In 2001 Sweden founded the government agency of VINNOVA, named after the OECD-endorsed innovation system concept. Criticising the common assumption that countries are passive and uncritical recipients of the approaches promoted by the OECD, this dissertation tries to show that Swedish actors were in fact very active and strategic as they contributed to the national adoption of the concept. With inspiration from conceptual history and Quentin Skinner’s analysis of the rhetorical use of concepts, this study focuses on the research funding reform process between 1995 and 2001, investigating how actors trying to defend the contested institution of sectoral research used the innovation system concept to rhetorically legitimise their project. To compare these uses with earlier ways of discussing innovation in Sweden, the innovation debate that arose in relation to the industrial crises of the 1970s and 1990s has also been studied. It was found that the early Swedish innovation debate had paid little attention to the university sector. When Research 2000 in 1998 proposed that researcher-dominated research councils should be given control over sectoral research funding, a coalition in favour of industrially relevant research mobilised to protect its influence over research funding. The concept was now appropriated and used to rhetorically reframe the universities as part of a system with the main function of promoting innovations. By using the concept it was also possible to draw on the legitimacy offered by the OECD and science.

The purpose of this thesis has been to describe and explain why wholesalers in Stockholm during the eighteenth century acted as they did. This analysis is built on the idea that peoples’ possibilities to act depends on the context in which they live and the person’s network. The starting-point for the analysis is an old discussion if the merchants made any difference in the transformation of society; were they a dynamic element or not? In this thesis wholesalers’ social and economic relations are studied from different viewpoints: how they married, how their credit network was built up, and what they consumed. The wholesalers are divided into groups depending on their income. The materials used are inventories, parish registers, registers of tax-payments and biographical books. The research shows that the differences in behaviour were small between the income groups. Most of the wholesalers married daughters of other merchants, they lent money to their own family, and they consumed more or less in the same way. There was a big economic gap between the wealthiest wholesalers and the less wealthy. Why their behaviour was nonethless so homogenous depended on their need of a network. The importance of this made them act the same. However, the study shows one group that acted a bit differently, wholesalers who belonged to the German congregation. In several ways they were an association in themselves. And the way they act can described as dynamic. Because they did not have an obligation to the Swedish network, they could act differently.

This thesis investigates leadership in Swedish business during the period of 1900-1950. The main aim is to explore the relationship between entrepreneurship and leadership and how the leader uses his social competence, both inside and outside the company, to enhance economic and organisational change. The study focuses on two main characters: Axel Ax:son Johnson (1876-1958), manager and owner of Johnsonkoncernen (The Johnson group), and J. Sigfrid Edström (1870-1964), professional manager of ASEA (today ABB). They represented Swedish capitalism in its golden years. The study uses archives previously never opened to researchers. To understand how and why leadership have changed during the 20th century, the theoretical framework is based on the concepts of entrepreneurship, paternalism, network and charisma. Leadership involves communication. The corporate leader in the early 20th century had to build networks both of stronger and looser types, each of these two types with a different aim, but with the ambition to care for the company’s best interest. Johnson and Edström used their personality to attain more power inside the company as well as to attract attention from the outside. This thesis shows that if the leaders took advantage of their social communication skills they could create new combinations, which could benefit their companies. Therefore, the leader had to bring out the best in his co-workers, in order to attract new ideas, competence and entrepreneurial skills around him. The leader did not only involve himself in networks with fellow industrialists, but also with Social Democrats and journalists. Johnson and Edström had to be leaders not only within the company but also in the surrounding society. They involved themselves in many other areas; in the local community and as opinion builders. The patriarchal strategies still proved fruitful during the period. Yet, modern strategies connected to large organizations and bureaucratic methods were also introduced. It was hard for the employees to accept these changes. If the companies would expand, the leader could attract admirers and followers who fully accepted the leadership and strategies. The leader had to become an entrepreneur with a will to encourage others.

This dissertation focuses on the formation, growth and discontinuance of business populations and firms in Sweden during the 20th century. It addresses some key issues in the domain of economic and social sciences, and in particular entrepreneurship and small business research: if and when firms grow, stagnate and decline, as well as how long firms survive and when they are likely to disband. Previous research has primarily analyzed these questions from a short time frame. Further, an individual or firm-oriented focus is commonly assumed. In that, alternative or complementary explanations to the growth and survival of firms may be disregarded. In contrast to much previous research, this dissertation assumes a micro-to-macro, longitudinal and demographic population approach. The period of investigation is over one hundred years. In addressing the growth and survival of firms, it takes into account the impact of firm-specific structural factors (such as firm age and size), generation (cohort) effects, as well as the influence of macroeconomic, exogenous factors. Further, the relationship between managerial/ownership succession and firm performance is also addressed. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal databases are employed in the dissertation. Its main empirical material consists of unique longitudinal data on new business firms, traced at the firm level from their birth to their termination. More specifically, seven birth cohorts – generations – of approximately 2,200 firms founded in 1899, 1909, 1912, 1921, 1930, 1942 and 1950 are included. The main findings show that ownership/management succession in firms had a quite weak correlation with firm performance and survival. At least at an aggregate level, and with some exceptions, it is debatable if the loss and replacement of owner-managers in small and in larger firms have any observable effects on firm performance. Furthermore, macroeconomic phenomena influence the conditions of individual firms as well as populations/aggregates of businesses. Both the growth and termination of firms and firm populations are found to be related to real economic (environmental) conditions; e.g. favorable macroeconomic conditions implied that firms grew in size. At the same time, under certain circumstances, the influence of structural variables (firm age and size) – as suggested in much previous research – is found to be of importance. As concerns firm growth, as well as firm termination, the economic environment and structural factors interact. These findings challenges individual or firm-level research that mainly focus on personal traits and behaviors in explaining firm success and failure. Other previous assumptions are also challenged when taking a longer time perspective into consideration. For decades, organization and business research have acknowledged a liability of newness and of size for business firms. While this might be true under some conditions, this liability of newness is falsified in the study: the termination behavior of some firm generations did not correspond with these assumptions. Thus, the perspectives and methodology applied in the dissertation complement earlier approaches in entrepreneurship and small business research.

The purpose of this doctorate thesis is to investigate the historical discursive construction of swedishness and foreignness in the Swedish culinary field, primarily during the period of 1900-1970, and to relate the changes in the articulation of these concepts to the overarching ideological shifts during this time-period. To achieve this objective a conceptual apparatus inspired by cultural studies, discourse analysis and rhetorical analysis is employed upon the primary material, which consists of Swedish- and foreign-signified cookbooks published in Sweden during the period of 1600-1970. It is further argued that communities of consumption, such as nationalized culinary cultures, are discursive constructions and that actors attempt to write individuals into these communities through the articulation of nationalized subject positions. In the thesis it is thus investigated how, when and perhaps why certain actors on a field attempt to discursively construct such communities of consumption during a certain era. The chapters 2-5 of the thesis contain analyses of the historical construction of foreignness on the Swedish cultural field. Here various trends are traced in the construction of individual foreign cuisines, both in relation to each other and to the concept of culinary swedishness. An analysis is also made of the varied rhetoric that is used to promote foreign-signified cooking to the Swedish public during the examined time-period. It is concluded that the variations in rhetoric seem to covariate with larger ideological shifts in Swedish society. Chapters 6 and 7 specifically examine the construction of swedishness in the culinary field by focusing on the construction of national culinary icons such as the Smörgåsbord and Husmanskost and also on the evolution of the ideas of a distinct Swedish palate and a Swedish national cuisine. As a result of this investigation the perhaps surprisingly late codification of a Swedish national cuisine during the 1960’s is noted. It is further argued that this development coincides with a shift in the popular mood, where “the Swedish way of life” increasingly comes to be seen as threatened by external forces such as foreign influences and modernity, why certain actors on the culinary field express a necessity for the codification of what is perceived of as the “true Swedish cuisine”. A paradoxical result of this urge for preservation is the construction of new cultural phenomena dressed in a traditionalist and nationalist rhetoric that anchors them in a distant past.

The aim of the dissertation is to examine the mechanisms at work when networks are formed and risk constructions made as bodies encounter frontline technology within the food sector. The concept of technoscience TS, is the link uniting the escalating technology of risk society, rebellious nature and the insidious threats of substances absorbed straight into the metabolism of our bodies through the food that we eat. The TS viewpoint is complemented by a short overview of Beck’s theory about the risk society, in order to explain how research creates risks rather than removing them. The four case studies are all concrete manifestations of technoscience. They are: 1) a study of the alliance between a research company and a bacteria culture, 2) the section about the Gaio controversy and the creation of scientific facts, 3) the case of the scientist and high-ranking official who was sued for defamation of the Danish pig, 4) and finally the scandal of the meat-eating cows. We can observe, aided by Bruno Latour, how particularly in the first two stories, the importance of networks becomes apparent. How network analysis can be a tool for understanding the high-tech development of the food industry in the late 20th century as stories of how scientific claims – or “truths” – are reconstituted and transformed. We are also able to observe how truth is dependent on our own viewpoint, in Donna Haraway’s word it is “situated” or context dependent. The case studies are also examples of the links between body, technology and risk. Because they deal with the food product trade, the link to the body becomes obvious as dangerous food products are absorbed into the body through the food and is spread through the metabolism. The thing that sets risk construction in the use of high-tech production methods in the food trade apart from other areas is the meeting or confrontation between the man-made advanced technology and the limits determined by “nature” through the body. The linking of technology and the human body becomes particularly exciting as we notice that no matter how advanced the technology that has been used to produce a food product, it is still there to be eaten and absorbed by the metabolism of our bodies. In this area of uncertainty the dividing line between the possible and the impossible is fuzzy and changing.

This dissertation analyses the consequences of seemingly placeless processes like the European integration and the increasing economic globalisation on Brussels and the people living there. The study shows that Brussels has become one of our time's most important international political capitals and a leading business node in Europe. European institutions, international organisations, headquarters and subsidiaries of transnational corporations are increasingly locating themselves in Brussels. Simultaneously there has been an influx of transnational professionals working in the international sector. This research shows that with the internationalisation of Brussels there has been concomitant economic restructuring with the emergence of an advanced service economy. The labour market has become polarised between those who have jobs and those who do not. Brussels has also experienced a spatial and socio-economic polarisation along ethnic lines. The thesis explores the connections between these changes and Brussels' international role. Drawing on the world / global city thesis of Saskia Sassen and John Friedmann, a theoretical framework is developed to analyse this. One of the important results of this study is that the world / global city thesis needs to be complemented with a thorough analysis of the place: the political and historical context, and also the role of the local agents, to enable an explanation of the observed development. The interplay between global and local processes needs to be clarified. It is also argued that to properly understand cities with an international role like Brussels, we need to know why international agents locate there. Michael Storper's concepts of 'economic reflexivity' and 'territorial specificities' are used to analyse the rise of Brussels into a reflexive world city - a city vibrating with specific knowledge, produced through inter alia social interaction and critical reflection, that some transnational agents find extremely vital to tap into.

The aim of this thesis is to reach further understanding of the development of environmental adaptation in Swedish heavy industry by studying the case of the Rönnskär Smelter 1960-2000. More specifically, the aim of the thesis is to investigate the interplay between firm level environmental adaptation and national environmental politics and economic development. To fulfil this aim, the following questions are asked: How have company activities such as production processes, organisation and company strategies been developed and adopted in order to meet environmental demands with maintained competitiveness? How have company activities been framed by environmental policies and the specific environmental regulations, relevant for this case? What other factors, beside environmental regulations, have driven and framed the environmental adaptation process of the firm? The study concludes that a long-range competitive environmental adaptation was reached by a combination of investments in environmental technology with an overall rationalisation and modernisation of the enterprise. The study suggests that the environmental adaptation process of the Rönnskär Smelter became part of an overall process of industrial modernisation during the period, which reflects a wider context than the environmental issue itself. It mirrors technological development on other fields than the environment, and an increasing competition on a global scale that called for lower unit costs of production. This led to a modernisation for pollution reduction strategy that enabled the firm to increase production but still cutting its pollution levels considerably over time. The result is partly consistent with the Porter hypothesis that suggests that strict environmental regulation can strengthen firms’ and nations’ competitiveness. Time series data shows that emissions from the Rönnskär factory have radically declined since the 1960s. For these changes, process technology has proven to be most important. Technological adjustments came about through a step-by-step adaptation. It is clear that internal solutions, developed by the companies’ own engineers were more important at an early stage, when the supply of external solutions was limited. The study also concludes that environmental regulation has strongly influenced the environmental adaptation at the Rönnskär Smelter. Of most importance is the Environmental Protection Act (EPA: Miljöskyddslagen) implemented in 1969. In the economic historian Nathan Rosenberg’s terminology, this study suggests that the EPA model of individual testing promoted long-term innovative and cost-effective technical solutions, because it was consistent with decentralised experimental activity and the specific conditions that characterise the dynamics of technological development. However, not much can be said before comparative studies within the Swedish system have been conducted, or perhaps most fruitful, between various national systems of environmental protection. This study also concludes that the environmental issue became of strategic dignity at the very beginning of the 1970s, mainly as a consequence of the implementation of the EPA. Even though environmental issues did not become important for market strategies until the 1990s, the environmental issue called already in the 1970s for adjustments that required financial and personnel resources that demanded priorities and strategic decisions at the highest level of the organisation. The study also concludes that even though the technological dimension has played the most decisive role for lowering emissions, the significance of organisation has increased over time. While the 1960s, and especially the 1970s, brought about substantial pollution reductions through new technology, organisational aspects became relatively more important when the costs of abatement were rising in the 1980s. Organisational co-ordination, division of local responsibilities and education of personnel became a supplement to technology to obtain further pollution reductions. The technician as the “environmental hero” of the firm was successively replaced by the organisational co-ordinator.

This dissertation studies the development of a regulation of prostitution in Stockholm during the period 1812-1880. The development of the regulation system is seen in the light of an analytical framework, developed from Carole Pateman's ideas on the sexual contract, and a feministic critique and elaboration of Jürgen Habermas's ideas on the public sphere. The regulation of prostitution was a common characteristic for many metropolises in Europe during the nineteenth century, where supposedly loose and lecherous women were medically and spatially controlled to impede the spread of venereal diseases. Stockholm, and Sweden as a whole, went from a non-gendered to a gendered control of venereal disease, which eventually developed into a spatial control of public women. This study argues that the practices of a regulation system was at first part of an attempt to import what was seen as part of modernisation. Rather than to prohibit extra-marital sexual relations, these were to be controlled and supervised. Eventually the system was adapted to local circumstances in Stockholm, and a control of women's sexuality in public became part of a metropolitan modernity. In the process of the professionalisation of groups such as the police and the physicians, public women were over time perceived as a group of professional prostitutes. The possibility to live off prostitution as a transitory stage in women's lives disappeared, and prostitution became a medically and spatially controlled trade.

This is a study of the Argentinean Complementary Currency System el Club de Trueque (CT), which during its peak in the year of 2002 provided for its 2.5 million members. Focus is put on its initial years of 1995-1996 and the monetary experiments that would lead to a means of payment that partly would substitute the Argentinean peso during the convertibility crisis. This essay explains how the CT managed to create trust in their currency. Although the CT is a well researched phenomenon, this thesis offers some new information. First of all, the monetary development within the CT was not only driven by a practical need to lower transaction costs due to fast expansion—as previously assumed—rather, a confidence crisis was from the very start crucial for its development. Another important discovery is that although the club was created during a period of strong recession and high rates of unemployment, personal economic problems did not, in fact, seem to be the motivation behind its invention; rather the motives were based on a criticism against the functions of the contemporary economic system. / Esta tesis trata sobre el Club de Trueque (CT), un sistema monetario complementario, el cual creó posibilidades de mantenimiento para sus 2,5 millones de miembros durante la crisis económica de Argentina en el año 2002. El foco de este estudio es la fundación del club durante los años 1995-1996. En este período se hicieron experimentos monetarios que iban a generar un medio de pago que parcialmente reemplazó al peso argentino durante la crisis de convertibilidad. Esta tesis explica como el CT logró crear confianza en su moneda. Aunque el CT ha sido objeto de muchas investigaciones, ésta tesis ofrece información nueva. Ante todo, el desarrollo monetario en el CT no sólo tuvo su origen en la necesidad práctica de bajar los costos a causa de la rápida expansión del movimiento, sino que también, una crisis de confianza fue decisiva para el desarrollo desde el principio. Otro descubrimiento importante es que la razón por la cual el club se formó no fue exclusivamente debido a problemas económicos personales, a pesar de que se fundó durante una recesión fuerte con tasas altas de desempleo. Los motivos tenían más que ver con un criticismo ideológico al sistema económico contemporáneo.