Örjan Sölvell

Dr Örjan Sölvell is Professor of International Business at the Stockholm School of Economics, SSE, established in 1909 and ranked as the leading Business School in the Nordic region.

Sölvell has been active as a student, teacher and researcher at the school for four decades, and has been Director for the Institute of International Business, Dean SSE MBA, Associate Dean SSE PhD and Prorector of SSE. Since 2005 he is leading a research center at SSE: the Center for Strategy and Competitiveness. The center is in charge of the Cluster Observatory in Europe.

Sölvell’s academic background includes studies at the Stockholm School of Economics (BSc -79; PhD -87), George Washington University (IB -81) and the Harvard Business School (VIS -82).

Since the mid-1980s Dr Sölvell has worked closely with Professor Michael Porter at HBS, studying competitiveness and clusters in various nations and regions. Since 2001 Dr Sölvell is Senior Associate at the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness, ISC, at HBS. In 2001/2002 Dr Sölvell acted as Visiting Professor at HBS and created a new course together with Professor Porter and Dr Ketels “Microeconomics of Competitiveness: Firms, Clusters and Economic Development” (MOC), now taught at HBS and some 80 universities around the world.

Sölvell has published in the areas of strategy, competition, competitiveness and clusters. The concept of clusters and the diamond model was introduced in Sweden through the book “Advantage Sweden” in 1991 (co-authored with Michael Porter and Ivo Zander). Together with Christian Ketels and Göran Lindqvist he published the widely acclaimed “Cluster Initiative Greenbook” in 2003, and the “Greenbook 2.0” in 2013. In 2015 he published “On Strategy and Competitiveness”. He is involved in policy work in Sweden and elsewhere, particularly in the areas of innovation, regional and cluster policy. He also serves on the advisory board of The Competitiveness Institute (TCI), and acts as Chairman for the non-profit organization Clusters Sweden.