A large central government providing numerous public services has long been a hallmark of Swedish society, which is also well-known for its pursuit of equality. Yet in the 1990s, Sweden moved away from this tradition in education, introducing market-oriented reforms that decentralized authority over public schools and encouraged competition between private and public schools. Many wondered if this approach would improve educational quality, or if it might expand inequality that Sweden has fought so hard to hold down. In The Market Comes to Education in Sweden, economists Anders Björklund, Melissa Clark, Per-Anders Edin, Peter Fredriksson, and Alan Krueger measure the impact of Sweden's bold experiment in governing and help answer the questions that societies across the globe have been debating as they try to improve their children's education. The Market Comes to Education in Sweden injects some much-needed objectivity into the heavily politicized debate about the effectiveness of educational reform. While advocates for reform herald the effectiveness of competition in improving outcomes, others suggest that the reforms will grossly increase educational inequality for young people. The authors find that increased competition did help improve students' math and language skills, but only slightly, and with no effect on the performance of foreign-born students and those with low-educated parents. They also find some signs of increasing school segregation and wider inequality in student performance, but nothing near the doomsday scenarios many feared. In fact, the authors note that the relationship between family background and school performance has hardly budged since before the reforms were enacted. The authors conclude by providing valuable recommendations for school reform, such as strengthening school evaluation criteria, which are essential for parents, students, and governments to make competent decisions regarding education. Whether or not the market-oriented reforms to Sweden's educational system succeed will have far reaching implications for other countries considering the same course of action. The Market Comes to Education in Sweden offers firm empirical answers to the questions raised by school reform and brings crucial facts to the debate over the future of schooling in countries across the world.

Neoliberalism and Market Forces in Education provides a wide perspective on the dramatic transformation of education policy in Sweden that has taken place during the last 30 years, with a specific focus on marketization. The marketization of education in Sweden is set in the wider international context of changes in education systems. With contributions from researchers across a wide range of scientific disciplines, the book provides examples of the consequences of market orientation in education in terms of increase in inequality as well as in terms of what the market orientation means for principals, teachers and students. It considers how Sweden has developed one of the most marketized education systems in the world and the possible consequences of such processes, as identified by research. Neoliberalism and Market Forces in Education will be of great interest to educational practitioners, politicians, scholars in the field, and postgraduate and research students in education.

The book provides an analysis of the grocery retail market in a very large number of countries with an international report written by an economist. The second part of the book offers the analysis of liability issues in relation to non-compliance with CSRs with an international report by a British barrister. Both topics are very timely.

As CEOs and business leaders navigate a world of complex global challenges, sustainability is no longer optional but a business imperative. In this book, two sustainability leaders with decades of experience – Henrik Henriksson, CEO of Scania and Elaine Weidman Grunewald, Co-founder of the AI Sustainability Center, and former Chief Sustainability & Public Affairs Officer at Ericsson – offer a simple but powerful three-step model for leading an organization on a sustainability transformation journey that aims at big, audacious, world-changing goals. Honest about the dilemmas but bullish on the opportunities, the authors advise leaders on how to accelerate sustainability in their organizations told through a Swedish lens, where the country’s values and culture permeate the boardroom and the C-suite, bringing a unique clarity and conviction to leading with integrity. In practical insights gleaned from the authors’ own experience, the book takes leaders through the three phases of sustainability leadership: from establishing a solid foundation rooted in purpose, culture, values, principles and consistent, credible leadership, to integrating sustainability into the core business, and then to executing a vision that not only shifts the direction of the company but can change an entire industry, and even the world. Throughout the book, more than 25 interviews with other leading CEOs of Swedish companies as well as successful start-ups, investors, economists, and other experts illuminate the path to sustainability leadership from different perspectives. These are complemented by case studies describing how companies got it right – or turned themselves around after getting it very, very wrong. With this hands-on insiders’ guide, CEOs and C-suite leaders can take sustainability to the next level. This is the encouragement and inspiration business leaders need to move past incremental improvement at a time when exponential, world-changing action is more urgent than ever.

This study, originally published in 1986, examines the general characteristics of Swedish management, the relevant aspects of Swedish history and society, and explores the relationship between them. The character of Sweden’s management and industrial life is the product of wider social and cultural influence. This title will be of interest to students of economics and management.

Seventeen in a series of annual reports comparing business regulation in 190 economies, Doing Business 2020 measures aspects of regulation affecting 10 areas of everyday business activity.