I am Professor of Business History from 1997. From 2006 to 2010 I was Associate Dean of BI's Executive Master of Management programmes, and from 2011 to 2014 I was the Dean of BI's executive programmes.
I received my Dr.Philos degree from the University of Oslo based on a study of the development of business education in Norway, a topic that I also have studied in a European perspective in a EU financed project (CEMP). In addtion to having written and edited several books on the history of the glass industry, pharmaceutical companies, the aluminium industry and business schools, I have published in various international journals in business history and management. My aim is to do research that is relevant both within the field of international business and business history. I teach courses in international business and management.
During the fall semester 2015 I was the Alfred D. Chandler Jr. International Scholar in Business History at Harvard Business School, and in 2017 (fall) visiting fellow at SCANCOR-Weatherhead Center of International Affaires, Harvard. I have also been visitor at Reading University, Toulouse University, ESSEC in Paris, and Nanyang Technological University, and ISM University of Management and Economics, Lithuania. I was member of the board of ISM University of Managament and Economics in Lithuania from 2011 to 2013.
My main research interests are:
• Business education and career development
• International development of executive education
* Internationalization procesess
* Globalization and industrial clusters, focusing on the maritime industry
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.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik & Davila, Carlos (2023)
Making Managers in Latin America: The Emergence of Executive Education in Central America, Peru, and Colombia
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.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik & Benito, Gabriel R.G. (2022)
Temporality and the first foreign direct investment
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.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik & Benito, Gabriel R.G. (2022)
Opening the black box of international strategy formation: How Harvard Business School became a multinational enterprise
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 qualification and dissemination of knowledge in regional innovation systems : the case of Norway 1930s–1990s
Wilson, John F.; Jones, Ian & Toms, Steven (red.). Knowledge management : dependency, creation and loss in industrial history
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.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik & Elias, Allison Louise (2021)
Business schools and the roles of the executives' wives
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.
The “Unwritten Will” in Interpersonal Network Ties: Founder Legacy and International Networking of Family Firms in History
Leppäaho, Tanja & Jack, Sarah (red.). The Palgrave Handbook of Family Firm Internationalization
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.
Ngoasong, Michael Zisuh; Wang, Jinmin, Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik & Bjarnar, Ove (2021)
The role of MNE subsidiaries in the practice of global business models in transforming economies
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.
Hitt, Michael A. (red.). Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Business and Management
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.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik; Bjarnar, Ove & Berge, Dag Magne (2020)
Resilience and related variety : the role of family firms in an ocean-related Norwegian region
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
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik; Lunnan, Randi, Bjarnar, Ove & Halse, Lise Lillebrygfjeld (2020)
Keeping up with the neighbors: The role of cluster identity in internationalization
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.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2020)
Creating the new executive: postwar executive education and socialization into the managerial elite
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.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2019)
The internationalization of Executive education
Da Silva Lopes, Teresa; Tworek, Heidi & Lubinski, Christina (red.). The Routledge Companion to the Makers of Global Business
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik; Fredona, Robert & Reinert, Sophus (2019)
Breaking Even: Political Economy and Private Enterprise in the Norwegian Glass Industry, 1739-1803
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.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik; Bjarnar, Ove & Wang, Jinmin (2018)
The dynamic role of small- and medium-sized multinationals in global production networks : Norwegian maritime firms in the Greater Shanghai Region in China
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
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2017)
Det Romsdalske Practiske Landhuusholdnings-Sælskab og opplysningstida, 1773-1790
Årbok / Romsdalsmuseet, s. 40- 55.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2016)
Executive Education and the Managerial Revolution: The Birth of Executive Education at Harvard Business School
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.
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).
Amdam, Rolv Petter & Kvålshaugen, Ragnhild (2010)
Utdanning av norske næringslivstopper kontinuitet eller brudd?
Geoffrey Jones and Jonathan Zeitlin (eds), The Oxford Handbook in Business History
Amdam, Rolv Petter; Hansen, Marie Skogholt & Vasli, Karen Marie (2008)
Connecting People in Shanghai: The Norwegian Way
Lie, Lund, Hansen (red), Making it in China
Amdam, Rolv Petter & Djelic, Marie-Laure (2007)
Americanization in Comparative Perspective: The Managerial revolution in France and Norway, 1940-1970
Business History, 49(4), s. 483- 505.
Amdam, Rolv Petter & Lang, Reinhard (2007)
Management Research in East and West
Baltic Journal of Management, Special Issue(2), s. 121- 124.
Lervik, Jon Erland; Amdam, Rolv Petter, Hennestad, Bjørn, Lunnan, Randi & Nilsen, Sølvi M. (2005)
Implementing Human Resource Development Best Practice: Replication or Re-creation?
Human Resource Development International, 8(3), s. 345- 360.
Lunnan, Randi; Lervik, Jon Erland, Traavik, Laura E Mercer, Nilsen, Sølvi M., Amdam, Rolv Petter & Hennestad, Bjørn (2005)
Global transfer of management practices across nations and MNC subcultures
Academy of Management Perspectives, 19(2), s. 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.
Amdam, Rolv Petter (2003)
Changement d'organisation dans deux sociétés norvégiennes de production d'aluminium: ÅSV et Alnor
Management qualifications and dissemination of knowledge in regional systems : the case of Norway, 1930s-1990s
Journal of Industrial History, 4(2), s. 75- 93.
Amdam, Rolv Petter (2000)
Industrikomiteen i New York 1943-1945: Ein kanal for kunnskapsoverføring frå USA til Norge
Historisk Tidsskrift (Norge), 79(1), s. 3- 21.
Kvålshaugen, Ragnhild & Amdam, Rolv Petter (2000)
Etablering og utvikling av ledelseskulturer: Norsk kenningisme
Nordiske organisasjonsstudier, 2, 1, s. 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.
Amdam, Rolv Petter (1999)
Utdanning, økonomi og ledelse: Fremveksten av den økonomisk-administrative utdanningen 1936-1986
Unipub forlag.
Amdam, Rolv Petter (1999)
Foreign Influence on the Education of Norwegian Business Managers before World War II
Management Education
Amdam, Rolv Petter & Bjarnar, Ove (1999)
Networks and the Diffusion of Knowledge: The Norwegian Industry Committee in New York during the Second World War
Business and Economic History, 28(1), s. 33- 43.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik & Bjarnar, Ove (1998)
The regional dissemination of American productivity models in Norway in the 1950s and 1960s
Kipping, Matthias & Bjarnar, Ove (red.). The Americanisation of European Business: The Marshall Plan and the Transfer of US Management Models
Amdam, Rolv Petter (1998)
American Influence on Management Education in Norway, 1945-1970s: The Role of Intermediate Organisations
The untold story: Teaching cases on multinational enterprises in US business schools and the rise of International Business as a new academic field, 1955-1963
[Academic lecture]. European International Business Academy Annual Conference 2021.
Lluch, Andrea & Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2021)
In the shadow of Americanization: The Origins and Evolution of Management Education and Training in Argentina (1940s–1960s)
[Academic lecture]. 2nd World Congress on Business History.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2020)
The use of the imprinting theory in history and organization studies
Norske toppledere og deres utdanningsbakgrunn i 2016
[Article in business/trade/industry journal]. Magma forskning og viten, 20(5), s. 64- 69.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2017)
The US and the International Professionalization of Top-Managers
[Report]. Rockefeller Archive Center Research Reports.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2017)
“Creating the new executive: Post-war executive education in a civilization perspective”
[Academic lecture]. Business History Conference Annual Conference.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2017)
The Globalization of Executive Education: 1945-1970
[Academic lecture]. International Business and Civilization Seminar.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2016)
Choices, changes and combinations of operation modes in China in the context of global production networks
[Academic lecture]. SAM Special Conference.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik & Bjarnar, Ove (2016)
"Dynamic and flexible clusters as determinants for localization: The relationship between ocean-related industries on the west coast of Norway in the 19th and 20th century"
[Academic lecture]. World Business History and EBHA Conference.
Perception gaps in headquarter-subsidiary relationships: Comparing the role of subsidiary managers in China, Brazil and USA
[Academic lecture]. AIB Academy of International Business Conference.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2016)
Entrepreneurs in business education: The international diffusion of executive education 1945-1980
[Academic lecture]. ABH/GUG Conference.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2016)
Reintepretation of the role of business schools in the formation of the professional managers: The birth of executive education at Harvard Business School
[Academic lecture]. Business History Conference 2016.
Regional innovasjonspolitikk i et internasjonalt vakuum?
[Report]. Høgskolen i Molde.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik; Brekke, R & Wahl, Ove (2010)
The integration of Norwegian firms in the maritime cluster in Singapore
[Academic lecture]. The International Maritime Conference on The Global Shipping Industry in the 21st Century: Dynamics and Transformative Capacity.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik & Bjarnar, Ove (2010)
Globalization and the transformation of clusters: A comparative study of two clusters
[Academic lecture]. Regional Studies Association Annual International Conference 2010: Regional Responses and Global Shifts: Actors, Institutions and Organisations.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik (2010)
Globalization and the dynamic development of clusters: A comparative study of two clusters
[Academic lecture]. 36TH EIBA Annual Conference.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik & Bjarnar, Ove (2009)
Strategy, knowledge transfer in clusters, and external pressure
[Academic lecture]. MMRC conference.
Amdam, Rolv Petter Storvik & Bjarnar, Ove (2008)
Global pipelines and diverging patterns of knowledge sharing in regional clusters
[Academic lecture]. Regional Studies Association Annual International Conference: Regions - The Dilemmas of Integration and Competition.
Bjarnar, Ove & Amdam, Rolv Petter (2008)
Global pipelines and diverging patterns of knowledge sharing in regional clusters
[Academic lecture]. Regional Studies Association Annual International Conference : Regions - the Dilemmas of Integration and Competition?.
Amdam, Rolv Petter; Lunnan, Randi & Ramanauskas, Gediminas (2007)
FDI and the Transformation from Industry to Service Society in Emerging Economies: A Lithuanian - Nordic Perspective
[Article in business/trade/industry journal]. Engineering Economics, 51(1), s. 22- 28.