New ventures are rather often founded by more than one person. Still, we do not know much about how these venture teams are formed, develop and finally dissolve. The manner in which the venture team roles develop when there is more than one owner is also a neglected area in the entrepreneurship research. It is argued in this thesis that the most prolific way of studying the venture team process and the venture team roles process is in relation to the innovation process. The over-all aim of this thesis is to explore what kinds of theoretical, conceptual, empirical and methodological insights are achieved by studying innovation processes in new ventures in a transformative institutional context, from the team-level of analysis. The empirical materials are a pilot-case (Tetra Pak) and an in-depth extended case-study from the publishing sector in Poland (Proszynski i S-ka, from 1985 to 2003). The method used in the thesis is a retrospective process approach with a phasic analysis of the polyphonical narratives of the experiences of key persons as well as data from archives. In the final analysis, a number of propositions are presented that relate to how the venture team process and the venture team roles process develop over extended time periods and in relation to the innovation process. The conclusions are that the team as a level of analysis helps us to theoretically understand and explain phenomena such as periods of divergence in the innovation process; the process of social commitments in the venture team; and how a venture team develops over time to a balanced and experienced expert leadership team. Methodologically, it is claimed that the polyphonical data collection gives more comprehensive, valid and reliable measurements of the innovation process. Finally, this thesis contributes with a story of the transformation of the Polish society and economy described in an unusual way via employing the team as a level of analysis.

Financial crises occur at regular and unpredictable moments in capitalist economies. However, an absence of shared theoretical approaches to and even definitions of the subject still plague the analysis of financial crises. This situation makes historical analysis even more important. This article compares two Swedish financial crises, one in the 1920s and the other in the 1930s. The comparison shows that despite their temporal and spatial proximity, the crises seemed to have had quite different underlying causes, links to international circumstances, severity, and government responses. The 1920s crisis in Sweden was for instance much deeper than the crisis in the 1930s, a marked contrast to the experience of most countries during these two periods. In focusing on the driving forces behind the crises, their development and governmental policies, the article also provides an opportunity to reflect on both financial crisis theories, on the current crisis and on recent historical research concerning crises.

This paper investigates the dynamics of FDIs in the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) by applying the Poisson Pseudo-Maximum Likelihood estimation method on a gravity model. In particular, we analyze the influence of macro and spatial factors on investment stock changes and discuss whether the origin of these investments and the 2004 EU enlargement have had any effects on BSR FDIs.

Our results suggest that EU enlargement has been significant for FDI activity in the region, and that FDI is basically a regional issue as it tends to be bilateral within the region. However, the same results also suggest that geographic distance is not a significant factor. We conclude that while being traditional in nature, the BSR FDI pattern is undergoing changes towards a lesser degree of geographic bias.

At the end of the twentieth century, the global diffusion of one important financial service, insurance, was encouraged by deregulation, but it also encountered difficulties where deregulation remained incomplete and where there were many nonregulatory barriers to entry. International insurance was already well developed before 1914. The growth in the global insurance trade, however, occurred against a background of increasing national regulation and fiscal burdens in many countries, making international business affordable only for the largest companies with the deepest reserves. This paper offers some preliminary estimates of the extent of the international insurance trade during the half-century before the First World War, and assesses the impact of national regulatory regimes and nonregulatory factors on the development of this business. The analysis is placed within the framework of modern theories of regulation and multinational enterprise.