Sjöstrand, Sven-Erik

Contact information:
+46(0)70 299 62 97
+46-8-736 9481

Born 1945, Professor Emeritus at the Stockholm School of Economics (SSE); between 1978 and 1994 he held a Chair financed by the Swedish Confederation of Employees, and between 1994-2013 he held the Matts Carlgren Chair in Management. Sjöstrand has recruited and examined about 50 PhDs at SSE, acted as opponent at about 25 dissertations, and been on the evaluation committee for about 50 professors at universities in the Nordic countries. About 25 of his PhDs have been promoted to Associate Professors or (chaired) Professors.

Sjöstrand was a member of the board for SSE’s Economic Research Institute (EFI; Director 1977-2011; Chair 1995-2001) that organized around 250 researchers, and Head of its Centre for Management (1977-2009) that housed about 25 researchers. He continued his research leadership both as member of the board of the Stockholm School of Economics Research Institute (SIR) and as Head of its Centre for Governance and Management Studies (2010-15). His research interest was concentrated to large listed Nordic corporations, but he has also studied other kinds of (large) organizations such as unlisted family companies, state-owned corporations, cooperatives, commercial foundations, and federations, as well as organizations from the non-profit sector.

His current research addresses topics related to how corporate governance is practised, and to how the settings for corporate governance and management activities have changed during the last 50 years. These studies usually involve a global perspective, and they also often include comparisons between, on the one hand, Nordic institutional structures and processes and, on the other hand, the more influential ones in Germany, UK and US. His research is foremost based on governance and management theory, but it also includes financial, institutional and socio-economic perspectives.

Sjöstrand have held leading positions in several international research associations such as the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics and the European Association for Evolutionary and Political Economy. He has also been deeply engaged in many of the more important Swedish research foundations and member of the board at several large Swedish companies/organizations. He has for more than thirty years acted as adviser to owners, boards and CEOs of many kinds of large Nordic corporations and organizations, for example, ABB, Ahlsell, Bilia, Electrolux, Ericsson, ESAB, ICA, Iggesund, KF, LKAB, Länsförsäkringar, Länsstyrelsen i Västernorrland, MoDo, Proact IT, Samhall, SEB, Rettig Group (Finland), Åbro, Swedish Match, and Århus University (Denmark). Sjöstrand has also held positions at boards of large listed Swedish companies, as well as in private non-listed, and large state owned ones.

Sjöstrand have published books in Chinese, English, Finnish, German and Swedish (altogether more than 40 titles). His publications in English include, for example, Organizational Myths (Harper & Row, 1979), Institutional Change: Theory and Empirical Findings (M E Sharpe, 1993), On Economic Institutions — Theory and Applications (Edward Elgar, 1995), The Two Faces of Management. The Janus Factor (Thomson, 1997), Invisible Management (Thomson, 2001), Æsthetic Leadership. Managing Fields of Flow (Palgrave, 2007), Corporate Governance in Modern Financial Capitalism. Old Mutual’s Hostile Takeover of Skandia (Edward Elgar, 2010), Nordic Corporate Governance. An Extensive In-depth Study of Corporate Governance and Board Practices in 36 Large Companies (SIR 2016) and Rethinking Corporate Governance. The Forming of Operative and Financial Strategies in Global Corporations (Edward Elgar 2016).