Logistics Clusters
A study on the Jönköping-Nässjö-Vaggeryd region
Paper within Business Administration
Author: Marcus Näversten
Victor Pettersson
Tutor: Sören Eriksson
Abstract
Purpose - The thesis is based around on of the most commonly used scientific terms in economics today, cluster. Many actors tend to claim that their regions are working clusters and when the Logkomp project was initiated, the authors wanted to research whether a lo-gistics cluster existed in the Jönköping-Nässjö-Vaggeryd region.
Methodology - This research is purely based on the involved actors’ perception whether a cluster exists or not, rather than based on calculations. The actors were interviewed with both short questions with rating from 1-10 and deeper questions where they were allowed to elaborate their answers more freely. Since the project is ran by the municipalities in the region, the municipalities role in the cluster was examined thoroughly and the companies’ perception of cooperation with the municipalities were compared to the municipalities’ perceptions of their own performance.
Conclusions - Based on the interview results, the authors were able to compare the per-ceived situation in the region with academic definitions and models, thus evaluating the level of clusterness. It can be shown that the region is slowly becoming a logistics cluster but there is several important factors that need to be taken into consideration before this can happen. It is also apparent that all involved actors need to pull their weight and there is potential for improvement by all actors.
Acknowledgements
Finally the authors wish to thank their tutor, Sören Eriksson for very helpful insights on the subject and Carl-Gunnar Karlsson as well as the other persons involved in the Logkomp project group. Further on, the authors wish to thank the respondents at the respective companies and in the municipalities.
Table of Contents
1
Introduction ... 1
1.1 Background ... 1 1.2 Delimitations ... 3 1.3 Objectives ... 3 1.3.1 Research questions ... 3 1.4 Methodology ... 3 1.4.1 Research strategy ... 4 1.4.2 Research approach ... 41.4.3 Data collection method ... 5
1.4.3.1 Questionnaires ...5 1.4.3.2 Interviews ...5 1.4.3.3 Written sources ...7 1.4.4 Analysis of data ... 7 1.4.5 Research creditability ... 8 1.4.5.1 Reliability ...8 1.4.5.2 Validity ...8 1.4.5.3 Objectivity ...8
1.5 Outline of the thesis ... 8
2
Jönköping-Nässjö-Vaggeryd ... 10
2.1 Jönköping municipality ... 12
2.2 Nässjö municipality ... 14
2.3 Vaggeryd municipality ... 15
3
Literature review ... 16
3.1 Clusters and agglomerations ... 16
3.2 Logistics clusters ... 19
3.3 Cluster models ... 20
3.4 Networks ... 22
4
Results ... 24
4.1 Interviews and questionnaires ... 24
4.2 Deeper questions ... 28
4.3 Politicians’ views on the region ... 32
4.4 The central railway terminal ... 33
5
Discussions ... 35
5.1 Companies based on size ... 35
5.1.1 Large companies ... 35
5.1.2 Middle sized companies ... 37
5.1.3 Small companies ... 38 5.2 Municipality based ... 39 5.2.1 Jönköping ... 39 5.2.2 Nässjö ... 40 5.2.3 Vaggeryd ... 42 5.3 Industry based ... 43 5.3.1 Manufacturing companies ... 43 5.3.2 Logistics companies ... 44 5.4 Regional overview ... 45
6
Conclusions ... 49
6.1 Future Research ... 50
7
References ... 51
7.1 Books and articles ... 51
7.2 Interviews ... 53 7.3 Internet sources ... 53
8
Appendix ... 55
8.1 Appendix A ... 55 8.2 Appendix B ... 57 8.3 Appendix C ... 58 8.4 Appendix D ... 59 8.5 Appendix E ... 60 8.6 Appendix F ... 67Table of figures
Figure 1-1, Methodology, inspired by (Ghauri & Grønhaug, 2010) ... 4
Figure 2-1, Railroads and roads leading to the region (Airport, 2012) ... 10
Figure 3-1, Cluster model, based on (Bathelt, et al., 2004) ... 21
Figure 3-2, Porter’s Diamond Model (Porter, 2000b, p20) ... 22
Figure 4-1, All companies ... 25
Figure 4-2, Large companies ... 25
Figure 4-3, Medium sized companies ... 26
Figure 4-4, Small companies ... 26
Figure 4-5, Jönköping Municipality ... 27
Figure 4-6, Nässjö Municipality ... 27
Figure 4-7, Vaggeryd Municipality ... 27
Figure 4-8, Manufacturing companies ... 28
Figure 4-9, Logistics companies ... 28
Figure 4-10, Comparison Jönköping ... 32
Figure 4-11, Comparison Nässjö ... 33
Figure 4-12, Comparison Vaggeryd ... 33
Figure 5-1, Cluster model inspired by (Bathelt, et al., 2004). ... 46
Figure 5-2, Diamond model for JNV ... 48
Table of Tables
Table 1-1, Interview types (Andersen, 1994) ... 6Table 2-1, Quick facts Jönköping, (Regionförbundet, 2012) (SCB, 2012) (Olsson, 2012) ... 12
Table 2-2, Quick facts Nässjö (Regionförbundet, 2012) (SCB, 2012) (Olsson, 2012) ... 14
Table 2-3, Quick facts Vaggeryd (Regionförbundet, 2012) (SCB, 2012) (Olsson, 2012) ... 15
Table 3-1, Comparison table (Rosenfeld, 1997) ... 23
Table 4-1, Frequency of replies ... 24
1 Introduction
In Sweden along with other countries worldwide, industrial clusters have become an im-portant vogue. The expression exploded around the 1990’s when Michael E. Porter re-leased his book Competitive Advantage of Nations, and since then a great number of influ-ential persons and policy makers have used this term for both good and less good reasons. Cluster has become a fashionable word and today many communities and regions are de-termined to create and build industrial clusters in their area. In many cases in Sweden, re-gions claim that they already have an industrial cluster within certain industries. Countless times these so called clusters are not real clusters in a purely academic sense, but agglomer-ations of activities and companies. It is easy to misinterpret the meaning of cluster com-pared to agglomeration, and it’s not hard to understand why, since the academic world is divided regarding what a cluster is and how it can be created.
Policy makers and regions have seen the benefits of being a cluster, now every region wants to be or be part of a cluster. The municipality of Jönköping is a stronghold for logistics and has evolved and grown the last decade, because of its growth, its neighbouring municipali-ties also want to jump on the train before it is too late. This thesis has examined three mu-nicipalities, Jönköping, Nässjö and Vaggeryd (JNV). These three municipalities form a re-gion and are to some extent seen as a cluster, as well as they all to some extent individually wants to be an industrial cluster of some sort.
There is the question whether there is a cluster or an agglomeration in the JNV region and regardless if the region is a cluster or not, how one can enhance and evolve the region to be a cluster or otherwise improve the region. There are several attempts on creating clusters that both have failed and succeeded. Most clusters are the outcome of historical processes but a few are by deliberate create regional and national policies, hence clusters have at least two ways of being created.
Logkomp is a project that seeks to enhance the JNV region, in a total 41 companies from different industries such as logistics and manufacturing have signed up for the project. This project can be seen as a catalyst for creating or improving a cluster. Its purpose is to strengthen the region, and as a side effect that might also help the region to become a clus-ter.
Logpoint is another organization that exists in the region, it is both a company and an as-sociation. The purpose of Logpoint is to stimulate growth in the municipalities of Jönkö-ping and Vaggeryd, the two municipalities that runs this organization.
It is through Logkomp and Logpoint that the authors will seek necessary information for the purpose and research questions of this thesis.
1.1 Background
Within the municipalities of Jönköping, Nässjö and Vaggeryd, logistics operations have a specific importance both when it comes to strategy as well as to employment. Jönköping was the first to exploit this industry, since Jönköping is positioned in a geographically good spot and many companies has realized that. When Nässjö and Vaggeryd saw what Jönkö-ping had become, they also realized that they too were in a good geographically position, where Vaggeryd is directly south of Jönköping along Euro highway 4 and Nässjö is an im-portant railroad center. As the time went by, the municipalities finally recognized the need
for cooperation and talks between the municipalities started to take place. Today this is a bit of a political game since all municipalities compete individually and at the same time wants to cooperate as one region, JNV. Questions such as where to invest in the region are now much more complicated, is the investment to be made for the large region, JNV or shall they individually compete for the investment. In the long run, seeking investment for the larger region JNV could be the better choice, but the question is, is this idea implanted in all the three municipalities. In other words will companies and politicians work for the region (JNV) or for themselves and take the easy path. Another question is whether con-nections and information flow exist between companies, politicians, government institu-tions and universities within this region to achieve the best possible outcome. The authors aim to seek these kinds of connections and information flow exist.
In order to find an answer to this, the authors made contact with a project called Logkomp through Jönköping International Business School (JIBS), whom also is an advisory partner to the project. The project was regarded as a good foundation for further studies on how companies could cooperate informally. The area south of Jönköping has always been dom-inated by many small companies that cooperate in one way or another and the authors wanted through interviews see if this was true in JNV as well. Later on the organization Logpoint was also contacted by the authors.
Logkomp is a project that is financed by the Swedish ESF-council and controlled by Näss-jö Näringslivsråd AB, Destination Jönköping and Vaggeryds Näringslivsråd. Jönköping In-ternational Business School and Science Park are two interaction partners in the project. Also a total of 41 companies have agreed to be a part of the project. It is these companies that will be examined by the project to seek a better understanding of the region and its network. It’s a large project that started 2011 and will end in July 2013 (Logkomp, 2012). The project seeks to enhance Jönköping – Nässjö – Vaggeryd region within certain areas such as:
Develop internal logistics, streams of goods and distribution processes.
Take advantage of the geographical location and growth potential. Benchmark oth-er similar areas on a national and intoth-ernational level.
Develop leaders and organizations within process development and personal de-velopment.
Develop clusters between logistics companies and manufacturing companies. (Logkomp, 2012)
By enhancing these areas, the project expects that it will strengthen and favor the compa-nies which will lead to a region with a better competitive advantage.
In 2009 Logpoint, a joint venture between Jönköping and Vaggeryd municipalities was founded and it aims at developing and strengthening growth and development of the area (LogPoint, 2012). Apart from the company, there is also an association for companies in the region, called Logpoint business network and these companies were also used as a base for interviews.
By having these companies as a foundation for interviewing and questioning, the authors hope to find out more about this region, JNV, regarding information flow, connections with governmental institutions and universities. By extracting this information it could be
possible to see how this region as a whole, JNV and as individual municipalities thinks about each other when it comes down to doing business.
The concept of clusters is rather hard to define and one can ask if the involved parties in the region strive towards being a cluster are aware of what it means. The will to be a cluster could also be a way of promoting themselves even if the individual companies would actu-ally benefit from working isolated.
Another question that will be studied is the debate regarding the Swedish Transport au-thority’s decision where a new central railway terminal will be located in the region. There have been a lot of writings about this terminal in the local newspaper, Jönköpings Posten, and these articles will be studied to determine at what level the three municipalities will co-operate and what effect this could have on the local companies.
1.2 Delimitations
This thesis will only focus on companies within the Logkomp and Logpoint projects and aims to have an even distribution between companies in different industries, sizes and geo-graphical spread within the region. The only municipalities covered in this thesis are Jön-köping, Nässjö and Vaggeryd. This thesis is based on the interviewed companies’ percep-tion of cooperapercep-tion and thus only qualitative data. There has been no analysis of quantita-tive data such as input-output analyses or through any kind of financial perspecquantita-tive.
The interviewed companies for the thesis are rather limited in numbers, 17 companies, and overall it was very hard to come into contact with the companies in the region. Many of the companies requested to participate anonymously and thus no company names are disclosed in the thesis.
1.3 Objectives
This thesis aims to find out how logistics operations in JNV are a cluster or an agglomera-tion and how to develop the cooperaagglomera-tion between companies as well as companies and governmental institutions.
1.3.1 Research questions
1) Based on the findings in this thesis can the current situation in the Jönköping – Nässjö – Vaggeryd region be described as a logistics cluster?
2) How do the companies and the politicians experience the cooperation within the region and how can this be improved?
1.4 Methodology
This section outlines the methodology used in order to meet the purpose of this thesis. The first part focuses on research strategy and data collection method, whilst the last part con-tains an analysis of data and research credibility.
Figure 1-1, Methodology, based on (Ghauri & Grønhaug, 2010) 1.4.1 Research strategy
According to Denscombe (2009) there are four main method strategies that can be used when conducting research; questionnaires, interviews, observations and written sources. These strategies can be used to gather empirical data, in order to achieve the purpose of the thesis. Further on he states that one can use more than one of these strategies, if that is the case, this is called triangulation. The point of triangulation is to get a broader point of view and that the researcher gets a better understanding since he uses different sources. Meth-odological triangulation is according to Denscombe (2009) is the most common form of triangulation.
This thesis will analyze whether the region JNV is a pure agglomeration or a more devel-oped cluster with all additional factors that differentiates a cluster from the more basic pure agglomeration. Further on the thesis will also analyze how a cluster can further stregthen the development in the region. In order to complete this, the authors are using methodo-logical triangulation, meaning the authors used questionnaires, interviews and written sources. Questionnaires were sent out to both companies and policy makers in the JNV-region and interviews were conducted with companies from the project Logkomp and through contacts with the association Logpoint.
1.4.2 Research approach
According to Saunders (2009) there are both Quantitative and Qualitative approaches to deal with how the research should be undertaken. The quantitative approach is more statis-tical and refers to numerical research gathering. By choosing the qualitative approach Saunders (2009) states that this will include in-depth interviews and dealing with non-numerical figures.
According to Ghauri and Grønhaug (2010) the main difference between qualitative and quantitative research is not the “quality” but how it is conducted. Meaning the procedure of how the empirical data is collected. They further state some main differences between qualitative and quantitative approaches. A qualitative approach has emphasis on under-standing, observations and measurements in natural settings and a holistic perspective. A quantitative approach on the other hand has emphasis on testing, verification and con-trolled measurement. According to Ghauri & Grønhaug (2010) these differences affect the data that is collected.
The research in this thesis will use a qualitative approach in order to answer the research questions. As mentioned above a qualitative approach allows a more in-depth interview, hence, that is one of the key elements in this thesis. Qualitative approach will give the au-thor the ability to go deeper into the subject and to get a better understanding, in other words, a holistic view.
1.4.3 Data collection method
There are mainly two different kinds of data; primary and secondary. Primary data is data that is published for the first time and is not interpreted in any way prior to the publishing. Examples of this can be interviews, observations, etc. Secondary on the other hand is data that has been published before and could be interpreted by the prior authors. Books, ency-clopedias and such materials can be considered secondary (Bell, 2006).
This thesis is primarily focused on primary data, where interviews with companies from the LogPoint and Logkomp projects play a major role. The background for this thesis is based on statistics and history of the region, the frame of reference is based on the literature re-view and finally the information regarding the container terminals are based on newspaper articles, thus secondary data.
1.4.3.1 Questionnaires
There are multiple sorts of questionnaires and several different occasions when it is justi-fied to utilize this research method. Common factors however are that the questions must be related directly to the research, the respondents must receive the same set of questions and they have to answer the questions directly (Denscombe, 2009).
The authors chose to use questionnaires in some parts of the data collecting process where standardized answers were needed and there was not enough data to motivate an interview. In order to get the policy makers’ opinons and views of cooperation, and the structures within the region, questionnaires were sent out to one local government commissioner in each municipality. This was done via e-mail since the availability of these persons was ra-ther limited. The questionnaire can be found in Appendix B. In order to achieve a better result the authors had a two-way communication, both e-mail and by phone with the spe-cial selected companies. This was done in order to clarify questions or the purpose of the questions, even if the authors did descibe the purpose and clarification regarding some questions in each e-mail to avoid missunderstanding.
1.4.3.2 Interviews
While questionnaires are good for collecting standardized information from several re-spondents, interviews can be used to gather deeper knowledge and let the respondent de-velop their answers further. Interviews are especially good to use when the researchers want to know about the respondents perceptions or views, subjects that can be hard to an-swer in standardized forms (Denscombe, 2009). Both Denscombe (2009) and Andersen
(1994) mention that different interviews can be categorized into four different categories, with respect to the degree of standardization and the degree of structuration.
Table 1-1 Interview types (Andersen, 1994)
Structuration
+ -
Standardization + 1 2
- 3 4
The type 1-interview is fully structured and standardized and this type of interview can al-most be compared with a questionnaire. The interviewer asks a series of questions and of-fers predetermined answers to these and forces the respondent to answer in a very stand-ardized way (Denscombe, 2009).
The type-2 interview is equally standardized but less structured. The interviewer may change the order of the questions and the respondent is freer to elaborate their answers (ibid.).
The type 3-interview is very structured but the questions are not standardized and this type of interview is often common in market research, where one wants to know more about customers’ attitudes (Andersen, 1994).
The type-4 interview is unstructured and unstandardized, the interviewer merely works as a catalyst and the respondent is entirely free to elaborate and discuss their own answers and thoughts (Denscombe, 2009).
Defining exactly which one of these types a certain series of interviews belong to is often difficult since they tend to overlap each other. The interviews in this thesis do however mostly belong to the second type of interviews. The questions are standardized in order to get the answers regarding the same areas but the respondents are freer to answer some of the questions. For the first set of questions, the respondents answered on a scale from 1-10 and this will give a good and objective overview for the results. The latter set of questions is more open-ended so that feelings and thoughts could be expressed.
Since the Logkomp project and Logpoint had defined contact lists for the companies in-volved, those companies were used as respondents. The interviews took place at the re-spective companies with both authors present together with the respondents. The answers were written down so that no information would be lost and answers could be rechecked. The interviews were conducted during the month of April.
The authors scheduled the interviews to be no longer than one hour, this to keep it short and consistent. Otherwise it’s easy to drift away from the subject and the answers might be different. These interviews were not that difficult to answer, meaning the interviewee didn’t need to prepare before the interview. Often the interviewee was either CEO or head of lo-gistics department. The authors tried to interview the same category of title persons in or-der to achieve a result relevant to the thesis, since totally different positions with compa-nies can give different answers.
In order to get the best possible result, the authors selected the companies with a purpose, namely to have a waged number of companies from the same municipality and industry. Also that these companies differed when it comes to size, since this also could have a huge
impact on the answers. Since the authors first had got in contact with the project Logkomp, the initial idea was to only interview these companies. These companies have showed an interest in developing the region, and that these 41 companies are spread out between the three municipalities made them excellent interview material. The authors spoke with the Logkomp project leader and decided that he could point out some of these companies that were more willing to do interviews, and that he thought would have the time and resources to take care of two students for an interview. The authors received an e-mail from the Logkomp project leader where he had pointed out 12 of these 41 companies. In this e-mail the authors received contact information such as names, cellphone number, which company they worked for and e-mail. At this point the authors believed that they had sufficient number of companies. The authors were wrong, after that the companies had been e-mailed, only seven companies gave an reply, were four of these seven ended up with an interview, two sent their answers via e-mail and one rejected both to do an inter-view or to send an e-mail with the answers. The remaining five companies did not answer at all. The authors therefore contacted the project leader once again and received all 41 companies from the project Logkomp and selected another 26 companies, which they sent e-mails to.
At this point the authors decided that they had insufficient number of companies to get an accurate result, they therefore through discussion with their mentor decided to contact an-other organization which also had a network of companies connected to them. This organ-ization is called Logpoint and it focuses on companies from the municipalities of Jönkö-ping and Vaggeryd. This was good initiative since most of the replying companies from Logkomp were from Vaggeryd or Nässjö, this gave the authors more companies from Jön-köping and equalized the number of companies from the different municipalities which conforms to the authors aim. Through Logpoint the authors e-mailed another 27 compa-nies which gave sufficient amount of answers and interviews.
1.4.3.3 Written sources
Apart from questionnaires and interviews, there are two other kinds of data collecting methods, observations and written sources. In this thesis the authors have chosen not to use observations but rather use written sources instead. Written sources can sometimes be regarded as indirect observations, another researcher may have made observations and rec-orded these. Written sources can consist of statistics, newspapers, protocols from meetings, etc. (Denscombe, 2009).
Statistics and history regarding each municipality and the region has been studied in order to gain deeper knowledge about the region and possibly find factors that have helped the region to attract companies. Newspapers have also been studied to find out more about the political play behind the scenes regarding the question of the central container terminal. 1.4.4 Analysis of data
The authors first looked at the short questions where the respondents graded their answer from 1-10 and with these results the authors produced a radar chart for the short ques-tions. The deep questions are summarized in the results section and are later analyzed in the discussion part. The choice of radar charts was made due to that radar charts is one of graph types that displays the results with a connectivity between the questions. This means that they present a better holistic view of the results than a bar chart would do. The deep questions were used to benchmark and find common denominators with the literature re-view in order to achieve the purpose of this thesis. The answers from these questions are more complex and could not been displayed as radar charts. The results from these
ques-tions gave the authors a deeper understanding of the companies’ views of the topic of these questions.
1.4.5 Research creditability
There are three important aspects of academic research that aims to ensure that the re-search is credible and relevant as a rere-search document which can be used for further stud-ies. These aspects are described below.
1.4.5.1 Reliability
It is very important that when one conducts research, the results from the research must be reliable. This means that either the same researcher or another researcher can reach the same conclusion even if the methods differ (Andersen, 1994)
The number of companies interviewed can be regarded as a limiting factor when it comes to reliability but the fact that most companies did answer rather coherent, the authors can assume that the views of the companies’ can be applied to a the other companies in the re-gion.
The answers from the respondents were in Swedish which the authors translated into Eng-lish. However, since the answers are rather short, the translation errors are very limited and the authors verified the translations with each other.
1.4.5.2 Validity
A researcher can collect huge amounts of information but it is important that the research-er only collects the information that is needed for the purpose of the study and vresearch-erifies that the data that has been collected can help the research in question. If the research can an-swer the research questions, the research has a high degree of validity (ibid.).
All questions in the interviews are connected to the area of agglomerations, clusters, coop-eration. The shorter interviews also enabled the authors to limit the respondents to only answer the questions and not drift away from the subject too much.
1.4.5.3 Objectivity
The research ought to be conducted on an unprejudiced base where the author’s values do not influence the research result. The interpretation of the result should be left to the read-ers and the degree of reliability must be high in order to allow other researchread-ers to find the same results (ibid.).
Even though the Logkomp project is run by affiliates to the municipality, the authors are writing the thesis independently and do not have any winning in skewing the results in a positive direction for the municipalities.
1.5 Outline of the thesis
The first chapter – Introduction – gives a background to the subject of interest with a prob-lem discussion, followed by, delimitations, objectives, research questions, methodology and ends with outline of the chapter.
The second chapter – Jönköping-Nässjö-Vaggeryd - explains these municipalities in more de-tail.
The fourth chapter – Results – contains the findings from the interviews.
The fifth chapter - Discussion – presents the authors thoughts about the result and thesis overall, which then are connected to the literature review.
2 Jönköping-Nässjö-Vaggeryd
The Jönköping – Nässjö – Vaggeryd region is considered as the third best logistics location in Sweden based on factors such as geographical location, infrastructure, logistics area, range of logistics services, cooperative climate and price/availability of land. Areas where the region did have it lowest scores, although high compared to other regions in Sweden, and therefore need improvements in include infrastructure, price/availability of land and cooperative climate (Logistik, 2012).
The geographic location is excellent, located in the south of Sweden with more than one third of the Swedish population within 200km from the region and 100 million people in Northern Europe within 24hours by truck. Passing through the region is the European route, E4, which connects the region with Malmö in the south and Linköping, Stockholm and northern Sweden. Riksväg 40 (National Highway 40) that connects the region and Gothenburg is currently being upgraded to a divided highway and is scheduled to be com-pleted 2015 (LogPoint, 2012).
The railway link between Malmö and Stockholm, Södra stambanan (Southern Main Line) passes through the region and Jönköpingsbanan (Jönköping Line) connects the region to the other major rail line in the south of Sweden, Västra Stambanan (Western Main Line). The government is also investigating the possibility to construct a high speed railway link, Götalandsbanan (Götaland Line), between Gothenburg and Stockholm that will pass through the Region, however this project is currently quiescent due to lack of funding (Trafikverket, 2012).
Jönköping Airport offers daily flights to Stockholm as well as numerous cargo flights across Sweden. Scandinavia’s largest port, Port of Gothenburg and the Port of Norrköping is located within 200km from the region.
Figure 2-1, Railroads and roads leading to the region (Airport, 2012)
Several logistics companies has located in the region, for example DB Schenker, DHL, Aditro, Swedish Post and Bring and also numerous retail companies have their distribution centers in the region, for example IKEA, El-Giganten, Jysk, Expert, Kinnarps, Rusta and many more (Nässjö, 2012; Vaggeryd, 2012; LogPoint, 2012).
One way to research whether a specific work sector is considered specialized in a certain region, one can calculate the location quotient (LQ). For a sector in a specific region to be considered specialized, the location quotient has to be larger than 1 (Isserman , 2007). Based on statistics from Regional Development Council of Jönköping County, the industry sector “Transportation and storage” in Jönköping, Vaggeryd and Nässjö has an average lo-cation quotient of 1,3 and in the manufacturing sector the quotient is 1,75 (Regionförbundet, 2012)
2.1 Jönköping municipality
Table 2-1, Quick facts Jönköping, (Regionförbundet, 2012) (SCB, 2012) (Olsson, 2012)
Quick facts Jönköping
Population 128 305 Area(km2) 1489 Workforce 65931 Net Commuting streams (2009) +3742 LQ1 (2010) “Transportation and storage” 1.35 LQ1 (2010) “Manufacturing industry” 1.07
Jönköping is the largest city in the region and the 10th largest city in Sweden and also the
administrative city in Jönköping Län (Jönköping County). The city was founded in 1284 as a market place for local salesmen and during the following centuries the market evolved and Jönköping had a strategic position in the persistent wars between Sweden and Den-mark. During the 16th century King Gustav Vasa ordered the construction of a castle that
stood in the city center for 300 years. During this period a number of companies were founded in the neighboring city Huskvarna, the most prominent one that still exists is Husqvarna AB. Husqvarna started with the construction of weapons and later moved in to the production of motorcycles and today it is the world’s largest producer of outdoor products such as chainsaws, lawn mowers, etc. (Jönköping, 2012a).
The construction of the Göta Kanal, a west to east water link through Sweden, was com-pleted in the beginning of the 1800s and due to cholera epidemics during the mid-1850s the infrastructure in the city was further improved. In 1845 the Jönköpings Tändsticksfab-rik (Jönköping match factory) was founded and Jönköping became virtually the only match producing city in the world. The importance of the match industry declined in the early 1900s and the industry was shifted towards paper and metal works. In the 1960s Elmia was founded and is today one of the largest trade fairs in northern Europe. Elmia hosts two of the largest trade fairs of its kind, Elmia Subcontractor and Elmia Wood and also the world’s largest computer festival, Dreamhack (Jönköping, 2012a).
The 1970s were an interesting period for Jönköping, the city boundaries expanded rapidly by the merger of Jönköping, Huskvarna and several smaller municipalities. Further three national administration offices relocated to Jönköping from the capital, Stockholm and in 1977, what would become, the Jönköping University was founded. 1985 the Swedish
1 For description and calculation of LQ please refer to Appendix A
100 000 105 000 110 000 115 000 120 000 125 000 130 000
Jönköping's population
my’s sixth artillery regiment, A6, was shut down and two years later the A6 Shopping cen-ter was opened. In the vicinity of the old A6 regiment the county hospital Ryhov was opened one year after the A6 Shopping center, partly in old regiment buildings (Jönköping, 2012a).
Jönköping University became a University foundation in 1994 and moved to a new city center location in 1997 and today employs 800 persons and has around 12000 students in areas such as engineering, business, health science, education and communication (Jönköping, 2012b).
In the area Torsvik, south of the city center, there is a high concentration of logistics com-panies. More than 3500 persons are employed in around 100 companies such as; IKEA, El-Giganten, Electrolux, Aditro DHL and more. The local government expects this area to double within 10 years, from 300ha to 600ha (LogPoint, 2012).
2.2 Nässjö municipality
Table 2-2, Quick facts Nässjö (Regionförbundet, 2012) (SCB, 2012) (Olsson, 2012)
Quick facts Nässjö
Population 29 298 Area(km2) 933 Workforce 12961 Net Commuting streams (2009) -727 LQ2 (2010) “Transportation and storage” 1.61 LQ2 (2010) “Manufacturing industry” 1.44Nässjö was until the 1850s primarily populated by farmers and lodgers but when the first major rail line, Södra stambanan (the Southern main line) was completed in 1864, Nässjö started growing rapidly. In 1863 Nässjö landskommun (Nässjö rural area) was founded and through a number of reorganizations during the late 1800s and early 1900s, in 1914 the town of Nässjö was founded. The railroad brought a number of industries, mainly in the hardware and wood industries. Nässjö stolfabrik (Nässjö chair factory) and Bodafors Mö-belfabrik (Bodafors furniture factory) and Eldon are some of the companies founded in the early 1900s. The community continued to grow and in 1971 the town of Nässjö and several neighboring rural areas merged into what today is Nässjö municipality (Nässjö, 2012a). The population growth in Nässjö has stopped and Nässjö saw a decline during the 1990s in its population, however the population has stabilized after the year 2000. Thanks to its lo-cation and access to multiple railway lines, Nässjö has attracted several companies’ central warehouses, such as Jysk, Rusta and Tura Scandinavia (Nässjö, 2012b).
2 For description and calculation of LQ please refer to Appendix A
28500 29000 29500 30000 30500 31000 31500 19901992199419961998200020022004200620082010
Nässjö's Population
2.3 Vaggeryd municipality
Table 2-3, Quick facts Vaggeryd (Regionförbundet, 2012) (SCB, 2012) (Olsson, 2012)
Quick facts Vaggeryd
Population 13 160 Area(km2) 830 Workforce 5894 Net Commut-ing streams (2009) -831 LQ3 (2010) “Transportation and storage” 1.11 LQ3 (2010) “Manufacturing industry” 2.42
Vaggeryd has grown thanks to its ample supply of wood, iron-ore and water, materials that has defined the industry in the area since the late 1600s. Iron works dominated the areas industry until the late 1800s when several smaller iron works in other regions merged and the competition became too strong and the iron works in Vaggeryd changed into produc-ing pulp. At the same time Vaggeryd became connected to other cities via railroads and several furniture producing factories opened (Gustavsson, 2006).
During the 1900s several smaller towns and rural areas merged into Vaggeryd municipality and the business world would become dominated by a large number of small specialized companies, primarily within advanced metal processing and carpentries (Gustavsson, 2006). Today Vaggeryd is still dominated by many small companies, however some larger compa-nies such as Kinnarps, Proton Engineering, Swedese and Expert’s Nordic distribution warehouse have established in the area (Vaggeryd, 2012).
Vaggeryd has ample infrastructural possibilities to attract new companies because of its close proximity to Jönköping, 36km, and Växjö, 93km. The Euro highway 4 runs through the municipality and it has good railroad connections with Jönköping and Värnamo (Vaggeryd, 2012).
3 For description and calculation of LQ please refer to Appendix A
11800 12000 12200 12400 12600 12800 13000 13200 13400 19901992199419961998200020022004200620082010
Vaggeryd's population
3 Literature review
This chapter contains theory parts of agglomeration, clusters and networks. Both agglom-eration and clusters can be described as a part of economic geography. The two scientific terms are linked to each other but they are not the same thing. The agglomeration part can be seen as a pre theory for clusters since the word and subject cluster has evolved from what academics call agglomeration.
According to Eriksson (2011) economic geography and some other economic and social sciences are linked to a theoretical method which aims to clarify local, regional and national economic growth in terms of clusters. The reintroduced interest in agglomeration and lo-calized economic growth research arises from various fields of studies, but ideas and thoughts about local concentration have a much older starting point. Studies in local ag-glomeration and the degree to which individuals or firms are connected to a social network converge through expressions such as clusters, industrial districts, innovative milieu and networks. But not every agglomeration of firms in the same or related regions can neces-sarily be seen as cluster.
3.1 Clusters and agglomerations
Clusters were first introduced by Marshall in the late 19th century when he found that spe-cialized firms tend to located close to one another. According to Eriksson (2011) Marshall found that people and companies clustered together where they produce a geographic con-centration of expertise and economic commotion. He observed that advantages from this concentration were formed through sharing of skills within a certain profession within a neighborhood. According to Avnimelech and Teubal (2010) Marshall defines an industrial district as “a geographic area containing a number of firms producing similar products, in-cluding firms operating at different stages of a production process that gain advantages through co-location” (Avnimelech & Teubal, 2010, p. 142). According Avnimelech & Teu-bal (2010) Marshall states three main advantages of industrial clustering: (1) the develop-ment of a local pool of specialized labor and the availability of specialized input factors; (2) sharing the cost of investments in infrastructure and economy of scale in production and (3) efficient information flows. This research was further supported by many scholars in the 20th century, most notable Schumpeter (1939), Dahmén (1950), Liepietz (1974), Piore and Sabel (1984) and finally Porter (1990). Joseph Schumpeter confirms Marshall’s original study in the 1930s, but underlined certain areas. About 20 years later the Swedish profes-sor, Erik Dahmén, made a contribution to what will later in time will be labeled as clusters, which had an impact on later studies within the field (Eriksson, 2011).
In the 1980s Giacomo Becattini experimented with Marshalls ideas of geographical ag-glomeration specialized firms that Marshall mentions as `industrial districts`. He widened the perspective of not only analyzing economic effects of agglomeration but to include so-cial, cultural and institutional foundations on local economic and industrial growth. Ac-cording to Eriksson (2011), Becattini (1989) defines industrial districts as a “particular type of agglomeration, characterized by a localized ‘thickening’ of inter-industrial relationships which is reasonably stable over time” (p 35). Later in the 1990s, Markusen (1996) rejected this new industrial district, in its either Marshallian or more recent Italianate form. Instead she identified three additional districts; a hub-and-spoke industrial district, a Satellite plat-form, and the state-anchored district. According to Markusen (1996) the hub-and-spoke industrial district is dominated by one or several large companies, which has significant re-lations with companies’ outside this district. Further on she mentions that vital investments decisions are made within the district, but then channeled out globally. Compared with the
hub-and-spoke district, the satellite industrial platforms are instead dominated by large, ex-ternally owned parent firms. Here the decisions are taken exex-ternally instead of locally com-pared to hub-and-spoke districts. Further she states that this district has a high degree of cooperation and has much contact with companies outside the district, especially the parent company. The third district State-anchored industrial district Markusen (1996) describes as being dominated by large governmental institutions such as military bases, universities which then are surrounded by suppliers and support businesses. The key investments are made by different levels of governments, both internal and external. Further the coopera-tion and level of contact and informacoopera-tion sharing is high and done via organizacoopera-tions out-side the district. In the 1990s the demand or interest in geographical clustering grew dra-matic, which led to several contributions to the field and one of the major contributions was made by Michael Porter. He analyzed Marshall’s studies and simplified it and according to Porter (2000) agglomeration is a concentration of firms and that can be seen either as an industry level or a various urban economy. Further he states that agglomeration key ele-ment is cost minimization due to closeness of inputs or markets. Later on he states that the geographic scope of a cluster can be anything from a single city or province to a country or even a group of countries. He also mentions that clusters can take various forms depending on their complexity. Later on it states that clusters do have common ingredients. Porter (2000) moreover concludes that the majority of clusters contain some kind of end-product or service companies, suppliers of specialized inputs, components, machinery, financial in-stitutions or firms in related industries. Further it implies that clusters also contains firms in downstream industries such as; producers of complementary products and specialized in-frastructure providers. Clusters tend to include a number of institutions, governmental or similar institutions that generate specialized training, education, information, research and technical support. Those government departments that on a regular basis significantly in-fluence a cluster can be considered a part of it.
Another view on Porters model and clusters is, according to Shaver and Flyer (2000) that companies with a good human capital, technology, training programs and suppliers or dis-tributors tends to isolate themselves from clustering and that companies with the opposite characteristics tend to cluster. Further on companies with goods characteristics have more to lose in terms of spillover, meaning their competitive advantage disappears when they cluster. Companies with poor characteristics on the other hand have more to win when en-tering clusters.
General clusters occur when human processes are likely to agglomerate to form urban are-as which will take advantage of economies of scale which in turn will enhance the growth of the urban area in such way that a variety of infrastructural, economic and cultural facili-ties are encouraged to be built. Further Eriksson suggests that the way of defining a cluster can be done by dividing the clusters into two major types, namely 'Generalized clusters' and 'Specialized clusters'. (Eriksson, 2011).
Specialized clusters on the other hand emerges because of firms in same or similar indus-tries locates in the same area to form what is previous mentioned as “Industrial districts” or ´spaces` which according to Eriksson (2011) also are labeled as localization economies. In addition it states that Special cluster’s foundation arises from firms executing different but linked functions within the cluster.
Further he states that clusters generates two types of interdependencies namely; traded in-terdependencies and untraded inin-terdependencies. Traded inin-terdependencies refer to direct transactions between firms, in forms of specialized intermediate products and services. Un-traded interdependencies refer to benefits that are not tangible and can vary from a pool of
labor to an institution like universities, business associations or government institutions. This means that the connection and interaction between firms in a cluster that generate un-traded interdependencies are more connected (Eriksson, 2011).
More and more governments on all levels have noticed the benefits of clusters and have in-stituted policies to promote the creation of clusters. However, there is a debate among re-searchers if clusters really can be created, or if they only can grow organically and that all forms of government intervention is bad. Prior research has shown that many clusters only function as long as the government can provide funding for the interventions they made in order to start the cluster (Enright, 1998).
Depending on the degree of intervention, examples of what the government can provide include offering tax exemptions, reviewing the business climate, provide information on clients and competitors, provide infrastructure, training, etc. More advanced interventions include setting up product developing platforms or providing economic services, these are often linked to local universities. Based on how much the government engages in the clus-ter creation, Enright (1998) classifies government as either catalytic or inclus-terventionist. According to Enright (1998) clusters can be organic, transplant or hybrid based. The or-ganic cluster is when one focuses on the indigenous local industries and aims to strengthen the ties between these. Transplant clusters on the other hand aims at attracting companies from the outside to the region in order to strengthen the local economy. Finally there is the hybrid cluster which can be either an organic region that focuses on attracting more firms or a transplant region that has grown and created an organic mass.
Further, Enright (1998) identifies four different states of clusters; working, latent, potential and wishful thinking clusters. If firms in a specific region have competition and coopera-tion with each other the state of the cluster can be regarded as a working cluster. Often many companies are located close to each other but don’t know about other local compa-nies or they lack a unified vision for the future. However, they do benefit slightly from the positive parts of clusters and therefore these regions can be considered latent clusters. If the region might have some of the prerequisites for a cluster but missing some of the more important ones, it becomes a potential cluster. Finally the wishful thinking cluster is a poli-cy driven cluster where the government chooses an industry in an area and supports this and hopes that it will become a working cluster.
There is no doubt that the word cluster is hugely discussed topic today. Since it is a widely spoken topic many researches and academic personnel have analyzed clusters and by that interpreted the subject in various forms. However, the concept of clusters is somewhat di-luted, especially when non-academic organizations use the term. The Swedish globalization council for example defines clusters as merely agglomerations of companies, research insti-tutes, government agencies, etc. without any organized cooperation or any specific linkage (Ketels, 2009). Another Swedish organization, Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth, puts more emphasis on what they call a “holistic perspective on regional devel-opment”, which focuses on developing a trade mark for the regional, labor market policies and other political issues (Klustergruppen, 2001).
According to Martin and Sunley (2003) “Clusters, it seems, have become a world-wide fad, a sort of academic and policy fashion item” (p 2). They further state that Porter is one of the key elements to why clusters have become such a fashion word not only for companies but for policy makers around the world. They continue on by saying that Porter (1990) was consulted by these policy makers around the world in order to help them identify their
na-tion’s or region’s key clusters, or how to promote them. Moreover they conclude that there are too many variations and forms of clusters that have made the concept vague and intan-gible. Hence, they mean that a subject as elusive as clusters cannot have an universal and precise model of how agglomeration is associated with regional and local economic growth. According to Clark, Feldman, and Gertler (2000) Porter states that it was during the 1990s that many of today’s regional clusters were created. Obviously there are many perceptions of what a cluster or industrial districts are. This thesis only mentions some of them, which can be read below.
According to Avnimelech and Teubal (2010) Marshall defines an industrial district as “a geographic area containing a number of firms producing similar products, including firms operating at different stages of a production process that gain advantages through co-location” (Avnimelech & Teubal, 2010, p. 142).
Porter’s definition is the most commonly used today and it is: “a cluster is a geographically group of interconnected companies and associated institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities” (Porter, 1998, p. 199).
There are other definitions of cluster, according to Eriksson (2011) Doeringer and Terkla defines clusters as ”industrial clusters are a variation on the theme of agglomeration econ-omies and the identification of clusters starts with linkages and proximity; and becomes dynamic through face-to-face collaboration economies” (p36). Furthermore Eriksson ex-presses that, to Cooke and Huggins (2003) a cluster represents “geographically proximate firms in vertical and horizontal relationships involving a localized enter prized support in-frastructure with shared development vision for business growth” (p 52).
According to Eriksson (2011), Cooke and Huggins’ definition differs from Porter’s since Cooke and Huggins’ definition refers to a cluster where firms share common goals and are more connected to each other than in Porter’s definition.
3.2 Logistics clusters
Eriksson (2009) states that ”Whereas there is a huge literature and a continuous debate on the role of various clusters, the combination of localised agglomerations and the distribu-tion and logistics industries rarely makes any appearance on the stage”(p 77).
Logistics clusters can according to Sheffi (2010) contain three different types of companies; pure logistics companies such as 3PLs, freight forwarders, specialists, etc. The second type of company is a company with logistics intensive operations such as distributers or manu-facturers where most of the value added operations can be considered logistical. The last type of company is a company that serves the logistics companies, such as vehicle mainte-nance, IT and lawyers.
Sheffi (2010) further states that companies that do locate in regions with logistics clusters benefit from both cluster advantages in general as well as logistics specific advantages such as geographical location and infrastructure. Logistics clusters are often formed around air-port or seaair-ports but can also be formed at other location as long as there are possibilities for intermodal transportation. Specific areas for and cooperation in a logistics cluster can for example be using each other’s warehouse or machinery capacity. The second type of companies in the logistics clusters; the manufacturers or distributors also gain from having more choices of partners in close proximity. The third type of companies gain from having a large customer base.
There are several organizations that claim to be a ‘logistics cluster’, for example Logistics in Wallonia, who states that their missions are;
To encourage and cradle innovation through cooperation between the companies and universities.
To provide networking and training for the companies involved To promote the region and thus promoting the individual companies. (Wallonia, 2012)
There is a similar project in, Luxembourg, Cluster for Logistics Luxembourg which strives after the same ideas as the Wallonia project but also explicitly mentions creating a unified assisting voice towards the government regarding developments in infrastructure and regu-lations (Deloitte, 2012).
3.3 Cluster models
According to Bathelt, et al,. (2004) clusters have two dimensions, horizontal and vertical. Where the horizontal dimension refers to those firms that produce the same goods. Ac-cording to Porter (2000a) a strong rivalry between companies is a good thing in the initial stages of forming a cluster. Further the benefits comes from co-location, meaning since they all are located close to each other, the companies compares quality and monitoring each other. This rivalry creates product differentiation and variations in products, in order to be one step ahead of its competitor.
The vertical cluster dimension involves firms that are connected through a network of sup-pliers, service and customer relations. When an agglomeration or a specialized industrial cluster has been formed it generates specialized demand such as services and supplies. It is at this point that the horizontal dimension is created. The co-location of similar companies has created a market for other kinds of companies, which then tend to locate close to this market. For example suppliers locating close to this new market can benefit from econo-mies of scale, since a large group of similar companies are located close to each other (Bathelt, et al., 2004).
According to Bathelt, et al., (2004) economies of scale is not enough to understand the processes that occur within a cluster. It has been showed that coherence, connectivity, and inter-firm communication play an important role in processes of innovation and growth for the cluster. Further more, a mutual knowledge base enables companies within the cluster to constantly combine and re-combine related and non-related resources to produce new knowledge and innovations. This enhances economic specialization within the cluster and results in development of localized capabilities. Further an industrial cluster creates an at-mosphere that is only limited to companies within the cluster. Many areas have developed this atmosphere and recently this is also labeled buzz, where buzz refers to the information exchange in the society, formed by face-to-face contacts and the localization of people and firms in similar industry or region. Further this buzz involves specific information and up-dates of information which has its source from both unexpected and expected meetings where this information leads to shared cultural traditions, new technologies and habits within a particular field. Participants in this atmosphere or now called buzz are not search-ing for this kind of information or rumors, but are naturally surrounded by it automatically. Further the nature of buzz is natural and spontaneous, in other words it is a thing that just happens. For instance buzz is about communicating but saying hello to another actor in the
cluster is not the intended way of performing buzz, but to have negotiations, phone calls, or business meetings.
A cluster will benefit from buzz, but that it needs something else to really achieve great-ness. According to Bathelt, et al., (2004) establishing international partnership is a solution, author refers to this as global pipelines. Fully functional pipelines does not come free of charge, it’s an expensive investment and requires understanding of different cultures in or-der to communicate with each other on the same level. To successfully establish a global pipeline a development of joint problem solving, learning and knowledge creating is need-ed. Also trust is important in order for this partnership to communicate and share vital in-formation. Once trust is established this new pipeline will pump in new information to the cluster which then enhances the local buzz within the cluster. Meaning the spillover will be open for the firms neighboring companies i.e. the horizontal companies. The spillover that occurs due to companies having global pipelines encourages companies to learn more from well-connected companies rather than being more inward looking and isolated in their ori-entation.
Except from local buzz created from actors in the cluster intervening with each other and global pipelines pumping information to the cluster, governmental institutions can enhance the buzz. According to Enright (1998) in some regions the government have made invest-ments to provide business services ranging from basic research, market research, material testing and business process consulting. The idea is to provide experience to small and me-dium sized firms that cannot perform nor has the money to learn this by themselves. One way of doing this is to use governmental institutions such as universities, where the univer-sities provide research, development and transferring new technologies to these companies. By having these institutions as a supportive role in a cluster the spillover will be generated to neighboring companies, hence enhancing the buzz in the cluster.
Figure 3-1, Cluster model, (based on Bathelt, et al., 2004)
Another commonly used model is the Diamond model introduced by Porter in his book The Competitive Advantage of Nations (Porter, 1990) where he “…model[s] the effect of
loca-tion on competiloca-tion through four interrelated influences graphically depicted in a dia-mond…”
Figure 3-2, Porter’s Diamond Model (Porter, 2000b, p20)
As can be seen in figure 3-2 above, the model consists of four different elements, the top elementdescribes firms’ structures and oganizations and also concerning rules, intensity and incentives on competition and rivalry in the region. The rightmost element regards what kind of demand there is in the region and current as well as future growth in the region. The bottom element describes local suppliers and other supporting businesses that are esstential for the cluster’s function. The last element, on the left, is describing what kind of resources there are available for the companies in the clusters. Examples of resources that one should analyze are natural resources, human resources, infrastructure, etc. (Porter, 2000b).
3.4 Networks
According to Anderson, Håkansson, and Johansson (1994) a business network is two or more firms that collectively exchanges information in a business relationship. This network can also be directly or indirectly connected to other business relationships and form a larg-er business network.
The network consists of primary and secondary functions where primary functions repre-sent the direct positive and negative effects due to a dyadic relationship between the two firms and secondary functions consists of effects due to connections to other relationships in a larger network. The importance of primary versus secondary functions varies, in some
relationships the primary functions are the most important while in other relationships the secondary effects matters most. However, according to Blankenburg Holm, Eriksson, & Johansson (1999), relationships with only primary functions do not exist.
When reviewing relationship between suppliers, one can find that the buying and selling part is seldom the major importance, information regarding logistics, production, etc. are often of the same or greater importance for the firms involved (Holm Blankenburg, et al., 1999)
Rosenfeld (1997) argues that networks are not the same as clusters and compared to Blankenburg Holm, et al., (1999) and Anderson et al., (1994), his definition is more focused on the primary functions of relationships. He further states that networks are more busi-ness-like relationships while clusters involve more subjective aspects such as sharing the same visions and is based on trust and other social values. Rosenfeld (1997) compares net-works and clusters according to the table below.
Table 3-1, comparison table (Rosenfeld, 1997)
Networks Clusters
Networks allow firms access to specialized
services at lower cost Clusters attract needed specialized services to a region Networks have restricted membership Clusters have open 'membership'
Networks are based on contractual agreements
Clusters are based on social values that fos-ter
trust and encourage reciprocity Networks make it easier for firms to engage
in complex business Clusters generate demand for more firms with similar and related capabilities
Networks are based on cooperation Clusters take both cooperation and competition
Networks have common business goals Clusters have collective visions
Blankenburg Holm, et al, (1999) conclude that business relationship take a long time to de-velop but has a positive effect on value creation and mutual dependence.
4 Results
Here the authors present the results from interviews and questionnaires.
4.1 Interviews and questionnaires
Before presenting the results from the interviews and questionnaires, the authors decided on presenting the process of how they received the results. The receptions of answers from the interviews and questionnaires can be divided into three parts. Where the first part is named part A, part B and finally part C.
In Part A the authors received a contact list of 12 companies out of 41 from the project Logkomp. The authors e-mailed these 12 companies and received seven replies, were four of these seven replies ended up with an interview at these companies, two companies an-swered the questions on e-mail and one replied that they did not have the time needed in the near future, the remaining five companies did not reply at all. At this point the authors wanted more answers from different companies and made a second attempt to achieve more companies, this second attempt is called Part B. In Part B the authors made contact with the project leader of Logkomp and received the contact list of all companies from the project. The authors selected 26 of the remaining companies that they had not sent e-mail to. This ended up with six replies, of which five replied positively and all of these five re-sulted in answers on the questionnaires via e-mail. The last respondent only replied that they as well did not have any time, the remaining 20 companies did not answer at all. The last part which is called Part C, the authors decided to contact even more companies through the network Logpoint. Here the authors received five answers out of 27 compa-nies that the authors e-mailed. Out of these five replies two compacompa-nies agreed on conduct-ing an interview, two companies answered the questionnaires via e-mail and one company replied that they did not have sufficient amount of time in order to do either an interview or answer the questions via e-mail. The remaining 22 companies did not respond at all. In total the authors sent 65 e-mails, which resulted in 20 replies, of these 20 replies six in-terviews was made, eleven answers via e-mail on the questionnaires and three replied that did not have the time. A total of 47 companies did not reply to the authors at all, for a quick overview of these numbers see table 4-1 below.
Table 4-1, Frequency of replies
Frequency
Action
65 Number of companies that was e‐mailed 18 Answers 6 Answers that ended up with an interview 11 Answers that ended up with results on questionnaires through e‐mail 3 Negative replies 47 No reply at allTo present the results from the short questions, the authors decided to divide the results in three parts. In the first part the authors split the companies into three categories, based on their size namely large, medium sized and small. The definition of these three categories are based on turnover, where small companies are between 0 to 100 MSEK, medium compa-nies above 100 MSEK but below 500 MSEK and large compacompa-nies above 500 MSEK. The answers in the first graph, from the rating questions have been added together for every question, hence giving the average result per question. This had to be done since some
companies did not answer all questions based on that they had insufficient knowledge about these certain questions. As can be read in Appendix C there are 17 short questions which in the graph forms the outer circle and the grades one to ten are displayed horizon-tally. After each statement for each of the figures, a number will be written in brackets, this number corresponds to the question number. The results from the shorts can be found in Appendix D.
The following diagrams are divided in size, and displayed in following order; large, medium and small. As a comparison the first graph displays all answers from all the companies, while the diagram over the large companies displays the answers from the four large com-panies. The diagram over medium sized companies shows the seven medium sized compa-nies’ answers and four compacompa-nies’ answers for the small companies graph.
In figure 4-1 to the left, the weighted aver-age for all answers from all the companies interviewed can be seen. Overall the loca-tion is regarded as very good, both from a municipality point of view (1) as well as from a regional point of view (2). The im-portance of the location is also high (3). Most companies do not feel dependent on other companies in the municipality (13) or the region (14) and there is little non busi-ness related information traded (15).
Looking at the companies with a yearly turn-over of more than 500 million SEK in figure 4-2, it is apparent the larger compa-nies have less non-business contact with other companies(15), they are less depend-ent on local companies(13,14) and have lit-tle contact with foreign companies(16). Further on, the larger companies tend to argue that the municipalities are not that good at cooperating with companies in the region (6).
Figure 4-1, All companies 0 2 4 6 8 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 0 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7
All Companies
0 2 4 6 8 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17Large Companies
For the medium sized companies, 100-500 Million SEK in yearly turn-over, in figure 4-3, the companies feel that the municipali-ties and the region could become better at cooperating on all levels (5,6,7). They have slightly more non-business contacts than larger companies (15) but are equally inde-pendent from other companies in JNV (13,14). The amount of contact with for-eign companies is also limited (16).
The smaller companies, less than 100 mil-lion SEK, figure 4-4, are less impressed by the municipalities locations (1) but believes strongly in cooperation with the local gov-ernments (4) but in general, the coopera-tion is poor (5,6) Smaller companies tend to have little non-business like contact (15) and believes that they do not share the same vision with other companies in the region about regional development (10). Further they feel that they do not need more contact with the higher education in-stances in the region(8).
In the second part of displaying the results, the companies are divided based on where they are located. Meaning they are divided into three categories based on which municipality they belong too. In this case the three municipalities are Jönköping, Nässjö and Vaggeryd. The diagrams will also be displayed in that order.
0 2 4 6 8 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17
Medium Sized
Companies
0 2 4 6 8 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17Small Companies
Figure 4-3, Medium sized companies
