Yeast or mushrooms? Productivity patterns across Swedish manufacturing industries, 1869–1912

This article applies Harberger's yeast versus mushrooms dichotomy to Swedish manufacturing industries in the four decades prior to the First World War. The evidence, broken down to cover five sub‐periods, points to a growth process resembling that of mushrooms more than that of yeast. In addition, it is argued that a yeast‐like (even) pattern of productivity growth rates invites one to search for a general purpose technology at work, whereas mushroom‐like progress leads one to dismiss the idea that a small number of technologies spilled over to a large number of manufacturing processes. The era under investigation coincides with the peak of the use of steam power and the infancy of electricity. The evidence makes it unlikely that steam in Sweden was a general purpose technology with the potential to affect the progress in productivity across industries in a yeast‐like fashion. The rampant spread of electricity may have contributed to the yeast‐like pattern in the last sub‐period preceding the First World War.     

A Forum for Issues in Advertising Education

Abstract

Advertising education is an established facet of higher education. It has developed, however, along two tracks—journalism and marketing. The result has been two different approaches to the study of advertising, neither of which may be the best approach. If the best education in advertising is to be offered, then the academic community must address itself to a resolution of these differences in the approaches to the teaching of advertising. Thus, a forum to consider the problems of advertising education is suggested.     

Lessons from Sweden’s first large-scale implementation of Six Sigma in healthcare

The Skaraborg Hospital Group (SkaS) has implemented a variety of quality management initiatives in the last 20 years in accordance with its strategy of excelling at quality development to fulfill the needs and expectations of its patients. One such initiative is Six Sigma, which has contributed to more than 40 completed improvement projects. Using an action research approach, this article describes the lessons that were learned from the first 22 Six Sigma projects, completed between 2006 and 2008 and having a success rate of 75%. We further describe how these insights have contributed to other ongoing quality improvement activities at SkaS. In particular, the paper presents some key points not earlier described in other Six Sigma healthcare applications.     

Measures of similarity between distributions

Eleven criteria are suggested as suitable for measures of similarity between distributions. For seven measures it is discussed whether they satisfy these measures or not. Two measures, the proportional similarity and the Hellinger coefficient satisfy all the eleven criteria.     

Internationalization in different industrial contexts

The important questions in a firm's internationalization strategy deal with which national markets they should enter and the order in which the chosen markets should be entered. Different theoretical scenarios provide a range of answers to these questions. In this article, it is argued that the appropriateness of the theories depends on the industrial context to which it is applied. The international development of some Swedish firms in mature and high-growth industries is discussed. Whether a theory is appropriate depends on the firms' degree of internationalization and whether the industry is mature or growing. International entrepreneurship literature has been shown to enhance understanding of the early stages of a firms' internationalization in growing industries.