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Professor Paul Reynolds said in a speech that entrepreneurs quickly learn how to tell the polished stories about their journeys when they are asked by researchers and journalists about what they have done and achieved. The notion of polished stories is also recognized byWilliam Gartner (2007) in a special issue on narrative, reflecting upon the fact that he can name dozens of entrepreneurs, and he has several logico-scientific descriptions, explanations, categories, concepts and hypotheses about entrepreneurs, but he cannot say much about their stories. Consequently, it has been argued that the field of entrepreneurship studies needs new concepts if it is to take seriously the ambition to understand entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship and entrepreneuring (e.g. Hjorth et al., 2003; Johannisson, 2011; Steyaert, 2007; Gartner, 2007; Huse and Landström, 1997). In this chapter we will show how entrepreneurship and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can be researched through the ethnographic method, focusing on understanding the social context of a certain phenomenon or person. Specifically, four ethnographic studies are introduced, which will be discussed as themes: context; the role of the researcher; the research process; and lessons learned.

Entrepreneurship and innovation support has grown into large institutions in a society that cherishes an enterprising culture. Individuals are encouraged to be entrepreneurial and innovative in general, and to start up their own companies in particular. To support individuals in their business creation processes, policy stresses the need of providing with measures. Together these measures comprise a support system, directed towards supporting new and established entrepreneurs. It has however been recognized that the entrepreneurship and innovation public support system is highly gendered, favoring men and male businesses, whilst programs targeting women put the onus on individual women to start and grow businesses. As well it has been recognized that the policy support system tends to exclude ‘othered’ groups rather than including them in enterprising activities. The subtext of entrepreneurship support points to how some people “are” entrepreneurs, whilst others need support in order to become more entrepreneurial. Hence, there is a need to change the support system of entrepreneurship and innovation since it tends to disempower rather than to empower ‘othered’ groups in society. “Sisters in Business” make up an organization of wo/men entrepreneurs who have joined forces to address this need. Their vision is that entrepreneurship should reflect the society at large. During the last year they have therefore taken several initiatives to make this happen and is today one of the support organizations in a medium sized Swedish town. In this paper three Sisters are working together with a researcher within this area. Together we have formed a group of “engaged sisters´”. In our dialogue the dichotomy between ‘practice’ and ‘theory’ have temporarily dissolved in favor of creating narratives, from episodes, experiences and the everyday life of sister´s, to illustrate how the support system works from ‘within’. This led us to questioning whether the ‘support system’ really i

This article pays interest to the intersection between policy and practice when implementing entrepreneurship in the educational system. Taking a point of departure in Mahieu’s (2006) call for knowledge of the interplay between different policy levels and Backström-Widjeskog’s (2010) conclusion about tensions occurring when teachers are introduced to the concept, the intention is to develop knowledge about conflicts and tensions at the intersection between policy and practice. From analysing policy documents and narratives from entrepreneurship education implementation projects during a time when entrepreneurship education started to be promoted in Sweden three figures of thought are found (economic/humanistic, biological/social, and individual/collective) which are proposed to be involved in creating tensions and conflicts in the intersection between policy and practice. Theoretically, these figures of thought can be seen as a contribution to understanding processes in which the concept of entrepreneurship education has deliberately been moved, by way of policy, to the educational practice. Reflecting on these thought figures may enhance teachers’ translation processes when starting to work with entrepreneurship education in practice.

The different shapes taken on by social entrepreneurship in contemporary society show that social goals are integrated by commercial enterprises and commercial goals are incorporated by organisations with a social mission. Combining a social mission with commercial goals is often presented as a ‘win-win’ situation. In this article, we highlight the potential tensions and conflicts created by the conflicting demands and expectations when the institutional non-profit and for-profit logics meet in social entrepreneuring. From this viewpoint, social entrepreneurship is an anomaly, which seems difficult to resolve. Despite this, we often read descriptions of social entrepreneurs as heroes, which show how social entrepreneurship is glorified and part of the marketisation of society. This article sets out to present a more complex and problematic picture of practising social entrepreneurship where the obvious ‘win-win’ situations more often appear as ‘win-lose’ and sometimes even as ‘lose-lose’. From a three-year ethnographic study of an emerging fair-trade enterprise, the concept of disharmony shows that dilemmas are part of everyday life in social entrepreneuring. Instead of posing insoluble conflicts, dilemmas light the way for the individual social entrepreneur. They are managed through temporary rationalisation; finding a way to integrate conflicting demands into the life of a social entrepreneur. Disharmony includes moments of identity struggle, but is also a learning process in which the social entrepreneur tries to understand the difference between what she does and what she actually achieves.

In this paper the efforts of transforming ‘regular’ entrepreneurship to a specific kind of ‘entrepreneurial self’ in education are linked to the materialization of employability. It will be illustrated that schoolchildren, under the guise of entrepreneurship education, are taught how to work on improving their selves, emphasizing positive thinking, the joy of creating and awareness of the value of their own interests and passions. This ethic reminds us that we can always improve ourselves, since the enterprising self can never fully be acquired. The flipside of this ethic is that, by continuously being encouraged to become our best, it may be difficult to be satisfied with who we are. Highlighted in this paper is that, with all the amusement and excitement present in entrepreneurship education, also comes an expectation of the individual to fight against all odds. Recruiting students to this kind of shadow-boxing with their selves should involve critical reflection on its political dimensions, human limits, alternative ideals and the collective efforts that are part of entrepreneurial endeavours.

This article pays interest to the intersection between policy and practice when implementing entrepreneurship in the educational system. Taking a point of departure in Mahieu’s (2006) call for knowledge of the interplay between different policy levels and Backström-Widjeskog’s (2010) conclusion about tensions occurring when teachers are introduced to the concept, the intention is to develop knowledge about conflicts and tensions at the intersection between policy and practice. From analysing policy documents and narratives from entrepreneurship education implementation projects during a time when entrepreneurship education started to be promoted in Sweden three figures of thought are found (economic/humanistic, biological/social, and individual/collective) which are proposed to be involved in creating tensions and conflicts in the intersection between policy and practice. Theoretically, these figures of thought can be seen as a contribution to understanding processes in which the concept of entrepreneurship education has deliberately been moved, by way of policy, to the educational practice. Reflecting on these thought figures may enhance teachers’ translation processes when starting to work with entrepreneurship education in practice.

The different shapes taken on by social entrepreneurship in contemporary society show that social goals are integrated by commercial enterprises and commercial goals are incorporated by organisations with a social mission. Combining a social mission with commercial goals is often presented as a “win-win” situation. In this article we highlight the potential tensions and conflicts created by the conflicting demands and expectations when the institutional non-profit and for-profit logics meet in social entrepreneuring. From this viewpoint, social entrepreneurship is an anomaly which seems difficult to resolve. Despite this we often read descriptions of social entrepreneurs as heroes, which shows how social entrepreneurship is glorified and part of the marketisation of society. This article sets out to present a more complex and problematic picture of practising social entrepreneurship where the obvious “win-win” situations more often appear as “win-lose” and sometimes even as “lose-lose”. From a three-year ethnographic study of an emerging fair-trade enterprise, the concept of disharmony shows that dilemmas are part of everyday life in social entrepreneuring. Instead of posing insoluble conflicts, dilemmas light the way for the individual social entrepreneur. They are managed through temporary rationalisation; finding a way to integrate conflicting demands into the life of a social entrepreneur. Disharmony includes moments of identity struggle, but is also a learning process in which the social entrepreneur tries to understand the difference between what she does and what she actually achieves., OSIS, organisering av samhällsentreprenörskap i Sverige

Det här examensarbetet kommer huvudsakligen behandla viktiga aspekter gällande utevistelse för äldre och personer med demenssjukdom. Examensarbetet kommer inledningsvis presentera natur- och trädgårds positiva inverkan på hälsa och välbefinnande, samt ge läsaren en kort inblick i historien. Arbetet kommer även presentera några forskningsexempel som behandlar sambandet mellan naturens goda inverkan på välbefinnande. Begreppet hälsoträdgård kommer i arbetet förklaras till förmån för läsaren för att visa på vilka olika sätt en sådan trädgård kan användas. Min förhoppning med examensarbetet är att påvisa vikten av utevistelse för alla, men i synnerhet för äldre personer. Litteraturstudier har resulterat i åtta utvalda aspekter med relevans för målgruppen. En intervju har genomförts med Aspens verksamhetschef för att få en ökad förståelse för hur de boende använder gården samt för att få en bild av gårdens positiva och negativa sidor. Resultatet från intervjun har sedan lagt grunden för ett utformningsförslag, tillsammans med utvalda aspekter från litteraturstudien. Då utemiljön till detta serviceboende enligt min åsikt erhåller ett karaktäristiskt utseende för många servisboende skulle även förslaget kunna inspirera och tillämpas på flera boenden runt om i Sverige. Tanken med utformningsförslaget är att det ska bidra till att ge en ökad förståelse för de utvalda aspekterna och inte bara visa på vad som är viktigt gällande äldres utevistelse, utan även visa på hur aspekterna kan införas i en befintlig miljö på ett relativt enkelt sätt, utan att behöva göra omfattande förändringar i utemiljön.

This anthology uses a gender perspective to analyse constraining structures in innovation systems. Focusing on mainstream policies as well as regional and organizational practices, it presents procedures, methods and methodologies to develop genderaware, innovative organisations. Fostering innovation requires ability to question what is taken for granted and perceived as the natural order. Challenging this order often requires a critical mind where a gender perspective can be useful. The experience of integrating a gender perspective can be likened to turning a kaleidoscope; the resulting shift in perspective causes new images and highlights new opportunities. This anthology is the result of more than ten years’ research and development work funded by VINNOVA and aimed at establishing a research field in gender and innovation. Ten years ago, there were few researchers and limited research focusing on this area. Today, the picture is different and this anthology presents the analyses of 31 researchers on how gender is a constraining structure within innovation systems. There is little doubt that integrating a gender perspective helps promoting innovation.

Entrepreneurship generally is about creative organizing but with social enterprising this is especially so. Most social ventures cross the boundaries between the private, the public and the non-profit/voluntary sectors. This broad involvement of actors and intertwining of sectors makes the label ‘societal’ entrepreneurship appropriate. Stating the importance of both the local and the broader societal context, the book reports close-up studies from a variety of social ventures. Generic themes include positioning societal entrepreneurship against other images of collective entrepreneurship, critically penetrating its assumptions and practices and proposing ways of promoting societal entrepreneurship more widely. Providing a new conceptual framework and research methodology, this compendium will prove insightful for academic scholars. The basic concepts and illustrative cases/stories will also appeal to students and reflective practitioners., Organizing Societal Entrepreneurship in Sweden (OSIS)

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Drawing on Freire, this article elaborates on how pictures and artefacts benefit processes of 'prise de conscience' and 'conscientization' among those with powerful voices. Wor(l)d-making was unfolded in the Swedish think-and-do tank, 'the Smithy', emphasizing the intrinsically political nature of promoting 'societal entrepreneurship' (SE). New words for SE were formulated and a more inclusive world was discerned where all had a role, not just as 'helpers', but as equal members of SE practices. Pictures and artefacts enabled hitherto silenced stories to be told and created a common understanding of how SE contrasted with traditional entrepreneurship. When new words were added to entrepreneurship, it was possible to reflect on the actions taken within the Smithy in a deeper sense, not only focusing on actions for the entrepreneurs 'out there', but also initiating self-reflection on the roles all had in the Smithy, or in other settings, to promote SE., AuthorCount:2

Innovation and entrepreneurship are no longer two words that only assist in describing societal phenomena of “newness”, “change” and “diffusion”; they have also grown into important policy areas for assisting the European Union Member States to estab-lish conditions for creating economic growth, new jobs and social cohesion. Our inter-est lies in understanding the gender dimension of innovation and entrepreneurship policy. Do entrepreneurship and innovation policies consolidate, adapt to, challenge, or even transform the gender system? The gender system is referred to here as a theo-retical concept which recognises how men and women are separated in society, hori-zontally as well as vertically. This chapter provides a discourse analysis of two texts within the framework of the Lisbon Strategy - Innovative Sweden (2004) and the Green Paper of Entrepreneurship (European Commisson, 2003), with the aim of look-ing into how innovation and entrepreneurship policies are gendered.

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Entrepreneurship generally is about creative organizing, but with social enterprising this is especially so. Most social ventures cross the boundaries between the private, the public and the non-profit/voluntary sectors. This broad involvement of actors and intertwining of sectors makes the label ‘societal’ entrepreneurship appropriate. Stating the importance of both the local and the broader societal context, the book reports close-up studies from a variety of social ventures. Generic themes include positioning societal entrepreneurship against other images of collective entrepreneurship, critically penetrating its assumptions and practices and proposing ways of promoting societal entrepreneurship more widely. Providing a new conceptual framework and research methodology, this compendium will prove insightful for academic scholars. The basic concepts and illustrative cases/stories will also appeal to students and reflective practitioners., OSIS (Organisering av samhällsentreprenörskap i Sverige)

This anthology uses a gender perspective to analyse constraining structures in innovation systems. Focusing on mainstream policies as well as regional and organisational practices, it presents procedures, methods and methodologies to develop genderaware, innovative organisations. Fostering innovation requires ability to question what is taken for granted and perceived as the natural order. Challenging this order often requires a critical mind where a gender perspective can be useful. The experience of integrating a gender perspective can be likened to turning a kaleidoscope; the resulting shift in perspective causes new images and highlights new opportunities. This anthology is the result of more than ten years’ research and development work funded by VINNOVA and aimed at establishing a research field in gender and innovation. Ten years ago, there were few researchers and limited research focusing on this area. Today, the picture is different and this anthology presents the analyses of 31 researchers on how gender is a constraining structure within innovation systems. There is little doubt that integrating a gender perspective helps promoting innovation.

OSIS (Organisering av samhällsentreprenörskap i Sverige)

The purpose of this book is to provide a picture of ongoing research at Mälardalen University in order to create a point of departure for future research on industrial renewal. Many aspects of industrial renewal are dealt with by the researchers who contributed to this book. Some of them focus on functional aspects such as distribution channels and management accounting and control. Others deal with broad perspectives such as strategies and entrepreneurship, and still others consider specific empirical fields such as the institutions of society, and the energy sector. Our exposition identifies a need for further research into classical problems such as how to best exploit new ideas in established firms, as well as how to infuse new approaches and attitudes into going concerns, the role of the characteristics of industrial networks, geographical distance, the labour market, and the institutions of society in such renewal processes, and the need for more in-depth process research in order to further develop theory and practice.

Whether creativity is needed for the development of new products and services or for the creation of new jobs (Eliasson, 2006), it is stressed as a prerequisite for innovation and entrepreneurship (Johansson, 2010). Creativity is considered important for coping with the upcoming need to make full use of ecological and social resources. Taking Buber‘s view on creativity as a point of departure we propose that a post-industrial society should reconsider the view of creativity as something that is possessed by a person. With a Buberian understanding of creativity we aim to suggest in this chapter, a new agenda for research on creativity and for stimulating creativity in unexpected ways in industrial renewal processes., Kaikaku

Social entrepreneurship seems commonly related to two different missions. On the one hand it is about making profits and surviving in a market context, and on the other hand there is a social mission. This study focuses on tensions of multiple identities from the social enterprise perspective in the form of a fair-trade company emphasizing the social mission of human rights issues, albeit challenged by the business assignment. The purpose of this article is to elaborate on the connection between identity dilemmas and the tensions of social entrepreneurship from the perspective of entrepreneuring. The dilemmas presented in this article arose from an attempt to dissolve an anomaly that a social entrepreneur perceived. In these situations she found herself to be in a deadlock position between the non-profit and the for-profit logic. Moving between these logics creates opportunities as well as dilemmas for the social entrepreneur. Choosing one of the logics, in which the dilemma is re-constructed as an opportunity, seems to be a way to move on, until another dilemma arises. Hence, becoming an entrepreneur involves a process of negotiating one’s Self from the different expectations and making identity adjustments in relation to the different logics.

Taking a point of departure in a poststructuralist understanding of femininity we search for newways to answer the question: “Who is the woman entrepreneur?” A text within the policy programaimed at supporting women’s entrepreneurship in Sweden is analyzed. The analysis reveals thatprevious understandings of how the female entrepreneur is constructed are incomplete and one-dimensional. Rather than viewing the female entrepreneur as the opposite to her male counterpart,and as a subordinated being, she is constructed in policy as a “third sex”, a person that movesin between discourses of femininity and masculinity, and thus also outside the passive andsubordinated position depicted in contemporary perceptions of femininity.

QC 20111129