Rolv Petter Storvik Amdam

Business History Review 98(2) p. 485-516 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007680524000321

This article addresses a new field of research in business history by exploring how the International Labour Organization (ILO) introduced management development programs in Argentina as a pilot project in developing countries in the late 1950s. By studying how the ILO worked together with actors at the national level, the article reveals how the ILO’s original idea to focus on top management development was reshaped through a dialogue with local actors within the context of tripartite cooperation between the government, business organizations, and unions. While the initiative was successful during the project period, it collapsed when Argentina’s government closed down the national productivity center with which the ILO was cooperating. While the tripartite principle was valuable for the first achievements, it was extremely vulnerable without the support of all partners.

Business History Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2024.2364344

Abstract This article examines the development of educational programs for developing managers in Argentina from the 1940s to the 1960s. Research on management education during this period has tended to be US-European focused and has looked at the impact of American models. In Argentina, new institutions began to emerge in the 1940s. This process gained momentum in the 1950s and flourished in the 1960s. Several American actors supported the institutionalization of management education. This paper analyses the relationship between American influence and Argentine national actors in two cases, business education within the Facultad de Ciencias Económicas (FCE, Faculty of Economic Science) at the University of Buenos Aires, and executive education at the Instituto para el Desarrollo de Ejecutivos en la Argentina (IDEA, Argentine Institute for Executives Development) Rather than being clones of US models, they reflected a national re-interpretation of the overall US idea of the development of institutions for the education and training of people in managerial positions.

Journal of International Business Studies 54 p. 1313-1331 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41267-023-00609-y

The dominant narrative about the rise of international business (IB) focuses on early research and the institutionalization of a new academic field. In this study, we explore the role of case writing in the field’s formative period from the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s. Based on an analysis of teaching cases on IB topics, we demonstrate that case-based teaching, including the writing of cases, was an innovative pedagogical method that made a strong impact on the formation of the new academic field. Analyzing the cases and the background and affiliation of their authors offers new insights into the linkages to other disciplines from which the new academic field emerged. The analysis of the cases also provides new insight into how the case authors connected to the new practical experiences from an increasing number of multinational enterprises, particularly from the US, and conceptualized the experiences into a pedagogical language. The investigation covers 489 cases written by scholars located in 18 countries from the early 1950s to 1963, as well as archival studies of the business schools and institutions that initiated the production of cases.

Journal of World Business 57(5) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2022.101363

This study examines the timing of the first foreign direct investment (FDI). It explores how the conceptualization and, hence, the understanding of time affects our insights into major internationalization decisions in organizations; specifically, that of navigating into the unknown waters associated with making a first FDI. We introduce a multitemporal approach by drawing on the different temporalities prevalent in history and in business and management to build a platform for analysis that provides a suitable combination of richness and contrast. By examining the process toward making a major internationalization decision in terms of clock, event, stages, and cyclical concepts of time, we gain valuable but also varied insights about a complex process. We conclude that to understand any organization's process of international strategy formation at a certain point (or period) in time, its particularities need to be appreciated in some detail. While the details in this study are unique to the case of Harvard Business School's decision in 1971 to make its first FDI, we argue that the main features of the process are common to conceptualizing the internationalization decision process. As such, the findings should apply more generally.

Enterprise & Society 24(1) p. 90-122 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/eso.2021.25

Executive education programs offered by business schools became a global phenomenon for developing top managers in the 1960s. These programs were established in more than 40 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, in less than two decades. This article explores the phenomenon in three different Latin America contexts: Central America, Peru, and Colombia. In all these cases, initiatives led to successful executive programs, which contributed to the growth of business schools that gradually achieved high international reputation. By studying the way that various US actors interacted differently with local actors in the three cases, the article contributes to three discussions within business history: the history of Americanization, management education, and the alternative business history of emerging markets.

Knowledge management : dependency, creation and loss in industrial history p. 37-64 Doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429059001

This chapter provides a detailed empirical foundation for discussing the role of dissemination of technical, organizational, and managerial knowledge within regional innovation systems. Accordingly, it focuses on qualification for management in regional innovation systems. In Norway, the policy of transferring knowledge to regional business has developed through three different regimes with its respective systemic traits. The first regime was active from 1917 until 1953, based on the cooperation between small business advisory branches in the regions, Smaindustrikontorer, and a semi-public advisory organisation Statens teknologiske institutt (STI), which was set up in 1916 to facilitate flow of knowledge to businesses by the use of liaisons or consultants. The second regime emerged in 1953 was created in connection with the Marshall Plan and the productivity drive in Europe. The third regime emerged after 1987, as the Government decided that the County authorities should take over the local branches of the STI and be responsible for developing the regional flow of knowledge.

Management and Organization Review 17(2) p. 254-281 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/mor.2020.55

This study provides new insights into the role of subsidiary managers in the practice of global business models of multinational enterprises in transforming economies. Drawing on the global business model literature and through semi-structured interviews with a leading Norwegian maritime multinational enterprise in China, we have developed and critically explored a theoretical framework for uncovering how subsidiary managers understand and manage the tensions between the headquarters based in a western country and the subsidiaries based in a transforming economy. More specifically, when implementing the global business model in the transforming economy, subsidiary managers need to undertake effective management of structural, behavioural, and cultural tensions along with the global integration-local responsiveness dilemma. Subsidiary managers can contribute to solving structural tensions between the headquarters and subsidiary by undertaking effective market sensing and knowledge transfer activities to integrate the transforming economies into the MNE's global production networks. Meanwhile, they need to make effective relationship management to solve behavioural and cultural tensions.

The Palgrave Handbook of Family Firm Internationalization p. 199-233 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-66737-5_7

In this study, we explore the role of interpersonal network ties in the context of internationalizing family firms. Through two historical cases—Alhström and Serlachius—we study how the founder-entrepreneurs’ domestic and international identity-based and calculative ties emerged and further evolved within and across country borders in the transitional incumbent–successor context. By using a longitudinal qualitative approach, we were able to build on the notions of “social legacy” of founders in family firms in conjunction with their interpersonal networks and the cultivation or disruption of the more or less embedded ties by their successors over an intergenerational period of time. Our contribution is found in illustrating how the different types of interpersonal network ties of the two founder-entrepreneurs embedded in historical contingencies together worked as the mechanism endorsing the founders’ “social legacies” in the successor generations’ international networking. On the basis of our findings, we introduce the concept of “international networking legacy”, which becomes considered by the next generation either as an advantage or a disadvantage for their own approaches to international networking.

Academy of Management Learning & Education 20(3) p. 300-319 Doi: https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2020.0129

This article shows how historical studies enrich our understanding of imprinting theory and can further our knowledge about gender in business schools. In the founding period of executive education following World War II, rather than excluding women from participation, U.S. business schools included women as wives in the socialization process as their husbands trained for top corporate manager positions. We contend that the imprint of the separate spheres ideology, whereby men and women engaged in different aspects of social and economic life, persisted in subsequent decades despite business schools’ efforts to more fully integrate women into the classroom. The article makes two contributions to imprinting theory. First, it shows how a historical approach to studying ideological imprints from a founding period develops our knowledge as to why some imprints persist over time. Second, it extends our understanding on how to study imprints in a multilevel context. Our empirical data draws from the archives of leading business schools, as well as from academic literature, popular business articles, media reports, and a literary novel.

Academy of Management Learning & Education 21(2) p. 167-187 Doi: https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2020.0028

This article addresses the question of why some business schools internationalize by establishing units abroad. We study their internationalization by examining the process that led to Harvard Business School’s first international strategy and its first foreign direct investment. The study elaborates how internationalization theories are applicable to research on the internationalization of business schools by exploring the role of environment and agency. The analysis shows that in an academic organization characterized as a loosely coupled system, individuals may influence the collective cognition in a strategy process by using new theoretical insights to conceptualize experiences and legitimize decisions. This demonstrates that agency is a multifaceted concept and its function depends on who has agency and how it is used. By exploring how a new academic discipline, international business, contributed both to the conceptualization and the legitimization of a new strategy, the study provides new insight into the process that leads to the formation of an international strategy.

Management & Organizational History 15(2) p. 106-122 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2020.1776134

This paper explores the development of executive education in the US from 1945 to around 1970, and its function in developing potential top executives’ cultural, symbolic, and social capital. The paper shows that postwar executive education was an expression of how the academic community acted according to its societal obligations by offering the new leaders norms and values that could replace what was lost during the transformation to managerial capitalism. This function legitimized executive education within the business schools, which was at the time primarily characterized by a very different logic of scientization.

Business History Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076791.2020.1822329

Recent research in economic geography has introduced two notions that historical studies should explore: regional resilience and related variety. Regional resilience refers to a region’s ability to recover from external shocks. Related variety refers to the existence of related industrial sectors in a region, and the relatedness promotes economic development due to spill-overs between sectors. From an evolutionary perspective, external shocks result in new development paths in regions with related variety. This is a dynamic process well suited to historical studies. This article argues that historical studies can contribute to this literature by studying how related sectors interact in resilient regions. We propose that family firms may act as a micro-coordination mechanism by moving financial and human resources from one sector to another related sector as a response to shock. The paper develops this argument by studying how six major regional business families within ocean industries reacted to external shocks over time. Keywords: regional resilience, economic geography, family firms, regional history, related variety

Management & Organizational History 15(2) p. 91-105 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2020.1842288

The idea that institutions at university level should engage in offering courses and programs to prepare people for administrative and managerial positions in commerce and business originally emerged in parallel in several countries during the mid- to late 19th century (Engwall and Zamagni 1998; Engwall, Kipping, and Üsdiken 2010, 2016). However, at that time, ‘business’ – or, more commonly, ‘commerce’ – was little respected within academia, with sociologist Thorstein Veblen (1918, 209–210) for instance, putting it at the same level as ‘athletics’ and suggesting that neither should have a place within ‘the corporation of learning’. Nor was a specific education widely seen as a prerequisite for successful businessmen – or the rare businesswoman –, though short, practical training for clerical positions was being offered since the mid-19th century at proprietary commercial schools (Conn 2019, Ch. 1). Well into the 20th century most of those running companies believed that leaders were ‘born, not made’ and that, if there was any training, it should be on the job (see, for examples from Germany, Kipping 1998a, 97). Often times, especially on the Old Continent of Europe, what sufficed was to be born into the family that owned the business. While managers hired from the outside had grown in importance earlier (e.g. Chandler 1977), they only started drawing more sustained attention by observers since the 1930s (Berle and Means 1932; see also, with a broader definition of manager, Burnham 1941). Since then, the notion that managers need to be made, i.e. educated, has become widely accepted. And even in multigenerational family firms, the heirs apparent are nowadays usually sent to some of the top business schools either in the country of origin or, more likely, in the US – followed, at times, by a stint at McKinsey or other elite consultants, portrayed by some as a kind of MBA squared (Mintzberg 1996; see also Gavett 2013; and, for examples Engwall, Kipping, and Üsdiken 2016, 251). Similarly, and relatedly, after struggling at the outset to find their place within academia (Engwall, Kipping, and Üsdiken 2010) business and management education have developed into the most popular area of study in many countries. In the US, for instance, 386,000 out of close to 2 million bachelor’s degrees in 2017–18 were in business, followed by 245,000 in health professions.1 In the European Union countries, 24.3% of the tertiary education graduates were in business and law, followed by 14.6% in engineering and construction, and 13.8% in health and welfare.2 However, in China engineering is the most popular field among master’s students with 890,000 students in 2018, followed by business with 369,0003 (see also Conn 2019, 2–3). This transformation has inspired a large body of historical research (for an overview, see, among others, Amdam 1996a; Augier and March 2011; Daniel 1998; Engwall, Kipping, and Üsdiken 2016; Engwall and Zamagni 1998; Khurana 2007; Locke 1984, 1989; more critically Conn 2019; Locke 1996; Locke and Spender 2011). The extant studies have gone far to elucidate the rise of university-based degree programs with a particular focus on the graduate level, in particular the Master of Business Administration (MBA), which together with the US-based business schools has usually been portrayed as equivalent to the rise of formal ways to make managers. An additional, related focus has been the ‘scientization’ of research and teaching in most of these institutions since the 1950s and the gradual expansion of this American model around the world – though with studies focusing in particular on its influence in Europe, broadly defined, and, to a lesser extent, Japan. In contrast, making managers through other, non-degree types of education and training has yet to receive a similar interest and so does the content and process of these programs. There is also a need to examine more closely the actual people who receive management education in both degree- and non-degree programs as well as the wide range of stakeholders, beyond governments and educational institutions, associated with their development. Last not least, there continues to be a dearth of studies covering all of these issues outside the ‘global North’. This special issue aims to advance this research agenda with contributions that (i) go beyond the degree programs offered by business schools; (ii) discuss the roles of all actors involved in the creation of programs for making managers; (iii) examine the processes of socialization taking place within these programs; (iv) look at the gendering of management education (and management); and (v) extend research on making managers beyond the obvious institutional and geographic contexts. After summarizing the current state of research on the history of management education and its blind spots, the remainder of this introductory article will address each of these contributions in some detail.

Journal of World Business 55(5) p. 1-13 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jwb.2020.101125

This paper explores the implications of the collective identity of a regional cluster on firms’ internationalization. Prior research has established the value of cluster “insidership” through access to knowledge and resources. Through a longitudinal study, we find that cluster identity, through distinct identity claims, provides imperatives and shapes the motivation of firms to internationalize. These imperatives, we argue, stem from cluster identity seen as defined features of regional collectives, extending reference theory to encompass the role of social cues from similar firms located geographically close. The imperatives are particularly salient in the early stages of firms’ internationalization, adding the role of cluster identity to explain the differences between inexperienced and experienced firms in internationalization. Keywords: Cluster identity; Internationalization; Multinational enterprise; Longitudinal study.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190224851.013.205

Summary Executive education, defined as consisting of short, intensive non-degree programs offered by university business schools to attract people who are in or close to top executive positions, is a vital part of modern management education. The rationale behind executive education is different from that of the degree programs in business schools. While business schools enroll students to degree programs based on previous exams, degrees or entry tests, executive education typically recruits participants based on the their positions—or expected positions—in the corporate hierarchy. While degree programs grade their students and award them degrees, executive education offers courses that do not have exams and gives participants diplomas rather than degrees. Executive education expanded rapidly in the United States and globally after Harvard Business School launched its Advanced Management Program in 1945. In 1970, around 50 university business schools in the United States and business schools in at least 43 countries offered intense executive education programs lasting from three to 18 weeks. During the 1970s, business schools that offered executive education organized themselves into an association, first in the U.S. and later globally. From the 1980s, executive education met competition from the corporate universities organized by corporations themselves. This led the business schools to expand executive education in two directions: open programs that organized potential executives from a mixed group of companies, and tailor-made programs designed for individual companies. Despite being an essential part of the activities of business schools, few scholars have conducted research into executive education. Extant studies have been dominated by a focus on executive education in the context of the rigor-and-relevance debate that has accompanied the development of management education during the last 30 years. Other topics that are touched upon in research concern the content of courses, the appropriate pedagogical methods, and the effect of executive education on personal development. The current situation paves the way for some exciting new research topics. Among these are the role of executive education in creating, maintaining, and changing the business elite, the effect of executive education on socializing participants for managerial positions, and women and executive education.

The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business p. 125-137 Doi: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315277813-8

Business History Review 93(2) p. 275-317 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007680519000631

Using internal debates and surviving account books, this article traces the eighteenth-century history of the Norwegian glass industry, created to exploit Norway’s immense natural resource wealth, and of the chartered company that would later become Norway’s iconic Christiania Glasmagasin. The investors in the company, many of them among Norway’s “founding fathers,” were individually responsible for its losses and it operated, remarkably, at an annual loss for nearly five decades. The article asks why, beyond the anticipation of a royal import ban on foreign glass, private investors might have continued to accept such losses. It focuses on tensions between cameralist and liberal ideologies in the creation of an important national industry, and on older (and perhaps more sustainable) ways of thinking about profitability.

Asia Pacific Business Review 24(1) p. 37-52 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/13602381.2017.1358929

This article examines the role of small- and medium-sized multinational enterprises (MNEs) in the dynamic development of global production networks (GPNs) in the maritime industry. It studies the dynamism between subsidiaries of Norwegian maritime firms and regional actors and institutions in the Greater Shanghai Region of China from the perspectives of the subsidiaries. It argues that strategic coupling, recoupling and decoupling are partly the results of regional selection mechanisms. However, in the cases where the subsidiaries are embedded within the host region, the strategies and behaviour of MNEs are of decisive importance for the dynamic development of GPNs. Keywords: China, global production networks, maritime industry, multinational enterprises, Norway, PRC, strategic coupling, operation modes

Årbok / Romsdalsmuseet p. 40-55

Business History Review 90(4) p. 671-690 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007680517000010

The managerial revolution drove the rise of business schools in the United States and business schools contributed by graduating professional managers. Before World War II, however, the effect of an MBA degree was modest, causing great concern to leading business schools. Harvard Business School—in order to increase this impact—began in the mid-1920s to develop nondegree programs for potential top executives. In 1945, by drawing on the experiences of certain short-lived programs and the extraordinary situation during the war, Harvard Business School launched its Advanced Management Program, which became a global role model for executive education.

Profesjon og ledelse p. 233-254

Business History Review 89(4) p. 693-716 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007680515001051

This article explores how clusters have reacted to the recent process of globalization by comparing the development of two clusters that are located in the same region, the county of Møre og Romsdal in Norway. These are the furniture cluster and the maritime cluster on the west coast of Norway. When international competition increased, the first one declined while the other prospered and became more global. Structural differences explain only partly the different development paths of these clusters. In addition, firms’ strategic actions and the degree of collectively shared visions about international operations mattered for how the clusters developed.

Management & Organizational History 9(3) p. 272-287 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/17449359.2013.879725

Market transformations and organisational changes lead to new needs for managerial competence, and such changes are proposed to influence the institution of management education over time. However, in an examination of the educational backgrounds of Norwegian CEOs from 1936 to 2009, this paper finds that changes in the institution of management education cannot be interpreted as direct responses to the organisational and external changes that companies face. This study suggests that the institution of management education is modified rather than fundamentally changed. These modifications can largely be explained by the concepts of institutional solidarity (i.e. dominant agents define what management education is, and this understanding is difficult to change due to path dependencies in the recruitment of top managers) and institutional plasticity (i.e. the “stretching” of established institutional scripts to fit new contexts).

Magma forskning og viten 13(3) p. 37-42

Exploring the Worlds of Mercury and Minerva. Essays for Lars Engwall p. 31-43

Business History 51(3) p. 445-461 Doi: https://doi.org/10.1080/00076790902844054

Lie, Lund, Hansen (red), Making it in China

Business History Review 82(2) p. 343-347

Business History Review 82(2) p. 329-358

Geoffrey Jones and Jonathan Zeitlin (eds), The Oxford Handbook in Business History p. 581-602

Baltic Journal of Management Special Issue(2) p. 121-124

Business History 49(4) p. 483-505

Academy of Management Perspectives 19(2) p. 77-80

The management practice we examine performance management (PM)-can be regarded as an extension of the traditional performance appraisal, linking individual performance to corporate strategy.1 Researchers separate calculative PM (focus on individual contributions and rewards) and collaborative PM (focus on creating a partnership culture between employer and employee, for example through competency development).2 In the United States, PM practices contain both calculative and collaborative elements, whereas in Scandinavia the calculative element is downplayed.3 Norwegian firms have had a long tradition of holding annual "planning and development talks." This is, however, a single, once a year event intended to promote good working relations more than a managerial system for evaluating, developing and compensating employees.' We suggest that when introducing a "foreign best practice" into this setting, national values present initial barriers, whereas organizational capabilities and systems are crucial for the final shape of the practice.

Human Resource Development International 8(3) p. 345-360

? p. 57-62

Rolv Petter Amdam, Ragnhild Kvålshaugen and Eirinn Larsen (eds.): Inside the Business Schools: The Content of European Business Education

Americanisation in the 20th Century: Business, Culture, Politics

Journal of European Industrial Training 26(6) p. 274-282

Magma forskning og viten

Journal of Industrial History 4(2) p. 75-93

Historisk tidsskrift 79(1) p. 3-21

Nordiske organisasjonsstudier 2, 1 p. 84-106

Artikkelen fokuserer på hvordan en ledelseskultur etableres og utvikles. Hovedvekten er lagt på å forklare hvilke faktorer som er viktige for lederes valg av ledelsesideer og årsakene til at disse ideene blir spredt utover flere bedrifter og over tid. Ledelseskulturen som bidrar til det empiriske grunnlaget for artikkelen er kenningisme - en ledelseskultur som utviklet seg blant norske bedriftsledere som brukte George Kenning (amerikansk ledelseskonsulent) og hans ledelsesprinsipper til å definere hva ledelse er, og som betraktet ham som en betydningsfull rådgiver. Studien viser at en ledelseskultur over tid kan utvikles til å bli en mote. Videre behøver ikke moten nødvendigvis å dø helt ut, men snarere gjenoppstå i en ny og mer moderne utgave. Funnene fra studien antyder også at man bør studere utviklingen av ledelseskulturer i et evolusjonært perspektiv, siden en slik kultur utvikles over tid og gjennomgår ulike utviklingsfaser. The paper focuses on how a management culture was established and developed. The emphasis is on explaining which factors that have major influence on managers' choices of management ideas and the reasons for the diffusion of these ideas among organizations and over time. The case used to exemplify these relationships is the diffu-sion of George Kenning's management philosophy in Norway. He was an American management consultant helping some Norwegian managers to define management and managerial roles. This study shows that a management culture develops over time and after a while even becomes a fashion. It also shows that a management fashion do not necessarily suddenly die. It might be revitalized and arise in new forms. The findings in the study, thus, suggest that applying an evolutionary perspective on the development of a management culture might enhance the understanding of this formation process.

Unipub forlag

Business and Economic History 28(1) p. 33-43

Management Education p. 0-0

Entreprises et Histoire 19

The Ford Foundation and Europe (1950s-1970s): Cross- fertilization of Learning in Social Science and Management

Fagbokforlaget

Vezetéstudomány

The Americanisation of European Business: The Marshall Plan and the Transfer of US Management Models p. 91-111

The European Productivity Agency, the Norwegian Productivity Institute and management education p. 121-139

Missionaries and managers: American influence on European management education, 1945-1960

The Americanisation of European Business: The Marshall Plan and the Transfer of US Management Models

Business History 39(1) p. 79-90

Fagbokforlaget

History & Technology 13 p. 101-111

Business History 36(4) p. 79-94