297299 K. Wennberg, C. Sandström (eds.), Questioning the Entrepreneurial State, International Studies in Entrepreneurship 53, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94273-1_16 K. A. M. Eriksson and R. Nykvist

300Introduction

History has shown that mature economies with entrenched incumbents and fixed regulated conditions can change. Karlson (2018) claims that a “central zone” of relatively few but powerful, well-organized, and integrated actors from politics, business, academia, and interest groups are crucial for fundamental system changes to occur. Discussions in both organization studies and business history have also emphasized entrepreneurs leveraging technology to help push such successful policy change (Alvarez et al., 2015; Garud et al., 2018; Mokyr, 1998). Together with a successful technological shift and a favorable zeitgeist,1 this forms the fundamental enabling conditions for regulatory change (Stigler, 1942).

In this chapter, we explore the successful deregulation process of telecommunications and finance in Sweden during the late twentieth century and describe how the institutional entrepreneur (cf. Battilana et al., 2009) engaged in several corporate political activities (cf. Hadani et al., 2017). We explore how successful entrepreneurs managed to overcome resistance to changes in policies and help enact new regulatory regimes in their respective markets. In addition, we juxtapose the success stories of these entrepreneurs with a failed example in the same national context—an example in which institutional change and deregulation have not occurred and where the public sector is steering, and the private sector is performing—namely the case of Sweden’s planning and building sector. In this case, we apply a legal history approach to examine how a sector deeply characterized by public funding and public–private cooperation has, in contrast to the deregulated sectors, fallen into severe inertia and destructive outcomes. Using these cases, we contrast what went on with the ideas advanced by Mariana Mazzucato (2013, 2020, 2021). In doing so, we show how public steering and private performing create vested interests and information problems that hinder investments or steer investments in the wrong direction—something that could have catastrophic consequences. Using our cases, we also question the relationship between correlation and causation in Mazzucato’s analysis. Apart from contrasting these examples to those Mazzucato uses, the aim of this chapter is also to explore what distinguishes these two cases, in which deregulation happened, from the cases where—to date—it has not, given the fact that they all shared the same general political zeitgeist and had similar technological influences. The rest of the chapter evolves as follows. We start by introducing and comparing the two successful cases of deregulation and the unsuccessful case of the planning and building sector. Then we proceed to a discussion with a focus on the role of entrepreneurship in further policy change, before concluding.

1Zeitgeist is a term that refers to the public opinion, mood, and/or belief of a certain period in time.