Clusters, Competition, and "Global Players" in ICT Markets: The Case of Scandinavia

This paper examines the emergence of Scandinavia as a global center for wireless telecommunications. As in other papers in this volume, the paper suggests that access to large and growing demand pools, focusing on ICT segments that lack strong incumbents, the presence of English-speaking technical talent, and the advantages of being "out of town" were critical drivers of Scandinavia's success. At the same time, Scandinavia suggests the importance of public policy, firm-building and firm strategy, and the role of being not only "out of town" but also from a "small town" in the emergence of ICT clusters. However, Scandinavia is different from other clusters in that it reflects the success of a very small number of large global firms rather than the widely distributed entrepreneurial growth witnessed in Silicon Valley. In short, the success of Scandinavia is primarily a story of the success of Nokia and Ericsson. Scandinavia is also interesting because, once established, leading firms in the cluster have explicitly attempted to harness success in hardware parts of the value chain to establish leadership in emergent wireless software and services markets.