Norwegian School of Economics

NHH, in English sometimes also referred to as the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration, was founded in 1936. NHH is an acronym for Norges Handelshøyskole. Ever since its foundation, it has been a bastion of higher education in economics and business administration in Norway.

Norges Handelshøyskole

NHH Seal

Established	1936
School type	Public University
Rector	Per Ivar Gjærum
Location	Bergen, Norway
Enrollment	2800
Faculty	300
Website	www.nhh.no

History

NHH has changed much since it was first conceived over 100 years ago. Norway's first business school is now part of a global network comprising some of the world's leading institutions for the research and teaching of economics and business administration. This has been achieved over the last 100 years, with much work done to establish a Norwegian school of business in Bergen before the doors opened in 1936.

1900-1936: Establishing a business school in Norway

The business communities in Oslo and Bergen began discussing the establishment of a Norwegian school of business at the end of the 19th century. A number of business schools had been established across Europe and during the early 20th century several business schools were established in Scandinavia based on model of the German handelshochschule (business school). Amongst them, the Stockholm School of Economics and the Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration (Hanken) in Helsinki were both established in 1909, followed by the Helsinki School of Economics in 1911 and Copenhagen Business School in 1917. In 1917 Norway's parliament (the Storting) passed a resolution to establish an institution for higher education and research based on the German handelshochschule (business school) model.

In anticipation of the establishment of a private school, Foreningen for NHH i Bergen raised a large amount of funds from the business community in the city to cover the cost of building and setting up the new business school. A large piece of land outside the city centre was donated by local ship owner Haakon J. Wallem at Breiviken as a ___location for the new school in 1918 and architect Bredo Greve won a competition in 1922 with his design for the new school, but the plans had to be shelved after site work had begun due to the difficult economic times in Norway. Instead the former house of Bergen businessman Thorolf Sudt was bought and the new school was to be located in the refurbished city centre buildings near to Bergen Museum (the natural history museum), in what is now the heart of the University of Bergen campus. Ironically it was to the Breiviken site that NHH would move in 1963 when it out grew the original premises.

1936-1963: NHH opens and sets to work

After much lobbying and hard work, Norges Handelshøyskole (NHH - the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration) was finally opened by King Haakon VII on Monday the 7th of September, 1936. This was 10 years before the University of Bergen was established. The strong involvement of the business community in Bergen had ensured that not only was the school established, but that it was established in Bergen and was closely linked to business community from the very start.

In his opening speech at the inauguration of NHH in 1936 Kristofer Lehmkuhl impressed on the students the importance of business ethics and morals. "It is not unusual", he said, "to hear merchants characterised as unnecessary intermediaries and as a class of people with different concepts of right and wrong. In view of my long and varied experience, I feel I have the right to say that the world cannot dispense with merchants; furthermore the morals, the concepts of honesty, uprightness and the duty of the merchant world are more than equal to those of other groups of people. This is only natural. Trade can only flourish in openness and honesty. A merchant is a man of his word, whether written or oral."

When NHH first opened, the academic staff consisted of less than ten people and sixty students were enrolled each year. The first degree course offered was the Handelsdiplom (business diploma) and graduates received the title Handelskandidat (business graduate). This was initially a two-year course and, starting in 1938, a one-year additional course was offered to candidates who wanted to become teachers. As with all the business schools in Scandinavia at the time, the curriculum was very influenced by the German business education model. Business administration and economics were central to the curriculum, and in addition students had to study a language (English, German and French were taught, from the beginning and Spanish from 1952) and to study one of law, economic geography or economic history. In 1946 the Handelsdiplom course was extended to three years.

After the Second World War, American influence became more important in the teaching of economics and business administration. Graduates and staff began to go to the US to continue their studies and work for a period, a trend that greatly increased in the 1960's and 1970's. By the early 1950's the need for a doctorial programme at NHH had grown. In 1956 NHH received permission from the Norwegian government to award doctorates and in 1957 the first doctorial candidate graduated from NHH.

1963-1980: A new campus and rapid growth

By the late 1950's NHH had outgrown its original premises and work began on developing a new campus for NHH at Breiviken, just outside the city centre. In 1963 the school moved to the new campus, an event which in many ways marked the transition to a new period which was characterised by a rapid increase in the number of students as well as teachers. The new campus provided a huge increase in capacity and the annual intake of students increased from 60 to over 200. In total there were now 304 students and 67 staff.

An important feature of this period was the growth and development of the faculty. The new facilities made it possible to employ many new, talented people and the importance of research as well as teaching was strengthened. Many successful graduates went to the US to study for doctorates and came back to NHH with international experience and a more research based focus. Many faculty members took advantage of sabbaticals to study and continue their research overseas, many textbooks were published and the volume of publications in international journals increased significantly. A driving force behind this expansion and internationalisation of research was Professor Karl Borch.

Foreningnen for NHH i Bergen helped facilitate this boom in research with significant contributions to the costs involved in attending conferences and seminars and in taking overseas sabbaticals. It was during this time that Professor Jan Mossin's seminal paper "Equilibrium in a Capital Asset Market" was published in Econometrica, contributing significantly to the development of the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), and that Nobel laureate Finn E. Kydland went from NHH to Carnegie Mellon in the US to study for his doctorate. Most of the US educated doctoral graduates came back to NHH to teach and continue their research, but some stayed in the US and a few (like Kydland) returned to NHH only to later go back to the US to continue their work.

As the faculty grew and developed so did the academic offerings, with several advanced level courses established. In 1963 the name of the Handelsdiplom degree was changed to siviløkonom, with graduate receiving the same title. A master level programme, Høyere avdelingstudium (HAS), was introduced in 1972 as a preparation for siviløkonom students wishing to continue on to doctorial studies; and in 1973 Professor Dag Coward established a master level programme for students wishing to specialise in auditing, accounting and the financial management of firms, the Høyere revisorstudium (HRS). In 1975 the siviløkonom degree course was extended to a four-year programme.

As well as continuing to develop the education programmes offered to students, research has remained a central part of NHH. In 1973 Senter for anvedt forskning (SAF - Centre for Applied Research) was established and in 1975 Industriøkonomisk institutt (IØI - Institute of Industrial Economics, subsequently the Institute of Business Economics) was established as a research unit under the Ministry of Industry.

The 1960's and 1970's were an active time for NHHS. As with much of the western world, politics became an important part of student life at NHH, but the students also continued their focus on social and networking activities. The new premises provided much more space for the development of student activities, with many new groups being established and the new Klubben in the basement becoming the social hub for student life. In 1963 one of the distinctive features of today's NHHS was established, the brass band Direksjonsmusikken.

The on-campus Hatleberg student accommodation opened in 1964, making it much more convenient for students to live, work and socialise together on campus and strengthening the sense of community amongst NHH students. By 1973 the number of students had increased to 945, with 174 members of staff. NHH was already beginning to expand beyond the new building by 1975, and NHH started to take over space in the Merino building, a disused building next to the campus.

1980-2000: Specialisation and international expansion

In the early 1980s it was realised that the doctorial programme required updating and a new, structured PhD programme was introduced involving taught courses in addition to the research and writing of a thesis. This new PhD programme continued the focus on research at NHH, rather than just teaching. The first candidate to graduate from the new PhD programme did so in 1985 and the annual production of candidates increased from 1 in 1985 to 12 in 1990.

The focus on expansion and internationalisation of research was recognised in 1984 as NHH was ranked 7th globally and 3rd in Europe in the American Economic Review amongst economics schools or departments in non-English speaking countries by publications in leading journals.

In 1984 SAF became organised as a separate research foundation and in 1986 the Centre for International Business (CIB) was founded in 1986. SAF, IØI and CIB were amalgamated into one research foundation, Samfunns- og næringslivsforskning (SNF - The Institute for Research in Economics and Business Administration) in 1991, and joined the NHH group as a market-based research organisation.

During this period, close relations with international research environments were also established. The international activities at the school have increased considerably and the international focus has become stronger over the years. In 1984 NHH established their first international exchange agreement with the Stockholm School of Economics, and in 1986 NHH became the first institution in Norway to offer a master degree programme taught entirely in English - the Master of International Business (MIB). Following this, greater emphasis has been placed on exchange arrangements for students, and the school joined the prestigious Community of European Management Schools (CEMS) and the ERASMUS programme in 1992 and the global Partnership in International Management (PIM) network in 1995. With the expansion of international activities, the International Office was established in 1993 to manage NHH's international relationships.

The changed political situation in Central and Eastern Europe following the fall of the Berlin wall opened up new international opportunities for NHH. In partnership with London Business School, HEC School of Management and Warsaw University of Technology (WUT), NHH established the Warsaw University of Technology Business School (WUTBS) in 1992. This was followed in 1995 by the establishment of the Nordic-Russian Leadership Executive Training programme (NORLET) in partnership with St Petersburg State University School of Management and the other Nordic CEMS partners. This was further developed with the formation of the North-European Business School Educational Network (NEBSEN) by the same partners in 1999 and the establishment of a two year master programme in International Business at St Petersburg State University. In the same year NHH established the Baltic Management Institute (BMI) in partnership with Copenhagen Business School, HEC School of Management, Louvain School of Management and Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania to offer an International EMBA programme.

The 1980's and 1990's also provided new developments and growth for NHHS. In 1980 the first UKEN was organised, a three week music festival that has now grown into the second largest festival in Western Norway. This was built on the traditional 'studenteruken' or students week dating back to 1946 when the students at NHH organised a week long revue, and is now organised every second year. The musical activities in NHHS saw the arrival of the all-female choir Sangria and the mixed choir Optimum in 1980 and Big Business Band in 1984. The business involvement at NHHS deepened in 1983 when the first Næringslivssymposiet (the Scandinavian Management Symposium), or Symposiet for short, was organised by students. This conference was inspired by, amongst others, the Management Symposium organised by University of St Gallen since 1971. Symposiet brought together leading speakers from the business, politics and research sectors to discuss themes of importance to the business community and public sector in Norway.

Adult and continuing education at NHH received a major boost with the launch of the Autorisert FinasAnalytikerstudium (AFA - Authorised Financial Analyst) executive master programme in partnership with Norske Finansanalytikeres Forening (NFF - Norwegian association of financial analysts) in 1989. This was followed in 1993 with the executive Master in Technology Management (MTM) in partnership with the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), and in 1994 with the executive Master programme in Management Control (MØST).

In 1996 NHH established its first Executive MBA programme, with a specialisation in Strategic Management (MASTRA). This programme was established as a natural development and extension of the work that NHHK had been doing since the late 1950's in promoting both further and continuing education. The two year part-time EMBA programme was a success and further specialisations were added in later years. These programmes were built on the academic competences of NHH combined with the experience gained from running part-time, specialised courses for people in business and public administration who were not able to take a full time course of study, but still had the desire to learn.

Student and staff numbers continued to rise throughout the 1980's and 1990's. By 1985 there were 1670 students and 198 members of staff in total. The continued growth lead to NHH gradually taking over all of the Merino building and in 1995 the Service building was opened, providing new library, IT and study facilities as well as a book shop, canteen and offices.

2000-present: Continued growth and development into the 21st Century

NHH continues to grow and develop. In 2001 the school received accreditation from the European Quality Improvement System (EQUIS) and in 2002 NHH joined its CEMS partners to launch the CEMS Master in International Management (MIM).

The Siviløkonom qualification was extended to 5 years in 2003. In line with the Bologna declaration, it now comprises a 3 year Bachelor of Science in Economics and Business Administration combined with a 2 year Master of Science in Economics and Business Administration. The facilities at NHH have been further improved with the opening of Lehmkuhlhallen in 2001, providing new on-campus sports facilities for students and staff.

The portfolio of executive programmes has also been expanded, with the addition of an EMBA in Economic Policy and Administration in 2000 and an EMBA in Brand Management in 2002.

NHH alumnus and Adjunct Professor Finn E. Kydland was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2004, together with Professor Edward C. Prescott of Arizona State University. Kydland was giving a lecture at NHH when news of the award arrived.

In 2005 the Financial Times ranked the MSc programme at NHH amongst the top 20 European Masters in Management programmes, and the school was rated Best for Economics and 4th for Finance in the Financial Times survey of alumni.

Today, NHH comprises over 2,700 full time students and a total staff of over 330, and the school co-operates closely with the foundations AFF and SNF. Together, NHH and its associated foundations constitute a major academic and organisational entity with more than 470 employees, and they are the leading centre of competence for economics and business administration in Norway.