1505

Discussion

Insights from interviewees support the idea of entrepreneurship as a cultural ideal, whereby actors in the entrepreneurship industry internalize and re-create taken-forgranted beliefs, assumptions, and norms about why entrepreneurship is important, what an entrepreneur is, and how one is to behave. In this way, the entrepreneurship industry in Sweden not only produces goods, services, and new ventures. It also produces culture (Hartmann et al., 2020). Looking at entrepreneurship in this way provides a deeper understanding of why we currently witness such an increase in entrepreneurial activities. This complements the more functionalistic understanding of how the entrepreneurship industry ought to be organized to maximize entrepreneurial outcomes. In the present study, I have explored what entrepreneurship ideals entail in the context of the entrepreneurship industry in Sweden; how these ideals emerge; how they manifest themselves in language and looks; as well as what consequences it fosters for actors and their activities. For entrepreneurship research and policy, the analysis comes with two core implications.