The green challenge: Perspectives on technical and organisational challenges in Swedish industry in a changing institutional environment during the 1970’s

Abstract

This paper broadly surveys the institutional framework comprising Swedish environmental protection during the 1970s. Some preliminary conclusions are drawn concerning how this framework shaped the technical adjustment process with respect to environmental concerns at the firm level. Based on a case study of a Swedish industrial firm, the paper highlights how the Environmental Protection Act (EPA) worked in practice and illuminates some critical problems related to the process of adjusting to the legal framework at the firm level. Institutional theory and the work of Nathan Rosenberg on technological development are used in order to study the influence of the legal framework on the efforts of the company to adjust to environmental demands. The paper suggests that the Swedish system of environmental protection – based on the individual testing system in a co-operative framework – might have promoted long-term innovative and effective technical solutions, because it was consent to decentralised experimental activity. However, before firm conclusions can be drawn, comparative studies within the Swedish system and, perhaps most fruitful, between various national systems of environmental protection are needed