Fuel for commercial politics: the nucleus of early commercial proliferation of atomic energy in three acts

Historical research into the nuclear industry has focussed upon military and commercial aspects of the technology whilst ignoring fuel. This article discusses nuclear fuel, the resource at the centre of the industry and the role superpower politics played in its supply. Starting with the context of superpower competition, we examine the spread of nuclear technology from its beginnings in post-war Britain via West Germany in the 1950s to Finland in the 1960s and 1970s. We demonstrate that each country had varied interests affecting the choice of nuclear fuel for early energy projects; British fuel choices were constrained by its weapons programme and Germany needed legitimacy in the face of …

Dissertations in economic and business history in Nordic countries in 2016

The discussion article by Ekberg and Jes Iversen in this number of the Scandinavian Economic History Review raises a number of important questions on the present state of business history research in the Nordic countries. To a certain extent, these concerns are generalisable to the wider economic history community in the Nordic countries, especially as regards the lack of relevant teaching and challenges in recruitment. Ekberg and Iversen suggest that a possible solution might be to intensify Nordic collaboration. Time and again the need for such collaboration has been raised as an issue, also on the pages of this journal (Ojala & Sogner, 2015). Nevertheless, the wake-up call by Ekberg and …

State-Owned Enterprises

State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are often considered to be relics of twentieth century history. The transformation in the basic concept of SOE is closely linked to two major recent developments in Western capitalism. This chapter examines the process of change in the concept of SOEs and their impact in the making of global business. The traditional SOE was established and developed in a variety of circumstances. Ownership is closely related to control, and, for traditional SOEs in particular, the means a close interconnection with the national government. SOEs have assumed various organizational forms: government agencies, intermediaries between the agency and the business enterprise, and st…

Valtionyhtiöiden omistajapolitiikan kipupisteet : Posti ongelmien ytimessä

Facing the inevitable? : The public telecom monopoly’s way of coping with deregulation

AbstractThe telecommunications industry has gone through a total restructure since the late 1970s, as state-owned national monopolies have given way to listed enterprises and competitive international markets. Scholars have explained wide-ranging privatisation and deregulation at a general level, but what happened to the former state-owned monopolies and how they adapted to the emerging business-oriented environment, has had with less scrutiny. It has been assumed that external factors caused these institutions to adapt a business approach, but did these organisations themselves have any significant power of decision in these processes? This article explains how one of these former state or…

Institutional Logics and the Internationalization of a State-Owned Enterprise : Evaluation of International Venture Opportunities by Telecom Finland 1987–1998

We contribute to the research on internationalization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) by studying the coevolution of state governance of SOEs and SOEs’ evaluation of international venture opportunities during a shift in dominant institutional logic from state to market logic. Using a novel digital historical method to study Telecom Finland, we argue that as state governance mechanisms change due to a logic shift, rationales underlying SOEs’ internationalization can significantly change and impact SOEs’ geographical and partner preferences. However, a logic shift also affords SOEs significant influence over the formation of new state governance policies under the new dominant logic. peerRe…

Pragmaattisen porvarin myyttiset luomukset

Valtionyhtiöihin liitetään usein mielikuvia, jotka professori Markku Kuisman mukaan sopivat lähinnä agitaation ja propagandan välineeksi, mutta joista ei ole juuri hyötyä käytännön ongelmanratkaisulle. Valtionyhtiöitä pidetään automaattisesti tehottomina. Historia antaa kuitenkin täysin toisen kuvan. Kirjana Valtion yhtiöt jatkaa Kuisman edellisen, Suomen pahimmat bisnesmokat (yhdessä Pekka Seppäsen kanssa), linjoilla. Se on suurelle yleisölle tarkoitettu tietokirja, joka tarjoaa historiallista faktaa ja ottaa reippaasti kantaa. nonPeerReviewed

Increase in diversity: Nordic dissertations 2014–2018

This issue of the Scandinavian Economic History Review features a list of dissertations published in the Nordic countries in 2017 and 2018 (Appendix). As in our previous surveys (Ojala, Hemminki & ...

Sääntö-näkökulma Suomen taloushistoriaan

Arvio teoksesta Kallioinen, Mika. Kilpailu ja sääntely. Institutionaalinen näkökulma Suomen taloushistoriaan. Tampere: Vastapaino. 2019. 231 s. ISBN 978-951-768-769-0. nonPeerReviewed

Suuret liikelaitokset – uuden julkisen hallinnon muurinmurtajat?

Katsaus Postin nykyhistorian suuriin kysymyksiin

Kaukokaupasta globaaliin liiketoimintaan

Arvio teoksesta Andrea Colli (2016), Dynamics of International Business: Comparative Perspectives of Firms, Markets and Entrepreneurship. Routledge. nonPeerReviewed

Double Objective in Mind: Translating American Management Ideas in the Context of Cold War Finland

The transfer of American management ideas was a central part of the Cold War struggle over ideologies. A key mediator was the European Recovery Program, which conveyed American influences to European management specialists. However, a direct influence was not always possible, as in Finland, which officially blocked assistance because of foreign policy considerations. Still, it was among the first countries to follow Harvard University’s lead in launching advanced management training. We examine how and why the focal actors adopted the American model of executive education, and how they managed to translate foreign ideas persuasively to the local business elite. The translation of executive …

Towards Big Data: Digitising Economic and Business History

This chapter describes the experiences in computational and digital history of economic and business historians who for decades have been forerunners in digital history data gathering and computational analysis. It attempts to discuss the major developments within this area internationally and, in some specific cases, in Finland in the fields of digital economic and business history. It concentrates on a number of research projects that the authors have previously been involved in, as well as research outcomes by other economic and business historians within Finland and elsewhere. It is not claimed that the projects discussed are unique or ahead of their time in the field of economic and bu…

Telealan suuri murros ja Suomi

Deadlock in corporate governance: Finding a common strategy for private telephone companies, 1978–1998

This paper looks at how a group of small, incumbent private telephone companies complied with the international convergence of market structures. The existing research has mainly focused on large national incumbents, assuming a transition to multinational enterprise. This development process is often associated with privatisation policies and various institutional factors. The article tests these assumptions using a case study of the network of Finnish local telephone companies. It looks at the development of an interfirm network, its perspectives on the different phases of the deregulation process, and how the network tried to regenerate itself but failed to form a unified corporate struct…

Virastosta liikeyritys : posti- ja telelaitoksen muutosprosessi 1930-1994

Towards open access

In accordance with the rotation principle of the Journal, our four-year term for editing the Scandinavian Economic History Review is coming to an end. It is time to pass the Journal on to the capab...

From state-owned smokestacks to post-industrial dreams : The Finnish government in business, 1970–2010

While state-owned enterprises (SOEs) used to be considered obsolete tools for governmental intervention in the economy, in recent years governmental intervention in the business sector has re-emerged as a topic of debate. However, scholarship on the changes in and the modernisation of the SOE model is limited. In this article, we examine how the Finnish state’s ownership policy adapted to the requirements of economic globalisation between the 1970s and the 2010s. We show that the attitude towards globalisation was pragmatic and aimed at safeguarding the competitiveness of domestic companies. The state-owned company system was gradually adapted to meet new needs, losing most of its original …

Defending dissertations on economic history

In most disciplines, the number, quality and topics of doctoral dissertations afford useful information on the state of affairs in research and formal graduate education. Moreover, dissertations ma...

Agora - puolivuosikymmen poikkitieteitä

Jyväskylän Mattilanniemeen elokuussa 2000 valmistuneelle Agoralle tulee kuluvana vuonna täyteen viisi vuotta. Tänä aikana se on onnistunut lunastamaan sille asetetun tavoitteen nousta kansainvälisesti tunnetuksi ihmislähtöisen tieteen keskukseksi. Agora on Jyväslylän yliopiston lippulaiva poikkitieteellisessä tutkimuksessa, mutta myös merkittävä yhteistyökumppani ympäristön IT-yrityksille sekä Jyväskylän kaupungille.