‘Knowing the Ropes’: Capability Reconfiguration and Restructuring of the Danish Shipping Industry

The development of Danish shipping over the 50 years from 1960 to 2010 has been characterized by an overall fleet growth. However, there have been important dips disrupting the general development, some of which have been long-lasting and had distressing results for individual entrepreneurs. Half a century ago, around 1960, Denmark owned about 1.75 per cent of the world fleet and Danish shipping companies engaged successfully in all the main shipping segments. A decade later, Danish shipping proved more resilient to the downturn in world shipping markets than its Nordic competitors. The survival rate for Danish companies was higher than that in Sweden and Norway. In the mid-1980s shipowners cut costs and started reflagging their ships into open registries. Throughout the 1990s Danish shipping was in the doldrums, as it were, with some companies prospering and others failing spectacularly. In the initial decade of the twenty-first century Danish shipping companies proved able to exploit the global growth opportunities created by the demand-driven upswing in North America and South East Asia. By the end of the period covered in our analysis Danish shipping proved more successful than ever, controlling almost 5 per cent of the world fleet in 2008 and, according to the Danish Shipowners’ Association (Danmarks Rederiforening, 2010), carrying 10 per cent of world trade as measured in terms of the value of the goods carried.