Nordic entrepreneurship research.

We may conclude that our reading of NER would benefit from painting a richer image of the Nordic bearing witness to some present characteristics. These brush strokes are luminous details that focus on what we find to be central elements in the vastly complex cultural archive we call a Nordic culture. The point is not to suggest some stable and unifying identity, but to indicate some patterns that can work to identify (include and exclude) what's Nordic. We see entrepreneurship research as a cultural practice, wherefore elements we find central to an understanding of what Nordic refers to also provide a context for NER. With such a context in place, we will have contributed to bringing readings of NER into the high-resolution area (Gallagher & Greenblatt, 2000) upon which greater depth and variation can follow. Where possible, we have followed the common clustering of European Union (EU) countries in a Nordic, Central European, and South European group. Statistics reported below includes representation from each cluster.

As a more general characteristic, important as background to the following luminous details, we should note that these countries are relatively scarcely populated: Sweden, 9 million; Denmark, 5.5 million; Finland, 5.3 million; Norway, 4.5 million; Iceland, 304,000. As proximity rather than absolute numbers are more important for human culture, low density (persons per [km.sup.2]) indicates a distinctive feature of the Nordic countries: (Denmark, 127.1 p/[km.sup.2]; Finland, 17.3 p/[km.sup.2]; Iceland, 3.3 p/[km.sup.2]; Norway, 15.2 p/[km.sup.2]; and Sweden, 22 p/[km.sup.2]). As comparison, France has 108 p/[km.sup.2] and Germany 235 p/[km.sup.2]. Low density is something often referred to when providing explanations to the relatively silent and introvert style of these people (Soderberg et al., 2003).

Welfare States

"Nordic" often means solidarity, egalitarianism, social equality, well-developed social security systems, emblematic of "the welfare state."

Women representation in national parliament is as follows: Sweden 47.3% (2006), Finland 38% (2006) Norway 37.9% (2006), Denmark 36.9% (2006), Iceland 33.3% (2005). The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) median for 2005 is 22%, Germany 31.6, (2006), the U.K. 19.7% (2006), and France 12% (2006) (Inter-Parliamentary Union, http://www.ipu.org; http://www.ipu.org/wmn-e/classif.htm). It is also characteristic that the Nordic countries reach slightly above the average when it comes to women representation in academia (PhD graduates, researchers employed, and so on): proportion of female researchers says 39% of Icelandic, 36% of Swedish, whereas the Finish, Norwegian and Danish level with EU average on 28-29% (2) (EC Report, 2006, p. 25). We don't have studies of what approaches (e.g., qualitative or quantitative) that dominate among female and male researchers in the Nordic countries. And there is therefore no simple way of saying how this rise of the female proportion (see growth rates for Nordic countries, EC Report, 2006, pp. 30-32) will affect this in the future)

Also significant is a culture and history of individual independence, which has pushed the development of the welfare state to include the physical and economic infrastructure to support that. It is characteristic that this independence is not individualism. Individualism, commonly associated with U.S. culture, promotes a self-made independence. The Nordic independence is rather understood as guaranteed and facilitated by the state (Svallfors, 2003). This is an evident driver of larger public sectors that need to provide a social infrastructure for this independence to be actualized. The emergence and proliferation of an enterprise discourse (Burchell, Gordon, & Miller, 1991; Du Gay, 1997; Hjorth, 2003) has of course changed the public perception of this independence from being a natural right to become more of a possibility. As example we can note that in Sweden and in Denmark, ~22/42% and ~31/54% of women/men at the age 20-24 live with their parents, respectively. The corresponding figures for Italy, France, and the Netherlands are ~90/97%, ~55/67%, and ~40/72%, respectively. A common interpretation understands this as both a way for the parents to buffer against the inefficiencies of a labor market, and is not simply a matter of income necessity, but corresponding to the parents' extended responsibility and the children's readiness to accept that (Vogel, 2003a). This indicates a cultural difference (typically making up a Nordic, a central European, and a southern European cluster), with implications for entrepreneurship. As most people start business after their 30th year, moving out from the parent family earlier (common in the Nordic countries) would suggest greater difficulties with financing a start-up from employment income. Among people who are 16-30 years old and are unemployed, 13% in Norway, 23% in Denmark, and 27% in Sweden and Finland live with their parents. The corresponding figures for Italy, France, and Germany (no figures for the Netherlands) are 78, 45, and 36%, respectively (Vogel, 2003a).

Nativity levels are kept relatively high throughout the Nordic countries and show no indication of that steep slope characterizing the southern European countries' development (Table 2).

The Nordic countries have their low point in 1985, whereas the central European countries have a less deep dip in 1985 and overall display a mild down slope. The southern European countries have overall a steeper down slope (source: Statistics Sweden, http:// www.scb.se; [http://www.scb.se/templates/subHeading__154522.asp], accessed Nov. 2006-11-22, accessed Nov. 2006-11-22; http://www.scb.se/Grupp/allmant/_dokument/ A05ST0103_01.pdf). Again, this is reflected in the social security system where, if we transform every country's support into the number of weeks with 100% financial support for staying home with your child (parental leave), we arrive at the following pattern (see Figure 1).

As we can see from the diagram above, only eastern Germany (statistics from 1998; Vogel, 2003b, 2003c) breaks the Nordic pattern, which consist of the combination of relatively large amounts of children in relatively long periods of financial support (for parental leave of absence). Again, this reflects the specific kind of independence that relies on a larger public sector and a social security system corresponding to this order. It also reflects here cultural values as regards to the family's commitments to childcare.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Knowledge Economies

The Nordic countries have a long tradition of a publicly financed educational system. The knowledge economy has also taken off quite extensively in these countries, driven not the least by larger information and communication technology companies (e.g., Nokia in Finland and Ericsson in Sweden) (see Table 3).

The Nordic countries are characterized by high computer and mobile phone density (e.g., percentage of population using broadband connections: Sweden ~40%, Iceland ~60%, Italy ~15%, Germany ~25% and use the Internet at least once a week: Sweden and Iceland ~80%, Belgium ~60%, Italy ~35%; Statistics Sweden). This drives the presently intense development of e-business companies (EC Report 2005). This reflects both the demand for PCs and mobile phones, and the kind of efforts governments make on developing the IT infrastructure (Table 4).

Lately, "Nordic" is also associated with the "creative economy," with the "experience economy," and ICT-related innovation (Hjorth & Kostera, 2007). The latest EUROSTAT (Statistical Office of the European Communities) reports place Switzerland, Finland, and Sweden in the lead. Denmark and Germany are two amongst those countries described as "gaining ground" on the European innovation scoreboard (http:// www.trendchart.org; http://www.trendchart.org/scoreboards/scoreboard2005/summary _innovation_index.cfm). As Richard Florida puts it (in a Stockholm lecture 2006, http:// www.fargfabriken.se/florida/) "Don't look at Silicon Valley, look at Canada. Look at Sweden or Finland!" discussing that the creative class is attracted not only by innovation and technology and talent, but also by tolerance and openness. By this, we don't mean to say that the Nordic countries are free from intolerance and xenophobia. Far from it. It may, however, reflect a long history of low density of populations, meaning lower probability of territorial threats, and a relatively long history of official policies and regulations aiming at "getting everyone on board." The problem is, of course how, "everyone" is performatively defined, which in turn indicates that to the extent that national cultures reflect histories of population density the present increase in density would explain hostility toward "others" based upon a new need to share space/opportunities/threats (cf. Chase, 2006; van Oudenhoven, 2001).

Consequences for Entrepreneurship Research