CALENDAR 2009
Hundra år av utbildning och forskning
The book is available only in Swedish.
Hundra år av utbildning och forskning freely translated "One Hundred Years of Education and Research", Swedish School of Economics 1909 - 2009 Susanna Fellman & Annette Forsén, (red).
Account of Hanken’s First 100 years
The project to write Hanken’s 100th anniversary historical account began in spring 2007. The history is being written by a research team of highly qualified historians led by Susanna Fellman, an assistant professor in economic history at the University of Helsinki. The other historians in her team are Annette Forsén and Dr Mika Helander. The book will contain some 250 pages including appendices and photographs. It will be published in 2009 during Hanken’s 100th anniversary.
Anna Fellman
The angle of approach is thematic, not chronological. This is quite a common approach among historians today, says Susanna Fellman. The historical account deals with the whole 100 year period even if it focuses on the more recent decades. Susanna Fellman points out that even though the history is a commissioned work, the team is writing a solid historical production. The history will contain a bibliography, footnotes and references. According to Susanna Fellman, quite a lot has been written around the world about business schools. Ten years ago, ‘Americanisation’ and the introduction of the business school model in Europe were hot topics within history research.
Hanken was founded in 1909 as Högre Svenska Handelsläroverket in 1909, two years before the founding of the Helsinki School of Economics. Hanken became a university in 1927. According to Susanna Fellman, Finland was not slow in establishing business schools. Stockholm School of Economics was founded in 1909 and American and German business schools were founded in the late 1800s. Great Britain did not have institutions offering higher education in business before the 1960s. – This is why it was easy for the American model to become popular in Great Britain, she says.
According to Susanna Fellman, there was a clear difference between American and European business school traditions before the Second World War. In the US, business schools trained more narrowly focused experts for the demands of business life. After the Second World War, the American model started to win ground in Europe. This was due to several factors: the cold war, the Marshall (aid) Plan and a willingness to abandon antiquated methods. Initially this trend only reached Finland to a minor extent. But there were people who visited the US and observed the trends over there. As examples, Fellman mentions Lars Wahlbeck, who was a doctoral student at Hanken in the 1950s and later became its rector, as well as Henrik Virkkunen who later became rector of the Helsinki School of Economics.