Bengt Johannisson

• Doctor of Business Administration
• Professor Emeritus at Linnaeus University

The practice of ‘academic entrepreneuring’ here signifies a scholar’s innovative, integrative and persistent mode of pursuing and integrating a university’s three tasks, those of doing research, teaching students and performing outreach activities. The success of academic entrepreneuring is conditioned by the individual’s and the university’s abili...

Entrepreneurship scholars have become increasingly aware of the need to recognize situated and temporary practices as the core of organizing in general, and of entrepreneuring as a processual phenomenon in particular. Close-up and longitudinal empirical inquiry into a Swedish work-integrating social enterprise, and its everyday procedures, uncovere...

The purpose of this chapter is to conceptualize and operationalize the potential of social capital in the making of sustainable strategies for individual firms and localized clusters that build global competitiveness based on inter-firm collaborations.

There is an increasing gap between the contemporary academic and political concern for social enterprising and available theoretical and empirical research in the field. This study makes a contribution by outlining a conceptual framework for social entrepreneuring based on a practice-theory approach. Adopting an interactive in-depth inquiry into th...

Process philosophy has drawn attention to the world as ambiguous and ever changing, however also enactable. This makes entrepreneurship a processual phenomenon, rightly addressed as ‘entrepreneuring’. Recognizing not only their cognitive, yet also affective and conative capabilities, makes it possible for human actors to mobilize forces that bring...

Two contrasting approaches dominate contemporary academic enquiry into entrepreneurship as a dynamic force. One wing of researchers builds its arguments on philosophers' shoulders while the other systematizes practicing entrepreneurs' evidence concerning their career. Both groups avoid direct involvement in the practices they study. There is, thoug...

An increasing number of education institutions, including many universities and colleges, are offering entrepreneurship education. This development is driven by the hope that more entrepreneurs could be “created” through such efforts, and that these entrepreneurs through their newly founded ventures will contribute to economic growth and job creati...

In the contemporary knowledge economy, with academia as a major producer and distributor of formal knowledge, process and product innovation – e.g. in form of designing and enacting new curricula – is extremely important. In this spirit, we here report how an internationally recognized master program in entrepreneurship has been developed and put i...

Departing from the standpoint that internationalisation needs to become a more explicit part of assessing the quality of academic activity (i.e., education, research, and (business) community interaction), we elaborate upon how the intercultural composition of a student cohort could be leveraged as a road to the advancement of entrepreneurship educ...

An increasing number of education institutions, including many universities and colleges, are offering entrepreneurship education. This development is driven by the hope that more entrepreneurs could be "created" through such efforts, and that these entrepreneurs through their newly founded ventures will contribute to economic growth and job creati...

Most social ventures cross the boundaries between the private, the public and the non-profit/voluntary sectors, and this broad involvement of actors and intertwining of sectors makes the label 'societal' entrepreneurship more appropriate. Stating the importance of both the local and the broader societal context, the book reports close-up studies fr...

Adopting a process perspective on entrepreneurship, captured by the notion of “entrepreneuring,” the emerging practice-theory approach in the social sciences is proposed as an appropriate frame of reference. Entrepreneuring as a practice is ontologically/epistemologically qualified by presenting phronesis as the relevant guiding intellectual virtue...

When the need for development goes beyond economic growth to include also ecological, social and cultural concerns, the means must be broadened beyond financial capital to include also human, social and emotional capital. While human capital concern the intellectual capabilities that people have in term of formal and personal knowledge, social capi...

The focus of this paper is to explore how contrasting ideologies influence the selection process of outside directors in the small family business. Small family businesses donot just represent smallscale economic activity but they are the outcome of entrepreneurial ambition and family involvement. This means that willpower and emotional commitment...

In identifying and enacting roads to sustainable development in welfare states, several divides fragment the research community as well as the public policies being practised. First there is a major gap between what might be addressed as a functional and a territorial rationale. The former is supported by those who in the name of national developme...

Despite the lacking scientific support regarding efficiency, public authorities launch and owner-managers’ participate in public support programmes. Previous research has failed to address this enigma and dissolve the underlying paradox. Drawing on mythical inspiration, this article offers a framework grounded on the medieval demonic character of i...

Nobody would deny that we today live in a globalized world. Our digitalized living daily revises our worldwide mindmaps. Thanks to free trade and travel our material and social worlds have become global as well. This radical sociocultural change has since the last decade been preached all over the world with public institutions and business-interes...

In her 1959 seminal work on firm growth, Edith Penrose states that entrepreneurs and managers complement each other. Entrepreneurs innovate and create new markets, usually by starting their own firm, while managers amplify entrepreneurial projects through control and routinization. This image of entrepreneurship and management taking on different r...

This article takes the awarding of William B. Gartner as a winner of the FSF-Nutek Award (in 2005) as a reason to engage more thoroughly with his production. From the perspective of a European School of Entrepreneurship, we focus in particular on the hermeneutic/phenomenological side of Gartner’s research output and seek to operate as inspired read...

Any discourse on networking and entrepreneurship must be positioned in the ongoing debate on each concept. Over the last decades network analysis has turned from a statistical technique for mapping complex social structures to a way of inquiring into the general interrelatedness and social embedding of economic activity. Networks as a resource have...

In this paper we offer an approach to learning about the unique features of industrial districts as a socio-economic phenomenon that is based on differences. Instead of searching for one generic theory that may explain the unique construction of an industrial district or one universal way of getting under the skin of its subjects we propose ‘inters...

Purpose The aim is to provide a conceptual framework that from a local perspective positions alternative ways to cope with the challenges of a globalising world. Design/methodology/approach The notion of “organising context” is introduced as an ideal setting for business and community development processes as collective entrepreneurial efforts. A...

There are many images of entrepreneurship which all pay attention to the importance of social capital. Nevertheless, these understandings of entrepreneurship do not tell us about the capabilities and social ingenuity that people hit by a natural or man-made catastrophe may evoke. We have studied how the effects of the hurricane Gudrun, which hit so...

This authoritative and comprehensive Handbook showcases the nature and benefits of the new wave in entrepreneurship education emerging as a result of revised academic programmes developed to reflect new forms of entrepreneurship.

In the post-Warld War II decades preceding the 1980s, traditional capitalism demonstrated both vigor and weakness. In the 1960s the large corporations still believed in designing the future, and autonomous entrepreneurs could yet develop their own niches. In the 1970s, however, the Western economies proved incapable of dealing with structural chang...

Studies contextual networks to explain the network as an intermediary between a firm and its global environment. In contrast to the "habitat" or "milieu," the context model focuses specifically on entrepreneurship -- offering both stability and change, suggesting guidelines but allowing for entrepreneurial independence. Networks are defined as pers...

Entrepreneurship in Scandinavia is examined in lightof recent important political and social changes and associated shifts innational characteristics. Due to their status as advanced welfare economies, ahuge public sector, and domination by a few large companies, countries inScandinavia have traditionally not adopted offensive entrepreneurship poli...

This paper argues that processes of regional development have to be conceptualised in a novel way. The dominant approach displays a bias towards a macro-perspective, often reproduces a centre — periphery model, and favours an economism that aims at the production of instruments for policy makers and academics alike, both enjoying the convenience of...

Concern for the entrepreneurial capabilities needed to contribute to new business and subsequently new jobs is a major theme in contemporary European public discourse on economic growth. For obvious reasons the university system as the backbone in a national educational system is targeted. However, several countries, including Sweden, experiences a...

There is an increasing concern for the notion of ‘embeddedness’ of economic activity; yet the conceptualization of the concept and its operationalization remain underdeveloped. First, embeddedness may concern, on the one hand, the structure of relations that tie economic actors together (structural embeddedness) and, on the other hand, the social s...

There is an increasing concern for, on the one hand, networked business strategies and, on the other, the competitiveness of localized small-firm clusters. This paper first reviews four different strategy frameworks - the resource-based organization, the industrial organization, the virtual organization and the industrial district - from a network...

Although entrepreneurship, management, and familyconcerns are generally viewed as mutually exclusive aspects of familybusinesses, the tensions generated by the entrepreneurial drive, the family associal institution, and the management profession may actually energize themedium-sized family business.In this study, six well-established familybusiness...

Our main purpose is to test the proposition that Swedish entrepreneurship and small-business research has established a theoretical platform of its own over the last quarter of a century. In order to cope with that challenge we have to provide answers to some basic questions, for example: (i) What theoretical basic elements can be identified in Swe...

The focus of this paper is to explore how contrasting ideologies in¯ uence the selection process of outside directors in the small family business. Small family businesses do not just represent small-scale economic activity but they are the outcome of entrepreneurial ambition and family involvement. This means that willpower and emotional commitmen...

Global concern for knowledge about and competencies for entrepreneurship and small business is growing. When discussing university training for entrepreneurship an action-oriented approach is needed. Originating in an elaboration of Kolb's model of action learning, an ‘entrepreneurial action capability’ (EAC) test is constructed. The test is based...

The commercialization of high technology and professional knowledge is often organized by individuals and firms within networks. Operational models of the personal network entrepreneurs build both individually (egocentric networks) and collectively as members of the small–firm clusters (sociocentric networks), which are presented and applied to Swe...

Entrepreneurship and intellectualism are usually juxtaposed. In an increasingly complex context for business activity there is though an opportunity to mobilize the competencies of intellectuals in commercial processes. "Intellectual entrepreneurship" is associated with a certain mode of enacting a venturing career. A tentative understanding of the...

Although scholars in the field seem to agree that entrepreneurship is about uniqueness and emergence, the research still lacks constructive understanding in both the academic setting and in the world of practice. Entrepreneurship is perceived as alien and stranger to those who believe in a manageable world. Juxtaposing management and entrepreneursh...

In June 1994 the 8th Nordic Conference on Small Business Research was hosted by Halmstad University on the west coast of Sweden. Since 1982 Scandinavian entrepreneurship and small-business researchers have met every second year, alternating between Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Since English was the conference language at the Halmstad venue,...

The use of network approaches to gain an understanding of business behaviour in general, and entrepreneurial action in particular, has increased. Research into entrepreneurial networking, however, varies considerably depending upon paradigmatic assumptions. In deterministic contexts networks mainly represent restrictions while in voluntaristic sett...

Empirical research in Sweden on business venturing suggests that qualified experience and social skills are more crucial to success than formal education. Adopting an action perspective on entrepreneurship, a framework for identifying competences needed for an entrepreneurial career is provided. It is argued that entrepreneurial training calls for...

As starting and managing a small business means both social and economic risk taking so is building a robust community a social as well as an economic endeavour. Such a community is a most vital context for entrepreneurship. If located in a remote area and if the environment is hostile cooperation is stimulated between firms and other community gro...

During the late 1970s and in the 1980s these countries have run into the same structural problems as most other European countries, problems stemming mainly from the process of international economic restructuring. The main question, is whether local initiatives with little respect for, or help from, national policies can not only survive these soc...

This article suggests that the key to entrepreneurial success is to be found in the ability to develop and maintain a personal network. In elaborating this proposition I regard the environment of the business venture as "enacted". The inexperienced new entrepreneur needs support to create a personal network and to manage the enacted environment. Th...

Dr. Bengt Johannisson is with the Small Business Centre at Vaxjo University, Sweden. Entrepreneurs in owner-managed firms have to supplement internal resources in order to adapt to increasingly turbulent environments. The personal network of the entrepreneur supplies resources on conditions which do not conflict with the small business' need for fl...

This paper is an attempt to study the relation between firm size and some variables related to firm size on one hand and the number of patent applications in the firm-as an indicator of inventive activity-on the other. Results from the study suggest that the theory advocating that large firms are responsible for a larger number of inventions on a m...

Traditionell samhällsvetenskaplig metod passiviserar och kontrollerar forskaren. Uppsatsen föreslår ett konstrasterande synsätt, dvs uppmanar forskaren till att aktivt ta kontroll över den tillvaron som forskningsuppgiften avser att skapa kunskap kring. Genom att tillämpa en sådan iscensättande forskning på entreprenörskap som fenomen tydliggörs an...

In this paper some influential myths in the Scandinavian countries concerning firm growth and family business are challenged. Based on a sample of 553 fast-growing firms, so called 'Gazelles', this author argues that the myths concerning firm growth remain as constructs in the interest of public and corporate agents. Instead the features that are a...

Abstract Although there is an increasing consensus within the research community,that entrepreneurshipshould be perceived as an organising process involving many, little attention has been paid to the genuinely collective features of entrepreneurship. Here entrepreneurship is presented as a phenomenon,that is as much,the outcome,of a joint effort a...

0. Abstract Entrepreneurship, when perceived as an organizing endeavour, opens the field for more context-oriented and less person-oriented strategies for developing new ventures and employment. More room is given to different teaching methods, including cases. It also invites to partnerships between universities and other educational institutions...

En este artículo aplicaremos la iniciativa empresarial, concebida como una red de contactos (networking), una forma creativa organizativa, a un sistema espacial; a una localidad. Crearemos un vocabulario y unos conceptos que reconozca la importancia de la red de contactos como concepto socioeconómico y al territorio como un «contexto organizativo»....