1075.1

Direct Support with Limits

In the spirit of Stinchcombe (1965), the innovation support system wants to provide startups with direct support during the whole New Venture Creation Process. Theoretical arguments for this type of direct advisory service have been expressed in various public government documents (SOU, 1993:70 and SOU, 2000:1993) based on a relatively superficial understanding of industrial organization economics, for example, on Stiglitz’s (2000) discussions on mitigating market failures. This type of reasoning has also been reiterated in international bodies such as the OECD (2013) and the previously mentioned government investigations (SOU, 2020:59).

However, scholars like Coase (1937), Hayek (1945), and Williamson (1975) indicate clear practical and theoretical limitations for external resource supplementation. A direct effort to provide publicly funded strategic advice, which goes beyond what here has been labeled the Coase/Williamson limit, where the complexity and dynamics are too extensive, cannot be reasonably efficient when seen from both the individual level and the market level. As elaborated above, external expertise can be used when the task is of a concrete and rational kind; such advice could potentially be obtained on the private market. Here the following problem arises: If the publicly funded support system offers tradeable services, market distortion may occur. And if the support system offers entrepreneurial judgment, problems of accuracy and D. Hjalmarsson

108economic responsibility arise. It is important that project owners constantly maintain the crucial decisions. The “construction of new markets,” as Kjellberg and Helgesson (2007) explain, is always associated with realizing something new. No one knows in advance what will succeed. When entrepreneurial (ownership) decisions are required, these decisions cannot be outsourced to external experts. Foss and Klein (2012) also discuss the possibilities of organizing this type of support to achieve “entrepreneurial judgments” in complex and genuinely uncertain situations. And like most proponents of the entrepreneurial university they claim that participation in strategic decisionmaking must include shared ownership and financial responsibility. In principle,