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Workpackage 4: Case Studies
Norway: Transforming localities, work systems, and
corporations
Workpackage leader: Åge
Mariussen, NIFU STEP Contact: age.mariussen[at]nifustep.no
Objectives
Identifying and explaining
surprising outcomes in terms of enhanced global market
competitiveness in two localities, which used to be
characterized by dependency on a single large company
Investigating the role of
local actors and their abilities to obtain and exploit
regional and national resources in the development of
individual businesses.
Explaining the outcomes by
exploring the importance of:
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Actors’ regional, and
national professional communities, welfare and
traditions
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Policy making tools,
inter-sector and inter-level coordination, local
development coalitions
Description of work
The Norwegian case study
examines how two localities (Kongsberg and Glomfjord)
have gone through long-term processes of industrial
restructuring, from a point of departure characterized
by dependency on a single company, and interlocking
institutions that reinforced this path, through new path
creation, including changing ownership, restructuring of
firms, and diversification and innovation in terms of
technologies. The study will explicate the over-all
characteristics of the forms of policy coordination and
bottoms-up local mobilisation that enabled these
surprising outcomes, including the institutionalisation
of mechanisms that enables a sustained capacity for
industrial restructuring, solving emerging problems and
innovating today. |
