Industrial transformation in Austria, Norway and Sweden

The pursuit of industrial success or international competitiveness has become a principal policy goal for governments and industries in the advanced countries. It has become a topic for analysis in the fields of management and public policy (Porter 1990; Thurow 1992) and has provoked some concerned reactions from within the discipline of economics (Krugman 1994). The concept of competitiveness raises concerns amongst the neo-classical economists because it implies the need to capture market share in industries that will result in expanding domestic incomes in the form of higher wages and profits. It goes beyond the need to achieve efficiency or productivity in industries in which a nation has a natural advantage (Reinert 1995). In contravention of neo-classical thought, the concept of competitiveness implies that some industries are more important for national economic prosperity than others, suggesting that it is desirable to build industrial capacity in key (usually medium and high value-added manufacturing) industries (Kitsch and Michie 1996). The debate about competitiveness has focused attention on the role of the state in influencing industry structure and industrial transformation (Weiss 1998)