A Fugitive Success: Finland’s Economic Future

Professor Charles Sabel from Columbia Law School and Professor AnnaLee Saxenian from UC Berkeley argue in their book A Fugitive Success that Finland is quickly becoming a victim of its own success. In recent decades Finnish firms in the forest products and telecommunications industries have become world leaders. But the kind of discipline that made this success possible, and the public policies that furthered it, is unlikely to secure it in the future.

Efficiency improvements and incremental innovations along the current business trajectory will gradually lead these industries into a dead-end unless they use innovation as a vehicle for transforming themselves into new higher value businesses. Saxenian and Sabel raise some serious concerns about the readiness of these industries, and the Finnish innovation system as a whole, for the needed transformation.

A Fugitive Success is required reading for those involved in the development of the Finnish innovation environment and implementing the new national innovation strategy.