138133 K. Wennberg, C. Sandström (eds.), Questioning the Entrepreneurial State, International Studies in Entrepreneurship 53, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-94273-1_8 A. Brattström

134even in knowledge-intensive sectors—generate limited economic outcomes (Nightingale & Coad, 2014). At the individual level, working for new firms is a risky job that generally pays less than working for more established firms (Burton et al., 2018; Styhre, 2018). Instead of generating entrepreneurial outcomes, many initiatives contribute to building an entrepreneurship industry—“goods and services explicitly intended for opportunity discovery and development by current and prospective entrepreneurs” (Hunt & Kiefer, 2017, p. 231). Recognizing the gap between the growth of an entrepreneurship industry and the lack of tangible outcomes that result from it, scholars have offered rich insights into the functional reasons for why support initiatives often fail to produce outcomes (e.g., Amezcua et al., 2013; Karlson et al., 2021; Malerba & McKelvey, 2020; Sandström et al., 2018). As a consequence, we know a lot about how financial support, networking support, as well as tools and methods, more or less efficiently support aspiring entrepreneurs. These functional analyses are important for understanding how to generate more entrepreneurial outcomes. They do not explain, however, why we currently witness such an explosion in entrepreneurial activities (Hartmann et al., 2020).

For example, functional reasons cannot explain why—on an average day in an average European urban hotspot—the number of entrepreneurial networking events, breakfast seminars, or virtual workshops can offer more support than any entrepreneur could acquire with full-time employment. They do not explain why corporations are swapping their sterile office environments and strict office dress codes in favor of more entrepreneurial attributes, such as bean bags, colorful post-it notes, and jeans-and-sneakers attire. Nor do they tell us why Helsingborgs Stad—a municipality in southern Sweden—has hired both a Head of Future; a Storyteller; and a Strategic Influencer (Påverkansstrateg), all with salary levels considerably higher than an average high school teacher in Sweden.

The present chapter posits that to understand these phenomena, all representing an increase in entrepreneurial activities but not necessarily outcomes, it is useful to address the entrepreneurship industry from a cultural perspective. I position entrepreneurship as a cultural ideal—a social institution to which everyone is supposed to adhere (Brandl & Bullinger, 2009; Hwang & Powell, 2005). Using the entrepreneurship industry in Sweden as a case and example, I seek to understand current ideals around entrepreneurship within the industry and how these ideals are shaping actors and their activities. My approach is explorative and inductive, based on interviews with actors in Sweden’s entrepreneurship industry. The analysis reveals how this industry is not only a producer of goods and services for opportunity discovery and development; but also, a producer of entrepreneurship culture. Moreover, it reveals how the production and consumption of entrepreneurship culture can lead to problems of inefficiency and discrimination, problems which ultimately hamper the entrepreneurial output that the industry is supposed to produce.

135Cultural Ideals in the Entrepreneurship Industry

Theoretical Background

2.1

The Entrepreneurship Industry from a Cultural

Perspective

The entrepreneurship industry is “the goods and services explicitly intended for opportunity discovery and development by current and prospective entrepreneurs. . . Its raison d’être . . . is to promote the belief that individuals who are motivated to develop opportunities through entrepreneurial action have the potential to harvest lucrative outcomes” (Hunt & Kiefer, 2017, p. 233). As implied by this definition, the entrepreneurship industry does not only encompass entrepreneurs, i.e., individuals engaged in the creation of new ventures; but also many other actors. This includes public and private incubators; accelerators; investors; matchmakers; policymakers; educators; inspirational speakers; consultants and coaches.

Sweden’s entrepreneurship industry has previously been addressed in both academic (e.g., Elert et al., 2020; Karlson et al., 2021; Sandström et al., 2018) and