Carina Gråbacke
Programme Supervisor
Department of Business AdministrationAbout Carina Gråbacke
The interaction between economic development and institutional change is the basis of my research, which focuses on entrepreneurship and business in Sweden during the 20th century. In my dissertation, I studied how trade unions act when confronted with the consequences of innovations in their own sector of the economy. The labor movement in Sweden has (had?) a very strong influence on how institutions are designed and the movement is thus a central actor in studying business history. I have also studied the firms that the labor movement in Sweden established in the first half of the 20th century, which resulted in the book När folket tog semester [When the people went on holiday] (2008). The basic research questions revolves around corporate governance and strategic direction of firms that has other goals than to make profit, and a conclusion is that this creates major control and evaluation problems.
On behalf of the trade union IF Metall, I have written about the Swedish mining, metal and engineering industry, a project that spanned nearly a decade and covers the period from the late 1950s to the present. Another branch of industry which I have studied close is the Swedish textile and clothing industry. Within the framework of a project, funded by Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg Foundations, I have studied the role of fashion in the process that led to that Sweden today has no clothing industry. On a more general level, it is a concrete example of the growth of the knowledge economy and the shift from manufacturing to services production, a process that I analyze in the book Kläder, shopping och flärd [Clothing, shopping and frivolity] (2015).
Currently, I work almost exclusively with education matters, especially in my role as responsible for the Bachelor Program in Business and Economics.
Research areas
- Business history, Fashion studies
Teaching areas
- Development of the fashion industry and fashion consumption
Selected publications
Kläder, shopping och flärd. Modebranschen i Stockholm 1945-2010
Gråbacke, Carina
När folket tog semester. Studier av Reso 1937-77
Gråbacke, Carina
Appropriate reactions to globalisation? Interest group theory and trade associations in clothing between 1970 and 2000 a comparison between Denmark and Sweden
Jensen, K., Gråbacke, Carina
Business History, 55:2, s. 215-235, 2013
Teknisk förändring och internationalisering: metall- och verkstadsindustrin under de gyllene åren och 1970-talskrisen
Gråbacke, Carina
Det lyser en framtid: Svenska metallindustriarbetareförbundet 1957-1981, Stockholm : IF Metall, s. 30-255, 2008