Knut Sogner
Professor
Department of Law and Governance
Employee Profile
- Room number A5I-056
- Phone +4746410642
- E-mail knut.sogner@bi.no
Biography
I am professor of economic history at BI Norwegian Business School. I have written extensively on Norwegian businesses including companies like Tandberg, Nycomed, Simrad, the Kongsberg Group, Elkem and Orkla, as well as wealthy entrepreneurial families like Andresen, Kiær and Solberg. I have taken a particular interest in innovation and entrepreneurship when it comes to the economy, but have increasingly moved my attention to the people behind them: business leaders, engineers, as well as families. I hope to continue to study people in Norway and to take a grasp on people over time to include more ordinary people as well as the business elite. In May 2024 I published on Fagbokforlaget in Norwegian, as editor, my late father’s book «De «tvende Correlata» on Danish-Norwegian natural law in late 18th century Danish central administration, and here egalitarianism is a central element. I am also interested in comparative corporate governance, which the English language book I edited with Andrea Colli on Routledge is an example of. In a career that has gone on for a while, and that at the outset was pretty international in oulook, I am reemerging from the depth of Norwegian-language comissioned works and demanding administrative tasks to participate in international economic and business historical debates. With an eye for my Norwegian situatedness, of course. I was very happy to publish a revised English language doctoral thesis, Norway’s Pharmaceutical Revolution, with Oxford University Press in 2022, and my recent (December 2024) article on the Norwegian aluminium industry before, during and just after World War II in Business History Review extends, renews and sharpens previous work.
Area of Expertise
Publications
Shows
5
of 37 publication(s)
Article Knut Sogner, Victoria Ciobanu Austveg (2025)
Freedom of contract and company freedom. Corporate governance in Norway, 1890–1930
Article Knut Sogner (2024)
A Disrupting Strategic Metal: The Norwegian Aluminium Industry Meets World War II
This article offers a new interpretation of the coming of state ownership in aluminium-related big businesses in Norway. It shows that the Norwegian aluminium business of the late 1930s and the 1940s was undertaken by a Scandinavian business elite fully capable of filling capital requirements after the war. This elite had, however, entangled itself in the German war effort in Norway mainly by supporting the building of new aluminium plants under the German occupiers’ control. This left it morally vulnerable to the increasing emphasis during the war on aluminium as a strategic metal. The Allied war effort—especially evident in US attitudes—had come to see the cartelized aluminium industry of the 1930s as working against the national interest by impacting national production capacity in a negative way. The Allies bombed the major new plant in Norway in 1943, and after the war the US acted restrictively toward Norwegian capital assets in the US. By pursuing ownership after 1945, the Norwegian state performed strategic ownership roles in large corporations, thereby also protecting these entities from the possible wrath of the US against private owners.
Anthology Knut Sogner (2022)
Norway’s Pharmaceutical Revolution. Pursuing and Accomplishing Innovation in Nyegaard & Co. 1945-1997
Article Knut Sogner (2021)
Creating and Protecting paths. Learning in an entrepreneurial state
This paper discusses how a Norwegian entrepreneurial state has performed over more than seventy years, based on an analysis of state involvement in Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk/the Kongsberg Group from 1945 and to 2015. Mariana Mazzucato has argued that bold technological investments by the state has long-term beneficial effects. The development of the Kongsberg companies adds nuance to this picture. On the one hand, the defense company Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk failed as a company in 1987 and was unbundled into a number of new companies independent of one another. On the other hand, some of the successor companies have been very successful, both in the oil and gas sector and within defense. Taking the defense and oil and gas company the Kongsberg Group as a case, this paper argues that a new style of entrepreneurial state developed in the 1990s and that it proved very successful. The old entrepreneurial state was heavy-handed, bold, and very long-term in its aims; the new entrepreneurial state was cautious, many-headed, and worked through the management of the company. The new entrepreneurial state combined state ownership, stock listing, and procurement considerations and was supported by both the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Defense. This new governance structure facilitated a stable corporation that over time integrated other Norwegian maritime electronics companies, which themselves had a checkered history under the old entrepreneurial state. A new corporate governance regime emerged and managed both to protect old and established product lines and to facilitate innovation both in defense and maritime electronics.
Chapter Knut Sogner (2021)
The Rise and Fall of Managerial Capitalism in Norway, 1895-1940
This chapter argues that Norwegian managers at the turn of the last century actively used the emerging division of ownership and control and thus were creators of Norwegian modern business – and that their role in this has been neglected. It describes the current view of the Norwegian experience of the second industrial revolution. The chapter tracks Norwegian managerial influence in an entrepreneurial phase up to about 1910 and a “coming of age” maturation stage up to the 1920s and slightly beyond. It discusses the setback for the Norwegian managerial surge in the interwar years, when shareholder influence increased and Norwegian businesses and business constellations became smaller. The threat of foreign business domination lurked in the background of the dissolution of the union with Sweden in 1905. Recent scholarship suggests a uniquely Scandinavian collaborative approach to corporate governance since the late nineteenth century that includes a clear perception of management’s role.
Academic book Knut Sogner, Andrea Colli (2021)
The Emergence of Corporate Governance: People, Power & Performance
Chapter Knut Sogner (2018)
Creativity, innovation, and the production of wealth
This chapter offers an historic introduction to the broad field of innovation studies with an eye towards ethical matters. Four fundamental issues are highlighted. In the first section, I delineate how the concept of innovation has little place within the framework of standard economic models, yet innovation is crucial to the total economy. In the second section, I take up some theoretical approaches, emerging in the 1980s, that construe the phenomena of innovation as occurring within specific circumstances. This is the “interactive” approach. In the subsequent section, I focus on how innovation has been seen, by some, to be institutionalized within the large corporation or, in other cases, within clusters of small companies or even the nation state, noting as well how some scholars have argued for cultural or ethical frameworks as catalysts of innovation. In the final section, I canvas some of the debate as to whether or why innovation has failed to return economic growth to the wealthy nations.
Chapter Knut Sogner (2016)
Ressursbedrifter og naturressurser
Academic book Knut Sogner, Einar Lie, Håvard Brede Aven (2016)
Entreprenørskap i næringsliv og politikk. Festskrift til Even Lange
Editorial Ojala Jari, Knut Sogner (2015)
Re-collaborating in the Nordic economic history research community
Chapter Knut Sogner (2015)
Constructive power
Chapter Knut Sogner (2014)
Hvem var forretningsmennene?
Anthology Knut Sogner, Tine Petersen (2014)
Strategiske samspill: Kongsberg Gruppens historie 1987-2014
Chapter Knut Sogner (2012)
Ancestor or Inheritor? Johan H. Andresen (1888-1963) and his capitalist family
Anthology Knut Sogner (2012)
Andresens. En familie i norsk økonomi og samfunnsliv gjennom to hundre år
Chapter Knut Sogner (2009)
Slow growth and revolutionary change : the Norwegian IT industry enters the global age, 1970-2005
Article Knut Sogner (2009)
Innovation as Adaptation: The Digital Challenge in the Norwegian Fishing Industry, 1970-1985
Chapter Knut Sogner (2008)
Constructive power. Elkem 1904-2004
Chapter Knut Sogner (2008)
Changing transnational affections. Orkla, Elkem and Norwegian big business 1960-2004
Article Knut Sogner (2007)
The Fall and Rise of the Norwegian IT Industry in the Global Age, 1970-2005
Chapter Knut Sogner (2007)
Utvikling av næringssystemer - systemtilnærminger i et historisk perspektiv
Chapter Knut Sogner (2007)
Næringspolitikkens betydning for fremveksten av norsk elektronikk- og IT-industri
Chapter Knut Sogner (2006)
Lederkapitalisme og eierkapitalisme. Energiselskapet Hafslund formes
Chapter Knut Sogner (2005)
Mineraler og metallurgiske metoder
Chapter Knut Sogner (2004)
Gruveselskapet 1654-1973
Chapter Knut Sogner (2003)
Den norske IT-industrien fra krise til vekst 1975-2002
Article Knut Sogner (2002)
Det norske næringsborgerskapet under den andre industrielle revolusjon
Chapter Rolv Petter Amdam, Knut Sogner, Matthias Kipping, Nick Tiratsoo (2002)
The Diffusion of American Organisational Models to Norwegian Industries 1945-1970
Chapter Sverre Christensen, Knut Sogner (2001)
Treforedlingsbedriften Dubrowka
Chapter Knut Sogner (2001)
Schumpeter og den kreative kapitalismen
Article Knut Sogner (2001)
Plankeadel - en storeiende families vekst og fall
Chapter Knut Sogner (2001)
Blandingsøkonomien omorganiseres. Fra plan til marked
Chapter Knut Sogner, Rolv Petter Amdam (1998)
Mellomkrigstiden - markedsøkonomien i krise
Chapter Knut Sogner (1998)
Småfolk i stor verden. Nycomed, Norge og globaliseringen av farma- søytisk industri
Chapter Knut Sogner, Anthony S. Travis, Peter Morris, Harm G. Schröter, Ernst Homburg (1998)
Norwegian capitalist and the fertilizer business. The case of Hafslund and the Odda process
Shows
5
of 6 publication(s)
Feature article Knut Sogner (2022)
Behov for samfunnssyn på BI
Feature article Knut Sogner (2021)
Norge er et av verdens ledende laboratorier for vellykket, aktiv industripolitikk – og for mislykket
Feature article Knut Sogner (2015)
Francis Sejersted (1936-2015)
Feature article Knut Sogner (2015)
Kongsbergmodellen
Interview Aven Håvard, Knut Sogner (2015)
Intervju med næringslivshistorikar Knut Sogner
Feature article Christine Myrvang, Knut Sogner (2014)
En god jubileumsstory
Shows
5
of 57 publication(s)
Conference lecture Knut Sogner, Victoria Ciobanu Austveg (2024)
Freedom of contract and company freedom. Corporate governance in Norway, 1820-1930
Lecture Knut Sogner (2024)
Innledning, lansering av Bjørn Sogners De «tvende Correlata». Henrik Stampes dansk-norske naturrettsprogram
Book Knut Sogner, Bjørn Sogner (2024)
De «tvende Correlata». Henrik Stampes dansk-norske naturrettsprogram
Commentary Knut Sogner (2023)
Etikk på handelshøyskolene må ikke bli til utenpåklistrede, politisk motivert pliktløp
Article Knut Sogner (2023)
Hvor går arbeiderhistorien?
Lecture Knut Sogner (2023)
Fra Nyegaard & Co. til Nycomed: forvandlingen av et innovativt selskap
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2023)
Commentator session in European Business History Association's Conference, Oslo, August 25
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2023)
A disrupting strategic metal. The Norwegian aluminium industry meets World War II
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2023)
Kommentar til Jan Myhres Den norske modellen blir til, Oslo: Dreyer 2022, på UiOs avslutningskonferanse for prosjektet om Norden
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2023)
A disrupting strategic metal. The Norwegian aluminium industry meets World War II,
Lecture Knut Sogner (2022)
«Hvem er de formuende i Norge og hvordan har de sett ut gjennom tidene?»
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2022)
Too big too survive, third version
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2022)
Too big too survive I, paper presentert på Historiedagene, Bergen, 24.-26. juni
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2022)
Too big too survive II
Lecture Knut Sogner (2022)
Innledning på seminar om presentasjon av Norsk bank- og pengevesen 1816—1892
Lecture Knut Sogner (2022)
Elkem gjennom 120 år
Lecture Knut Sogner (2022)
Norges farmasøytiske revolusjon
Article Knut Sogner (2022)
Hvem tjener på innovasjon?
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2021)
Materialism and Economic History, innlegg på dr. gradskurset Materialism – Research School in History, May 26, Handelshøyskolen BI
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2021)
A national aluminium strategy diverted. Norwegian aluminium industry meets World War II, presented at aluminium session
Lecture Knut Sogner (2021)
Sporbeskyttelse. Statlig eierskap som norsk løsning på det lille lands sårbarhet
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2021)
A national aluminium strategy diverted. Norwegian aluminium industry meets World War II
Introduction Knut Sogner, Andrea Colli (2021)
Introduction: Bringing History Back into Corporate Governance Studies
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2021)
En nasjonal aluminiumstrategi på avveie: Tom Fearnley og møtet med den tyske okkupasjonen
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2019)
Bankrupted in the Baltic. The Fall of Norwegian Leadership in the Nordic Wood Industry 1910-28
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2019)
Bankrupted in the Baltic. The Fall of Norwegian Leadership in the Nordic Wood Industry 1910-28
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2019)
Bankrupted in the Baltic. The Fall of Norwegian Leadership in the Nordic Wood Industry 1910-28
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2018)
All in the family. The rise and fall of managerial capitalism in Norway, 1895—1940
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2018)
All in the family. The rise and fall of managerial capitalism in Norway, 1895—1940
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2017)
Corporate strategy as obstacle. Nycomed and the fate of innovation in a commercial culture 1981—1994
Conference lecture Knut Sogner, tine malonæs (2017)
Fremveksten av systemkompetanse i Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk
Conference lecture Tine Petersen, Knut Sogner (2017)
Fremveksten av systemkompetanse i Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk
Book chapter Knut Sogner (2016)
Business History and Innovation
Introduction Knut Sogner, Einar Lie, Håvard Brede Aven (2016)
Forord
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2016)
In the shadow of Silicon Valley. The large corporation as solution to the challenges of a small IT agglomeration
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2015)
Corporate Capabilities vs. Systems of innovation: How firms in Norway got to be innovative
Lecture Knut Sogner (2015)
Familiene som styrte Norge
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2015)
Building dynamic capabilities. The Kongsberg Group 1987—2014
Lecture Knut Sogner (2015)
Kongsberg Våpenfabrikk og Kongsberg Gruppens historie
Conference lecture Knut Sogner (2015)
From national strategy to business opportunities: Reaping the benefits of Norwegian military R&D 1945—2015
Lecture Knut Sogner (2015)
Orkla Grube-AB som nasjonal og internasjonal aktør
Textbook Svein Olav Hansen, Rolv Petter Storvik Amdam, Knut Sogner, Haakon Herman Gran (2005)
Markedsøkonomiens utvikling
Book Rolv Petter Amdam, Haakon Gran, Svein Olav Hansen, Knut Sogner (2005)
Markedsøkonomiens utvikling
Book Trond Bergh, Harald Espeli, Knut Sogner (2004)
Brytningstider. Storselskapet Orkla 1654-2004
Chapter in encyclopedia Knut Sogner (2004)
Biografi over Peter Collett Solberg
Chapter in encyclopedia Knut Sogner (2004)
Biografi over Thorleif Schjelderup
Chapter in encyclopedia Knut Sogner (2004)
Biografi over Gunnar Schjelderup
Book Knut Sogner (2003)
Skaperkraft. Elkem gjennom 100 år 1904-2004
Book Sverre Christensen, Harald Espeli, Eirinn Larsen, Knut Sogner (2003)
Kapitalistisk demokrati?
Chapter in encyclopedia Knut Sogner, Pål Thonstad Sandvik (2002)
Thorry Kiær
Book Knut Sogner (2002)
En liten brikke i et stort spill. Den norske IT-industrien fra krise til vekst 1975-2000
Working paper Rolv Petter Amdam, Svein Olav Hansen, Knut Sogner (2001)
Markedsøkonomiens utvikling : studieguide
Book Rolv Petter Amdam, Haakon Gran, Svein Olav Hansen, Knut Sogner (2001)
Markedsøkonomiens utvikling
Article Knut Sogner (2000)
Norsk vininteresse i historisk perspektiv
Working paper Rolv Petter Amdam, Svein Olav Hansen, Knut Sogner (1999)
Markedsøkonomiens utvikling - Studieguide
Working paper Rolv Petter Amdam, Haakon Gran, Svein Olav Hansen, Knut Sogner (1999)
Markedsøkonomiens utvikling - et kompendium
| Year | Academic Department | Degree |
|---|---|---|
| 1996 | University of Oslo | Ph.D Dr. Philos. |
| Year | Employer | Job Title |
|---|---|---|
| 2001 - Present | BI Norwegian Business School | Professor |
| 2011 - 2016 | BI Norwegian Business School | Head of Department |
| 1997 - 2001 | BI Norwegian Business School | Associate Professor |
| 1991 - 1997 | BI Norwegian Business School | Researcher |
| 1990 - 1991 | University of Oslo, Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture | Research Fellow |