Professorship in Business History

In 2008, the Torsten Söderberg Foundation and the Ragnar Söderberg Foundation donated SEK 40 million to the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, with the aim to establish a professorship enhancing knowledge about business and its role in economic, industrial and social transformation.

Susanna Fellman (b. 1963), received her PhD in 2001 from the University of Helsinki (HU) on a dissertation on the professionalization of business leaders. She then worked as a lecturer and researcher at HU until 2011, when she took up the professorship in Business History in Gothenburg.

Fellman main research area concerns cartels and competition policy from a historical perspective. She is currently initiating a new large project in this area. Another area of ​​research is the professionalization and modernization of corporate management and how this was seen in the companies, especially during the period from the interwar period until the 1970s.

In recent years, Fellman has also studied employers and their strategies, especially regarding welfare reforms. Fellman is also interested in methodological issues and has published articles on the archive and the writing process in business history research. Fellman has supervised a number of doctoral students and led various research projects. She has an extensive international research network and is active in the scientific community, in various expert and trust assignments.