firms in the cluster are part of the same web of knowledge relationships but draw on tacit knowledge to varying degrees, depending on whether the innovation is radical or incremental and where the innovation occurs. In fishing, the innovations arise primarily in operational settings, often generated through practical know-how of life at sea. In contrast, salmon farming is more strategically driven, and scientists and researchers’ technical knowledge is combined with that of people at the operational level. Local Faroese university and R&D institutions provide little input into tacit knowledge dynamics in the fishing sub-cluster. In salmon farming, ties to foreign clusters and R&D institutions add explicit knowledge to combine with local tacit knowledge. This may account for the more significant number of radical innovations in salmon farming. It appears that cluster proximity between fishing and salmon farming is complementary in terms of knowledge movement, but network theory may be more critical in salmon farming. Theoretically, this study contributes primarily to cluster theory by developing a model that evidences how tacit knowledge dynamics allow small and remote clusters to become innovative. The dynamics at macro meso and micro level within two parts of the cluster are complementary but distinct: Tacit knowledge moves in fishing through very close community ties and practical know-how; In salmon farming, the cluster’s proximity is supplemented by explicit technical knowledge drawn from foreign networks. Project status: Liðug Project output: Scientific publications: "Knowledge dynamics in two Faroese seafood clusters: Innovations in a highly tacit environment"DBA Thesis, 292 pages. Defended in December 2020 Other results, such as unpublished articles, patents, computer systems, original models and new procedures The thesis includes two original modles. A proposed model for Knowledge Dynamics in a industry cluster context. Secondly a model illustrating the relationship between the level of motivation result between a master and his apprentice. Publications outside the scientific community, i.e. lectures, periodicals, articles in newspapers, television and radio Sjógvur og fólk, 3 issues Vísindavøka 2017 Various presentation << Back |
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