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This article examines the trajectory of Swedish battery producer Northvolt in order to critically assess strategic coupling processes within global production networks (GPNs) in light of large ‘green’ investments in Europe. Drawing upon a longitudinal case study of Northvolt's establishment, expansion, and bankruptcy between 2016 and March 2025, the paper explores the interplay between firm agency, industrial policy, and regional development aspirations. We show that, while regional actors in Skellefteå sought to leverage Northvolt's investment to support long-term upgrading, the coupling was largely structural, driven by firm-specific requirements and supranational policy incentives. The case highlights the limits of regional agency within asymmetric scalar configurations challenging overly optimistic interpretations of proactive regional development strategies. We draw upon the GPN literature and argue that strategic coupling and agency for development must be understood through multi-scalar power relations and institutional embeddedness within the global economy. Based on this case of a European battery firm, the article concludes by discussing broader regional challenges related to attracting and managing investments in geo-strategically important technologies.

This chapter analyzes the reaction and strategies of the automobile industry and its global federation, the Bureau Permanent International des Constructeurs d’Automobiles (BPICA), to the convening of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Motor Vehicle Seminar, held in October 1976 in Paris. BPICA had since the late 1950s organized its members (national automobile industry associations) to lobby for harmonized technical rules within the UN Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), arguing for the importance of integrating European markets by avoiding raising barriers to trade through dissimilar national regulations. In conversation with literature on business’ role in reshaping global environmental governance, this chapter uses the UNEP seminar as a lens for understanding how the global car industry interpreted the polycrisis facing Western political and business systems in the 1970s, and how it organized transnationally to influence regulatory development on national and international scales. Drawing on fresh archival records, this chapter argues that BPICA and its national automobile industry association members used the UNEP seminar to assist their members in shaping national regulations in the wake of the energy crisis. While the UNEP seminar was thus useful for the automobile industry, it did not fulfill its original objective of limiting the environmental impact of the automobile industry.

This research note contains the third update of the research program “A promised land? Drivers, challenges and opportunities related to the (green) industrialization of Northern Sweden,” (nr. M22-0029) awarded by the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond’s in 2022. The document summarizes work in progress and is updated annually in different versions according to the requirements of the program. 

This interdisciplinary program aims to understand the economic, social, and political challenges and opportunities of the ongoing industrial transformation in northern Sweden. A key element of the program is to identify drivers, obstacles, and preconditions in a historical, present, and forward-looking process-perspective. 

In the second half of the twentieth century, the car industry became a lightning rod for debates about human contributions to climate change. Widespread motorisation galvanised the green movements of the 1960s and 1970s, regulators increasingly demanded the use of pollution and climate mitigation technologies, and carmakers responded to this changing consumer and regulatory environment by gradually observing stricter emissions standards and innovating away from combustible engines at the turn of the millennium. This chapter traces the arc of the relationship between car manufacturing and climate change through a business historical lens, from the development of internal combustion engines and their alternatives to the political economy of an energy transition and the decision to prioritise electric vehicles. This analysis aims to lay a foundation for further historical research on car manufacturing and climate change.

Denna studie undersöker framväxten av miljöavgifter och skatter som styrmedel i Sverige, 1963 till 1990. Studien undersöker de aktörer som varit mest tongivande för att motivera introduktionen av nya styrmedel på miljöområdet och diskuterar de bakomliggande skälen.

This research note contains an update of the research program “A promised land? Drivers, challenges and opportunities related to the (green) industrialization of Northern Sweden,” (nr. M22-0029) awarded by the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond’s in 2022. The document summarizes work in progress and is updated annually in different versions according to the requirements of the program. 

This interdisciplinary program aims to understand the economic, social, and political challenges and opportunities of the ongoing industrial transformation in northern Sweden. A key element of the program is to identify drivers, obstacles, and preconditions in a historical, present, and forward-looking process-perspective. 

Northvolt är i kris och olyckskorparna flockas. Det säkra i sammanhanget är att inta en pessimistisk hållning. Men, om vi lyfter blicken ochser Northvolt som det företaget de facto är – en del i den europeiskabilindustrins omställning – finns det skäl att våga sig på en meroptimistisk hållning, skriver ekonomihistorikern Mattias Näsman

In the second half of the twentieth century, the car industrybecame a lightning rod for debates about human contributions to climatechange. Widespread motorisation galvanised the green movements of the1960s and 1970s, regulators increasingly demanded the use of pollutionand climate mitigation technologies, and carmakers responded to thischanging consumer and regulatory environment by gradually observingstricter emissions standards and innovating away from combustible enginesat the turn of the millennium. This paper traces the arc of the relationshipbetween car manufacturing and climate change through a businesshistorical lens, from the development of internal combustion engines andtheir alternatives to the political economy of an energy transition and thedecision to prioritise electric vehicles. Our analysis aims to lay a foundationfor further research on industry and climate change.

This document lays out the background for the research program “A promised land? Drivers, challenges and opportunities related to the (green) industrialization of Northern Sweden,” (nr. M22-0029) awarded by the Swedish Riksbankens Jubileumsfond’s in 2022. The document summarizes work in progress and may therefore be updated and republished in different versions according to the requirements of the program. 

This interdisciplinary program aims to understand the economic, social, and political challenges and opportunities of the ongoing industrial transformation in northern Sweden. A key element of the program is to identify drivers, obstacles, and preconditions in a historical, present, and forward-looking process-perspective. 

Although the automobile industry has served as the backbone of much business history scholarship, business historians have paid little attention to this industry’s actions concerning the complex of environmental issues that took hold in the 1960s. Volvo represents a captivating case study to gain insight into why the automobile industry’s growth has been difficult to align with the shift toward environmental sustainability. Although Volvo pioneered the exhaust emission control technology on the U.S. market in the 1970s and gained an international reputation for high environmental and safety standards in the decades that followed, the company was unable to seriously address climate change in the 1990s. This article identifies several key factors impacting the automobile industry’s passive response to environmental challenges - for instance, weak and asymmetric emission control regulations on international markets, consumer preferences for larger cars (SUVs) in the 1990s, and a lack of systematic regulatory pressure to shift from fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine. In the case of Volvo, world leadership in safety standards, rather than low carbon emissions, constituted the company’s competitive advantage as climate change emerged as one of the most critical environmental issues in the 1990s.