Private Policies and the Autonomy of Enterprise: Danish Local and National Industrial Policy

Three historical stages in the organization of the firm as well as in its relations to its environment are identified. The discursive and institutional context of private policymaking that has developed in Denmark at the local and national level are described. The development of a new institutional environment for private enterprise is presented, and ways in which firms and industries have reorganized are demonstrated. The structural effects of private policymaking are outlined in terms of the decentered firm and in terms of the complex redefinition of the autonomy of business firms in the recoupling of firms to their institutional environment. The institutional principles to which private enterprise is constituted in a negotiated economy are discussed.