Reconnecting Fligstein’s and Chandler’s models of long-term organizational change, this article challenges the idea that corporate financialization is alien to the Chandlerian enterprise. Based on the case of the French automotive firm Peugeot Société Anonyme (PSA), it shows that this historical transformation has been intrinsically linked to Chandlerian dynamics. The article first highlights the crucial role played by the French government and financial institutions in the establishment of large multidivisional companies in France. It then draws on PSA, public, and private archives, and an interview with a former financial executive to examine a decisive financial restructuring of the family business in 1965. In describing the challenges faced by the business in the 1960s, the article analyzes how the creation of a multilevel structure of holding companies was meant to deal with Chandlerian challenges while paving the way for the further financialization of the business.

Objective: To study cases of screening in Austria to learn about national strategies to handle the health policy challenge of early detection of widespread diseases and about the outcome of those strategies. The article describes three healthcare interventions (mammography, PSA testing, and routine use of ultrasound in pregnancy) and the instruments of Austrian health policy that are used—with or without explicit intention—to enforce or to control the widespread use of (early) diagnoses.

Methods: Data and information collection on healthcare services, their accessibility, rate of use, expert consensus, and official regulations. For all three case studies, expert interviews were carried out with main actors.

Results: Risk-group screening is not a priority in Austrian federal health policy. Although health promotion and prevention is a national task, examinations for early detection of specific diseases (i.e., carcinoma) are left to the health insurance funds, which delegate the decision to offer early diagnoses to their contracted physicians. In this opportunistic screening, general practitioners or specialists are encouraged by their health insurance funds or motivated by professional guidelines to offer certain examinations.

Conclusions: Screening is a coordinated effort to acquire a grasp of a common disease at an early stage in a specified population. To achieve this objective, a culture of coordination and centralization has to be implemented. The collection of data is an essential element in coordination of decentralized medical interventions as much as quality control is an essential task in looking at and comparing the outcome of interventions. In the three case studies, neither of these two essential criteria were met. Evaluations and scientific evidence on the effectiveness of interventions were not used.

Objective: To describe the level of health technology assessments for three screening methods in Switzerland.

Methods: Analysis of documents and expert opinions on mammography screening, ultrasound examinations during normal pregnancy, and screening for prostate-specific antigen (PSA) with a focus on services provided, recommendations, formal regulations, national papers, projects, and formal assessments.

Results: Preventive services are explicitly recommended by the Swiss federal law on health insurance. Two routine ultrasound examinations during normal pregnancy as well as PSA analysis for men over 40 years of age on medical indication are covered by basic health insurance. Mammography screening every 2 years has been covered since 1997 for women over 50 years. A systematic screening program for mammography exists in the western part of Switzerland, and a nationwide program is planned. However, a national program may not come into being until a quality assurance program for evaluation is established, and a nationwide fee for reimbursement—to include all costs of such a program—is accepted by providers and insurers.

Conclusion: According to the Swiss health insurance law, the effectiveness of mammography screening and ultrasound examinations during normal pregnancy have to be proven. Systematic evaluation of these screening methods is in preparation. PSA is not part of current evaluation. It can be concluded that health technology assessment in Switzerland is now required by law for several medical services. However, limited financial and personnel resources as well as the lack of disease registers may hamper progress in the near future.

Objectives: To describe health technology assessment (HTA) and policies concerning three screening procedures in Sweden.

Methods: The main source of information was reports from the Swedish Council for Technology Assessment in Health Care (SBU) and other governmental reports, supplemented by the professional literature.

Results: Prevention is emphasized in the healthcare services of Sweden. Specifically, screening is encouraged and supported when it is deemed beneficial. Sweden has a strong orientation toward evidence-based health care and HTA. Since its inauguration in 1987, SBU has fostered the use of HTA in making policy and clinical decisions in Sweden. Government policy in Sweden is to encourage services that are beneficial and cost-effective and discourages services that are not. Screening is no exception to this general rule. The three cases examined in this paper—mammography screening, PSA screening, and routine ultrasound screening in pregnancy—have all been formally assessed in Sweden. Assessments have been an integral part of policy making concerning these and other preventive measures. Mammography screening has been widely implemented. However, as in other countries, screening is often carried out in an opportunistic fashion, so that PSA screening, in particular, is carried out more in Sweden than can be justified by the evidence.

Conclusions: Mammography screening is promoted and is completely available to the target group. PSA screening is discouraged, but not with complete success. Ultrasound in pregnancy is widely used, not because of good evidence of impact on mortality and morbidity among newborns, but because it increases the detection rate of congenitally malformed fetuses and because of evidence of positive effects on the management and planning of deliveries, as well as because of psychological and ethical implications of the technology. HTA is an important part of health policy making in Sweden.