138private investors. Informants often struggled to grasp the full structure of the industry. Even though all informants were asked a similar question to describe the industry and its core actors, their answers to this question differed widely. At the same time, it was striking that even though informants provided different accounts of actors and their relationships, they provided similar accounts of the activities pursued by those actors. In particular, they emphasized terms such as innovation, scaling, growth, incubation, and facilitation. Below is an example of such a description, from K., an entrepreneur and innovation manager in a publicly owned, for-profit company in southern Sweden: I was just in a meeting with Ideon Open. . .but there are numerous groups to work with.

Sustainable Business Hub and some other organizations in Malmö. And Sustainable Inno-

vation Hub, or whatever their name is. . .in Helsingborg, we have HEDGE, Helsingborg

Tech House, started just last year by a driven entrepreneur. . .they seek to create a startup

environment where you can incubate and then, later on, accelerate with angel investors. Like

a non-profit organization, run as an association. . .they collaborate with SUP24 from

Stockholm. . .don’t know if you heard about them, Sweden’s largest startup community.

They opened their first satellite office in Helsingborg. . .Other than that, you have something

called Get AI in Helsingborg. . . focus on startups but most importantly, these are four

visionary individuals that want to help other get going with applied AI. . . .we [i.e., the

organization K. is working for] have also come together with four competitors to create a

new company. A sort of incubation unit. Where we can enter unchartered territory and try to

find new ideas, services, startups, where we can co-invest, facilitate, develop. A mix of

incubation and investment. . .in Helsingborg, you also have HBG Works. A public acceler-

ator seeking to bridge the private with the public. (K. entrepreneur and innovation manager)

Recognizing this industrial fragmentation and the somewhat vague understanding of what scaling, facilitation, incubation, and so forth really meant, several informants described a lack of efficiency in the industry. As S. laconically concluded,

There are a thousand different actors and no one understands what they are doing. It all just

costs a lot of money. This is something that has been talked about, an issue that has been on

the table for a long time. But it is not as if anyone has a solution, saying “this is what we

should do about it!” (S. entrepreneurship support actor).

4.2

Entrepreneurship as a Positive Cultural Ideal

In contemporary discourse, entrepreneurship is often portrayed as a process that contributes to economic growth (Wiklund & Shepherd, 2003) or the solution to societal challenges (George et al., 2021). This perspective was shared by all Cultural Ideals in the Entrepreneurship Industry

139Table 2 Southern Sweden, a subset of actors in the Swedish Entrepreneurship Industry Actor type Actor Business Development/Financing Almi Invest Syd AB ALMI Skåne Boost Hbg Business Sweden Skåne Connect Skåne Coompanion Skåne Drivhuset Malmö Enterprise Europé Network Exportkreditnämnden Skåne Forskarpatent i Syd AB Ideon Agro food Industrifonden Innovation Skåne ABN LU Innovation Lunds NyföretagarCentrum/Lift Malmö Startups NyföretagarCenter Syd NyföretagarCenter Bromölla NyföretagarCenter Hässleholm NyföretagarCenter Kristianstad NyföretagarCenter Osby NyföretagarCenter Skåne Nordväst NyföretagarCenter Ystad Österlenregionen NyföretagarCenter Öresund SLU Holding Tillväxt Malmö Ung Företagsamhet Uppstart Landskrona Uppstart Malmö Venture Cup Syd Academia ESS European Spallation Source Högskolan Kristianstad Innovationskon tor Syd Lunds Tekniska Högskola Lunds universitet Lunds universitet, campus Helsingborg Malmö Högskola MAX IV SLU Cluster Initiatives IUC Syd Livsmedelsakademin Media Evolution (continued) A. Brattström

140Table 2 (continued) Actor type Actor Medicon Valley Alliance Mobile Heights Packbridge Resilient Regions Association Sustainable Business Hub Svenskt Marintekniskt Forum Marketing Event in Skåne AB Film i Skåne AB Invest in Skåne AB Tourism in Skåne AB Networking Centrum för Publikt Entreprenörskap Future by Lund Good Malmö Herbert Felix Institutet Innovationcenter för landsbygden Malmö Cleantech City Malmö Innovationsarena Malmö Startups Malmö Uppfinnarförening Medicon Valley Alliance Miljöbron Mötesplats Social Innovation Nätverket idéburen sektor Sydsvenska industri- och handelskammaren Uppsök Malmö Öresundsinstitutet Science Parks and Incubators Region Skåne Ideon Innovation Ideon Science Park Krinova Incubator & Science Park Linc Landskrona Smile Incubator Medeon Incubator & Science Park Medicon Village MINC Science Village Scandinavia

informants. In interviews, they emphasized the importance of entrepreneurship for regional and societal development and they provided different insights into how the entrepreneurship industry could be structured to create the most appropriate conditions for such development to occur.

141Cultural Ideals in the Entrepreneurship Industry

At the same time, most interviewees also described entrepreneurship as more than a vehicle for economic and societal progress. More profoundly, they described entrepreneurship as a positive cultural ideal. By a positive ideal, I mean an implicit assumption of entrepreneurship as something inherently beneficial for individuals and society, and as such, in need of support and stimulation. As a cultural ideal, I mean that they saw entrepreneurship as not only something that actors do (e.g., create new ventures) but something that more fundamentally relates to their way of being. To exemplify how this positive cultural ideal was manifested in interviews, consider the following quote, from S. who represents a central actor in the entrepreneurship industry in southern Sweden. He advocated a more entrepreneurshiporiented education system, comparing Sweden to the USA and suggesting for entrepreneurship to become a topic taught in school already in third grade:

We need to talk about entrepreneurship at a much earlier point in our educational

system. . .compare with the U.S., they talk about entrepreneurship from third grade. . .it

would be fantastic to get [entrepreneurship] as a focus issue as early as possible; so that

it comes natural already from the beginning. Very often, it is too late to start talking about it

in high school. . .it needs to be planted in people’s heads much earlier. (S. entrepreneurship

support actor) Reflecting on this ideal, X., an entrepreneurship scholar, further concluded,