Abstract
The main title of this book – Da værftene lukkede/When the Yards Closed Down – may indicate that here we are offered yet another study of the decline of the Western European shipyard industry during the second half of the twentieth century. But, as the subtitle – Transformationen af den danske værftsindustri 1975-2015/The Transformation the Danish Shipyard Industry 1975–2015 – suggests, this is in fact not the case. Instead, the Danish historian Thomas Roslyng Olesen offers an innovative account of what happened after the large Danish shipyard industry had to close down during the 1980s and 1990s, and specifically how these businesses were capable of transforming themselves into new and viable (and not so viable) industries, using existing production facilities and the existing competencies of the work force. More broadly then, the book is a study of how the challenges of de-industrialisation in Western Europe have been faced by some of the businesses involved, using the Danish shipyard industry as a case.
The book is fully based on Olesen’s Ph.d thesis, ‘Fugl Føniks? Transformationen af den danske værftsindustri 1975–2012’, which was delivered at Syddansk Universitet in Odense, Denmark, in May 2012. In addition to an introductory chapter providing background data on the development of the shipbuilding industry during the second half of the twentieth century, and a chapter on data and methodology (and a very brief account of the theoretical perspectives of the study), the bulk of the book consists of five separate case studies, handling the closing down of five different yards, B&W (1980), Nakskov Skibsværft (1986–87), Aalborg Værft (1987–88), B&W Skibsværft (1996, a re-establishment of B&W) and Danyard Fredrikshavn (1999). The case studies are based on detailed company archives, extensive interviews as well as various types of secondary data. They are each chronologically organised, describing first the (brief) history of the yards, second their gradual closing down and finally the building up of new industries within the old framework of the different yards. A total of 27 so-called spin-off companies are identified, fourteen of which were still in operation at the time the study was finished. A separate chapter is devoted to comparing the case studies. Here the author moves from the task of describing what happened with the yards to the much more challenging task of explaining why it happened the way it happened. The theoretical starting point for this analysis is Schumpeter’s theory on entrepreneurship and creative destruction. The final substantive chapter of the book is perhaps also the most innovative and interesting. Here Olesen, together with a co-author, Jacob Rubæk Holm, has analysed data from the so-called IDA database developed by Statistics Denmark. The database makes it possible to follow each and every one of the 9399 yard-workers who had to leave the closed-down shipyards (during the three year period before the closing down of the yard) and analyse if and where (three years after the closing down of the yard) they had been reemployed. The major question asked is to what extent the spin-off companies made use of the competencies of the existing workforce. The different analyses of the book – the case studies, the comparative analysis and the quantitative analysis – are drawn together in a final concluding chapter.
What is most impressive about this book is the breadth and depth of the empirical analysis. Olesen has extensive knowledge of his five cases and the descriptive analysis of the fate of the yards is both very interesting and convincing. The analysis is also very systematically organised and well written. The strong weight given to the empirical analysis is, however, perhaps also the book’s main weakness. Apart from the application of a Schumpeterian theoretical framework and a critical reference to past research as tending to ‘stop […] with the shipyard closures’ and therefore giving the impression of a ‘total collapse of European shipbuilding’ (p. 321), there are few attempts to link the empirical analysis to existing research. The Schumpeterian framework is applied primarily as an organising device, and not critically evaluated. The empirical analysis remains largely descriptive, although the comparative approach puts much weight on analysing various types of covariance between the characteristics of the various yards and the timing of their closure, and the number and profile of the ensuing spin offs. But the approach of this analysis is established by the cases themselves, and not by reference to an existing framework or other empirical studies.
A reason for this may be that there simply are few studies with a similar approach. Most studies of the fate of the Western European shipyards have indeed been concerned with explaining decline. Olesen, however, is concerned with innovation and growth. As such, he is putting his cases to different use. The main achievement of this is perhaps how it clears the ground for a new approach to the study of the decline of the Western European shipyard industries. Olesen launches concepts and analytical frameworks, and points to empirical relationships which easily and fruitfully could be replicated, ‘tested’ and further investigated in studies of other country’s shipyard industries. This could in turn clear the ground for broader comparative analysis of the transformation of the western European shipyard industry. But to achieve this, Olesen needs to reach out to a broader audience than this book does. Written in Danish and with only a short summary in English at the end, there are simply too few who can make use of Olesen’s important work. It is therefore to be hoped that he will spend some of his designated research time, working as an associate professor at the Copenhagen Business School, to translate some of his impressive knowledge of the Danish shipyard industry and its transformation from the 1980s onwards into articles that can be read and shared with a wider audience of international maritime historians.