Papers presented by Rolv Petter Amdam since 2019

2025 Atlanta, Georgia

"Introducing Management Development and Training in North Africa"

Abstract:

In a geopolitical context, Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia) is a very interesting and unexplored case regarding the post-war development of management education and development. The countries became independent from France, the region was rich on core resources for the growth of the global economy (e.g. oil and gas in Algeria, phosphate in Morocco), and Algeria developed links to Soviet while Morocco’s looked towards the USA. This paper explores how the International Labour Organization (ILO) from the 1960s followed by the Ford Foundation in the 1970s made efforts to develop organizations for management training and development in the Maghreb region with a focus on Morrocco. The weak representations of US business schools that were active in other parts of the world to offer management education, gave the ILO an opportunity to play a pioneering role in this region by for example supporting the founding of Management Training Institute in Casablanca in the 1960s. In the 1970s, the Ford Foundation strengthened its work in the region by for example supporting the North African Management Associations financially from 1974. The results of these efforts were mixed. The paper will identify and analyze the ILO and the Ford Foundation’s plans for the regions, how they executed the plans, how they interacted with the USAID’s activities in the region, and their dialogue with local actors such as the government, business, and – in the case of the ILO - the weak labor force and business entrepreneurs. By doing this, we will show how research on this topic in an African context challenges existing theories and knowledge on the global development of management education. The paper is based on research in the ILO, the USAID and the Ford Foundation’s archives as well as Moroccan archives.

2024 Providence, Rhode Island

"Making Managers in Asia. India and the Philippines in a Geopolitical Context, 1950s-1970s"

Abstract:

Recent business history research on post World-War II management education has extended the geographical scope by exploring countries outside the US-Western European axis. One of these countries is India (e.g. Kumar, 2019), but other countries in Asia has so far been unexplored. In both India and the Philippines multiple Western organizations, such as the Ford Foundation, Harvard Business Schools, Henley Administrative Staff College in the UK, and the International Labor Organization (ILO) were strongly involved in establishing programs for educating and developing managers in higher positions in cooperation with national organizations, such as the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad (IIMA) and the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) outside Manila. Based on a comparative study of these processes in the two countries¸ which both had a distinct position in a Cold War context with the Philippines closely linked to the US and India cooperating closely with the Soviet Union, the paper addresses the question how the geopolitical position influenced the system for developing mangers in developing countries from the 1950s to the 1970s. It shows that the impact of the geopolitical factors was moderated by the strength and character of relevant national institutions. The paper draws on research at relevant archives in the US, Europe, and Asia. The paper will also contribute to new knowledge within management studies literature on management education in the Global South (Wanderley et al., 2021). References: Kumar, A. (2019). From Henley to Harvard at Hyderabad? (Post and Neo-) Colonialism in Management Education in India. Enterprise & Society, 20(2), 366-400. Wanderley, S., Alcadipani, R., & Barros, A. (2021). Recentering the Global South in the Making of Business School Histories: Dependency Ambiguity in Action. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 20(3), 361-381

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2023 Detroit, MI, United States

"The Impact of Deglobalization and Trade Wars on Industry Dynamics: Norwegian Cod Fish and Portuguese Port Wine in a Bilateral Context, 1920-1940"

Abstract:

After several decades of increasing globalization in the last part of the 19th century, in the 1920s and 1930s the world economy experienced a new period of deglobalization characterized by economic crises and the introduction of bilateral agreements to replace multilateral principles. One of the results of this change was new trade wars between countries. This paper examines the effect of the trade war between Portugal and Norway from 1921 to 1923 and the impact it had on the industry dynamics of the Portuguese port wine and the Norwegian bacalhau – or salted and dried cod-fish. In the beginning of the 20th century, Portugal had gained the position as the largest consumer market for Norwegian bacalhau fish, and Norway was one of the most important markets for port wine. This study looks at these two countries and two industries and the impact that a series of bilateral trade agreements between the two countries had on the short and long-term dynamics of these two industries and their firms. The introduction of the bilateral principles for regulating the trade on wine and fish even led to a trade war for one and a half year from 1921 where no bacalhau fish was exported from Norway to Portugal and no port wine was exported to Norway. The study draws on a variety of firm, industry, and diplomatic archives and a wealth of secondary sources in particular from Norway and Portugal and examines how firms and business associations in Portugal and Norway maneuverer in this situation. By restructuring the supply chain, forming new alliances, and connecting to diplomatic processes between the two countries, the industries managed to change the outcome of the trade war from a situation of desperate losses of market share to gaining a stronger position than ever in the two foreign markets.

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2022 Mexico City

"ILO and the making of managers in Argentina"

Abstract:

Research on the international development of management education after World War II has focused mainly on the role of key U.S. institutions such as the US government, business schools, and the Ford Foundations (e.g. Engwall, Kipping, & Üsdiken, 2016; Gemelli, 1998). This perspective has recently been challenged by extending the international perspective to include the Global South, and by accentuating the role of local actors (Kumar, 2019; Wanderley, Alcadipani, & Barros, 2021). In this paper we challenge the dominating perspective by exploring how the International Labour Organisation (ILO) with headquarters in Geneva contributed to promote the idea of management education in developing countries from the mid-1950s to around 1970. Just after the war, ILO engaged heavily in initiating productivity projects in several developing countries. This work included the idea of vocational education. ILOs 42nd conference in 1958 represented a shift in this work, when the organization declared that the productivity project should include management development programs to train top executives. This led to several ILO projects on management development in more than 40 developing countries, very often in cooperation with UN. This paper will analyze how ILO’s initiative matched other processes of developing management education in Latin America by focusing on Argentina. This focus is relevant since ILO prioritized Argentina highly in this context, and in some documents are mentioned as the most important country in addition to Poland. We also know that the role of national institutions and actors in Argentina was strong and independent versus relevant U.S. actors. In this way, the paper will challenge the conventional U.S.-European focus in the literature on the post-war development of management education. The paper is based on archival research at ILO’s archive as well as Argentine sources.

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2021 Hopin Virtual Events Platform

"The Growth of US Multinational Enterprises and the Birth of International Business as an Academic Discipline"

Abstract:

In the 1950s and 60s, US firms became more international and expanded as multinational enterprises both in volume and geographically (Wilkins, 1974). The academic community observed this process and started to develop educational programs and research on internationalization and multinationals. Raymond Vernon’s research project on the multinational enterprise at Harvard Business School (HBS) from 1965 (Vernon, 1999), and the new journal (Columbia) Journal of World Business from the same year, are some of the initiatives in the US that contributed to the creation of the new discipline International Business (Shenkar, 2004). The academic interest in the growth of MNEs also led to new educational programs, including new teaching cases. This paper explores how US business schools interacted with American businesses in their internationalization process. The paper is based on a source that has remained untapped. In 1964, the Ford Foundation financed a project to gather information about all teaching cases written from 1955 to 1964 that were relevant for developing educational programs on multinationals. We have created a database based on information from the 483 cases that the project collected. Faculty members at US business schools authored 176 cases, and 307 were written at foreign business schools. The cases are highly germane expressions of what the academics perceived as relevant for internationalization of firms in a formative period of IB. The cases reflect how business schools collected information from cooperating business schools internationally to support the internationalization process. The cases supported to the geographical direction of the internationalization process. Further, we show that access to information from corporations’ internationalization experiences was crucial for the development of IB. Content wise, the cases were heterogeneous but give indications on the construction of the new discipline.

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