Papers presented by Louise Karlskov Skyggebjerg since 2019

2024 Providence, Rhode Island

"Profit for the common good. Revitalizing the local community through high-risk banking practices"

Abstract:

How could it go so wrong when an intention was to develop “the local community of the future”? In 2007, the ebh-foundation was a local benefactor contributing to numerous projects aiming at securing workplaces, youngsters, doctors, thriving associations etc. in a Danish left-behind area. The year after, the foundation and the demutualized savings bank it was inseparable from had become infamous as an image of greedy bankers’ immoral and high-risk banking practices. Both went bankrupt in the financial crisis with huge debts. Thus, the role as the local “gate of possibilities” and intentions of doing business in the public interest remained only as bitter-sweet memories. In the paper, I use a case study of ebh to discuss what in the corporate philanthropy literature has been called the profit-altruism question. Concretely, I show how even in this extreme case the intentions of working for the common good cannot just be written off as deception or social-washing. Instead, ebh’s dual identity as risk-taking fast-growing niche bank and local benefactor had historical roots in a tension between cognitive frames emphasising nonprofit aims and growth respectively, in an unclear legislative framework, and in a traditional way of organizing based on high trust between locals. The board members were trusted locals with local rather than financial knowledge. With outset in Jens Beckert’s definition of fields as reciprocal influences between cognitive frames, social networks, and institutions, I interpret the problems in ebh as caused by a merger of fields. On the one hand, an old ‘savings bank field’ based on local networks, legislation emphasising risk-averse banking, and a perception of savings banks as philanthropic gift-giving organisations. On the other hand, a ‘neoliberal banking field’ characterized by deregulation, innovative bank managers, and a survival of the fittest narrative emphasising growth and profit.

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2023 Detroit, MI, United States

"The Can War – Everyday Business History from the Perspective of the Aluminium Container"

Abstract:

Aluminium cans for beverages are everywhere: in the refrigerator, on the shop shelfs as well as on the streets as litter and as slag in incinerators. Their environmental impact is huge. Yet, we tend to forget that our current can practices are the result of complex socio-historical processes, involving many different ‘sites’ and scales in a larger infrastructural recycling system. In my paper, I use the history of aluminium cans for beverages in Denmark to illustrate the explanatory power of a business history with a focus on everyday objects. My purpose is twofold: First, I want to add to a can historiography largely focused on the US and highlight differences between countries. Second, I show the benefits of business history that takes taken-for-granted ‘non-objects’ seriously and explores the historical processes that created our everyday practices. Concretely, I focus on the so-called Can War fought between the European Community and Denmark from the mid-1980s to 2002, a war that nicely demonstrates the intertwined nature of materials, politics, infrastructures, perceptions and practices. The war started with complaints from producers of beverages and containers that a Danish ban on metal cans for beverages was a technical trade barrier. However, others emphasised environmental concerns, litter problems as well as a world leading deposit system for glass bottles. When Denmark lost the political struggle, the defeat kick-started the development of a new return system run by a non-profit organisation formed by the breweries in cooperation with the larger supermarkets. By analysing the Can War, my paper traces the entanglement of the metal industry, breweries, supermarkets, the recycling business, legislation, life cycle assessments, consumers, recycling technologies etc. in order to understand our current use of aluminium cans and wasting practices as the outcome of a historical process.

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2022 Mexico City

"Creating the Local"

Abstract:

In this paper, I look into how savings banks and savings banks foundations have contributed to the creation of the local. The central argument is that these institutions have contributed to the creation of economic, social, and physical capital locally and thereby to the creation of the local as both place, network, and emotions (sense of belonging). However, the form, content and impact have changed profoundly over time. With an emphasis on the period 1960-2010, I focus on how the economic, cultural, and social role of the savings banks and savings banks foundations has changed in the context of industrialisation, urbanisation, centralisation – and financialisation. Historically, savings banks have perceived and branded themselves as the local communities’ institutes in opposition to commercial banks. However, in his analysis of narratives and organisational change in savings banks, Per H. Hansen found that the important distinction was no longer between savings banks and commercials banks in the beginning of the 1990s. It had become between small banks and large banks. After many mergers, the semantic struggle was about the meaning of the concept of the local. It was about being “most local” (Hansen 2007). Where Hansen focuses on the struggle as a semantic one, this paper explores how the activities of savings banks and savings banks foundations materialised on the local level and created the local in both a semantic and a material sense. I do this by using a micro historical approach zooming in on selected localities in Denmark and analysing the activities (doings and sayings) of savings banks and savings banks foundations. Among other things, these activities have included lending to local businesses, shifting branch office politics, governance structures including local guarantors, and gift-giving to local associations and facilities from sport centres to defibrillators. Hansen, Per H. 2007. “Organizational Culture and Organizational Change: The Transformation of Savings Banks in Denmark, 1965-1990.” Enterprise and Society 8 (4): 920–53. https://doi.org/10.1093/es/khm071.

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