Nordic entrepreneurship research.

This article describes and discusses Nordic entrepreneurship research (NER). It does so by providing a broader context for conducting entrepreneurship research, including historical, sociocultural, and disciplinary elements substantiating an understanding of "Nordic." Contextualizing NER this way, we attempt for the article to do what it says, i.e., to also write here in a style we argue is characteristically Nordic. This includes a priority to the local and particular, and a subsequent focus on questions resonant with nominalist research. We thereby enable an experience of NER as a cultural practice, as we argue that this is a crucial part of understanding what it is. Drawing on a tracing of NER in journal publications (in between 2001 and 2005), the article identifies trends and tendencies. We identify three generations of entrepreneurship research and suggest directions for the future development of the third. This way, the discussion and conclusions are drawn toward images of what a Nordic entrepreneurship research might become.

Introduction

As a study of ICSB (International Council for Small Business) and RENT (Research in Entrepreneurship) conference participation lists will reveal, the Nordic countries-Finland, Norway, and Sweden in particular--represent a disproportionably large part of those central European entrepreneurship conference populations. We note this not only to remind the reader of the relatively intense activity in entrepreneurship research in the Nordic countries, but also to say that this article covers a fairly substantial proportion of European entrepreneurship research, i.e., we cannot claim to give justice to all in the style of a review. Being true to Nordic Entrepreneurship Research (NER) instead means to focus rather on the contextual and particular than on the general. In order to provide a discussion of NER, we believe it is important to contextualize the Nordic. This allows us to describe and reflect upon its characteristics. The development of an academic discipline often follows the route of: euphoric start, the great assembly, consolidation, fragmentation, self-disciplining, branching, identity crisis, and division of labor (cf. a parallel for marketing research in Bagozzi, 1978). This is important to note, as we believe it is fair to say that NER has contributed significantly both to the reproduction of this pattern in entrepreneurship research and to the breaching of it. Presently, NER is partly animated by what can be identified as an emerging European or Nordic school (Chiles, Bluedorn, & Gupta, 2007). Such a school contributes to making the NER stand out globally as focused on microprocesses, qualitatively oriented, case study-based, and organization studies influenced. This article will provide the context for this kind of research so as to provide the unique elements of NER.

By not putting so much energy into depicting the developmental trajectory of this research so much as into providing the broader context for research from Nordic scholars, we want to provide the reader with an enhanced possibility to relate to and understand NER. The recent growth and globalization of entrepreneurship research has also meant standardization and homogenization. Still, one important historical characteristic (and, we believe, presently intensified tendency in Nordic research) is precisely an appreciation for the local, particular, and contextual. Resonant with Nordic research in this respect, we join by also performing here such an appreciation. Our effort to contextualize the description and discussion of entrepreneurship research is thus based upon the emic-etic distinction of anthropological research (between interpretivists and comparativists, see Morris, Leung, Ames, & Lickel, 1999). Knowledge, cultures, behaviors, and practices (such as researching), in an emic perspective, are culture-bound activities that cannot be naively compared as if they were entities. Being part of a Nordic/Scandinavian research culture, we express the emic view of what Nordic is. The emic describes what is meaningful for the local participants based on self-understanding, whereas the eric describes what is judged distinctive by a general/ external scientific community (Harris, 1976; Pike, 1967). We also provide an etic view as we use reports on what national statistical bureaus have judged to be distinctive characteristics concerning people in the Nordic countries. Drawing on this distinction, however, we emphasize the emic perspective: that the Nordic is an inextricable part of conducting NER. The purpose with the eric is thus to provide a context for the emic, i.e., to aid the reader to intensify her/his relationship with the particular (Geertz, 1973, 1983; Van Maanen, 1988). A descriptive study, aimed at generating a presentation of a demarcated field, often has to strike a balance between etic and emic validity (Latour & Woolgar, 1986). That is, the decision about the adequacy of the description lies both with participants (here fellow Nordic entrepreneurship researchers) and fellow observers (non-Nordic research/researchers).

We will thus include a short historical and sociocultural background. This background includes the formation of the Nordic states and how the Nordic is identified e.g., vis-a-vis the Scandinavian. It also includes some telling statistics describing what we find common to the cultures of the Nordic countries. From this, we believe we are provided with a sense of the Nordic that is also productively part of how researching entrepreneurship is conducted in these countries, which supports the general purpose of this article--to provide insights from a contemporary view of NER in order to discuss some if its distinctive features.

The article will thus proceed toward this purpose according to the distinction and relation of the emic and etic, and do so along the following structure. After this introduction, the first part provides a historical and sociocultural image, and indications from entrepreneurship research. This background serves as the context for the second part's tracing and description of NER. The third part sets out to discuss this research, in perspective of the context provided, and the fourth part concludes on the future directions for what we describe as NER's contribution to a third generation of entrepreneurship research.

Short Historical and Sociocultural Background

The issue of who is to be included in "Nordic" and whether "Nordic" indeed refers to "the Nordic countries" or to Scandinavia or, in addition, whether Scandinavian or Nordic makes a difference, should first be sorted out. Drawing maps, as we know, is a highly political act of inclusion and exclusion (Howitt & Suchet-Pearson, 2006; Shaw, Herman, & Dobbs, 2006). It prescribes continuity between geography, language, culture, subsequent identities, and everyday practices. These continuities seldom exist, and sharing the same geographical region does not necessarily qualify for sharing cultural styles that contextualize everyday practices (De Certeau, 1984; Spinosa et al., 1997). Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have politically been included in Scandinavia since one and a half centuries ago. Finland, at least through its northern part that is geographically included in the Scandinavian Peninsula--properly excluding Denmark--has not been (politically) included until lately. In Europe, another term--the Nordic Countries--has emerged as a way to solve the problem of who we refer to when we say Scandinavian. The term "Nordic Countries" was then used to refer to Scandinavia (including Denmark and Finland) + Iceland = Denmark (including the Faroe islands and Greenland), Finland (including Aland), Iceland, Norway, and Sweden (see Appendix 1 for a chronology of the emergence of the Nordic countries.)

This would give at hand a homogeneous culture and relatively similar patterns of living, including starting companies (as one dimension of entrepreneurship). This image, however, when assumed, continuously forms the basis for surprises when we attempt to treat "the Nordic" as a whole. Studies of Nordic management styles (e.g., Ludvigsen, 2000) continue to deliver differences between the countries, sometimes placing Norwegians and Swedes on one side (participative, empowering, and group orientation), and Danes and Finns on the other (using power and more individualistic). The differences between the Nordic and non-Nordic might, however, be more distinct in that managers in the Nordic countries generally rely more on subordinates and unwritten rules than the average European manager does (Lindell & Arvonen, 1997; Smith, Andersen, Ekelund, Graversen, & Ropo, 2003). The Smith et al. (2003, p. 13) study also partly contradicts Ludvigsen's, and arrives at the following hypothesized "problem areas" for intra-Nordic collaborations (see Table 1).