Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Dynasties in the Age of Capitalism

The Lucky Sperm Club

Mature and emerging dynasties

Nordic dynasties

Missions to fulfil

Chapter 2: The Theory of Dynasty

Personal, family-based and managerial capitalism

Financial and human capital

Dynastic longings

Churchill's favourite marmalade?

Ants and grasshoppers

The good life outside the stock market

A conceptual model

Relational capital and value creation

Historichal anchor

Chapter 3: New Industry Logic

Nordic dynastic entrepreneurship in the nineteenth century

Merchant houses

Banking and the bourgeoisie

Inter-war dynasties

Entrepreneurship in the countryside of Jutland

Post-war dynasties

Society modernizes

Family-based retailers

Into the digital revolution

Countryside origins

Chapter 4: Strategy, Structure and Dynamics

Stick to what you know, or not

A structural evolutionary pattern

Conglomerates – a blind alley

Business groups

Bonnier – back to basics

The u-turn of Lego

Too much tradition kills

In the wrong industry at the wrong time

Continuity and discontinuity with historical roots

Chapter 5: Values and Credos

Servant of the people – Kamprad’s will

Renewal and the national interest – the Wallenbergs

Resolute leadership

Spotlight on customers – the Perssons, Rausings and Kann Rasmussens

The devil is in the details

Winning strategies

Chapter 6: Blood is Everything – Succession

Family do or die

Lonely spouses and cracks in the glass ceiling

Changing role of women

Shaky promises for the future

Sibling rivalry

A two-man show, or maybe not

The extended family

Sons-in-law and trials by fire

Culture of leadership

Frictionless succession

Passive owners without day-to-day management duties

Kinship triumphs

Chapter 7: Business, Politics and Culture

Political effort and conservative resistance

To ease the tax burdens

Welfare system alliances

A long tradition of mutual benefit

Give and take – a question of culture

Chapter 8: Conclusion

The weight of tradition

The future of dynasties – local is global

About the Author

Hans Sjögren is a professor at Linköping University and Stockholm School of Economics, Sweden.