 
 Scancor was created as an institutional arrangement to sustain international research on organizations and leadership. The original director was Professor James G. March of Stanford University, who engaged in a fruitful collaboration with Scandinavian scholars in the field of organizations throughout the 1970s and 80s. In 1988, it was decided to formalize this informal collaborative relationship by creating Scancor.
The research and teaching agenda of the Scandinavian Consortium was shaped by the trends in organizational research at the time; notably, embeddedness in societies and environments, experiential learning and adaptation in organizations, the ways in which development of symbols and beliefs in organizations affect organizational action, and the examination of alternatives to simple rationality in organizations when goals are ambiguous and unstable. These trends, in conjunction with important changes in modern society such as internationalization, information technology, and the growth and increased complexity of organizations, were the original basis for making an effort to create a new framework in which a comparative and cross-national perspective were of prime importance. The goal was to stimulate development of joint research and teaching programs, exchange of scholars, teachers and students, and organization of international seminars and workshops. Also of prime importance was the exchange of information on developments in organizational research and management.
Scancor formally opened on 10 March 1989. Since its inception, close to 450 visiting scholars have made extended visits to Stanford and many more have had briefer contact with each other and with their American colleagues through Scancor seminars in Scandinavia. Scancor, as an institution, has been the home for the production of countless books, special issues of journals, articles and dissertations; even a few marriages have resulted from this aura of collaboration.
Woody Powell became the director of Scancor in 1999 and navigated the organization into the new century, strengthening Scancor in the Stanford academic community, organizing an annual PhD workshop for Scandinavian students with Stanford faculty, and developing a program of annual research conferences that bring together researchers from Europe and North America. Recent conferences have focused on topics of corporate governance, institutional change, the knowledge society, and distributed innovation.
Scancor attempts to be a bridge between Nordic and American research styles, helping to enhance cross-fertilization. Scancor is a very informal place: Jim March said in 1989, Scancor is “a state of mind more than an institution, a mélange of spirits more than a clear vision."
Behind the creation of Scancor in 1988 were 7 Scandinavian Universities and Business Schools:
- Copenhagen Business School
- The Stockholm School of Economics
- Norwegian School of Economics
- University of Bergen
- The Norwegian Research Centre in Organization and Management
- Swedish School of Economics (Helsinki)
- Helsinki School of Economics
- Åbo Akademi
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