Driving innovation in society - the Swedish context

Most countries, most organizations, and most leaders want to foster a culture of innovation, but this is easier theoretically said than practically done. The magic and love for entrepreneurship and experimentation must be there. These two conditions are indeed met in the Swedish context, and one can easily observe it when casting a glance at the country’s business landscape: one which has given birth to Spotify, H&M, Klarna and IKEA. After all, rankings such as Bloomberg’s innovation index ranks Sweden as one of the world’s 10 most innovative countries.

It is for these reasons that this intensive program is focused on the innovative Swedish context. Theory and practice are here intertwined and consistently integrated to a meaningful whole with internationally renowned faculty taking students to an exciting journey to the world of innovation and business venturing. Specifically, the program will introduce participants to how innovation takes place in a range of sectors in international business. With the help of scholars at the research frontier and study visits to successful startups and leading established multinational corporations, participants will be given the opportunity to reach deeper insight into contemporarily pressing issues in regard to:

• Innovation in finance
• Innovation in transportation
• Business transformation in large firms
• Social innovation
• Gender equality as driver of innovation and societal progress
• Innovation in family firms
• New venture creation

Sweden is a member of the EU and an especially suitable location for this type of program, as the country is a small open economy forced to respond to changes in the political and business environment. The country is also home to a disproportionate number of large, successful multinational corporations and startups according to the OECD. Stockholm produces the second-highest number of billion-dollar tech companies per capita, after Silicon Valley. The links with the USA have, especially in the post-war era, been strong and many prominent Swedish engineers, founders of corporations, managers, and scholars have been educated in and inspired by the US. The limited home market for Swedish firms has also required an international outlook when establishing, growing and developing businesses.