| 1. |
- Bergkvist, John-Erik, et al.
(författare)
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Third-Generation Innovation Policy : System Transformation or Reinforcing Business as Usual?
- 2022
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Ingår i: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State. - Cham : Springer. - 1572-1922. - 9783030942724 - 9783030942755 - 9783030942731 ; , s. 201-217
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- There has been a shift in innovation policy in recent years toward more focus on systemic transformation and changed directionality. In this chapter, we describe a collection of challenges that such policies need to address. Based on a review of dominant frameworks regarding socio-technical transitions, we compare these theories with examples of innovation policy in different countries. Systemic transformation across an economy usually requires a process of creative destruction in which new competencies may be required, actors need to be connected in novel ways, and institutions may need to be changed. Our empirical illustrations show that support programs and initiatives across Europe do not always seem to result in such a process, as they include mechanisms favoring large, established firms and universities. These actors have often fine-tuned their activities and capabilities to the existing order, and therefore have few incentives to engage in renewal. As the incumbent actors also control superior financial and relational resources, there is a risk that they captivate innovation policies and thus reinforce established structures rather than contributing to systemic transformation.
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| 2. |
- Collin, Elias, et al.
(författare)
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Evaluating Evaluations of Innovation Policy: Exploring Reliability, Methods, and Conflicts of Interest
- 2022. - 1
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Ingår i: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State : Status-quo, Pitfalls, and the Need for Credible Innovation Policy - Status-quo, Pitfalls, and the Need for Credible Innovation Policy. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 1572-1922. - 9783030942755 - 9783030942731 - 9783030942724 ; 1, s. 157-173
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Expansions of innovation policies have been paralleled with an increasein the evaluations of such policies. Yet, there are few systematic evaluations of how such evaluations are conducted, by whom, and their overall conclusions. We analyze 110 evaluations of innovation policy in Sweden from 2005 to 2019. Our findings show that the majority of these evaluations are positive, about one-third are neutral in their conclusions, and very few are negative. The majority of evaluations were conducted by consulting firms, close to one-third by expert government agencies, and around 10% by university researchers or as self-evaluations by the governmental agencies responsible for the policy themselves. Few evaluations employed causal methods to assess the potential effects of policies. We discuss conflicts of interest and question the reliability of evaluations of innovation policy.
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| 3. |
- Eriksson, Klas, et al.
(författare)
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Public-Steering and Private-Performing Sectors : Success and Failures in the Swedish Finance, Telecoms, and City Planning Sectors
- 2022
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Ingår i: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State. - Cham : Springer. - 9783030942755 ; 53, s. 299-315
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Mariana Mazzucato embraces state-directed public/private investment in innovation to achieve goals that society as a whole would benefit from. The idea is that the state should direct and the private sphere perform the innovation needed. We argue that this view is biased toward successful examples of innovation created by public sector steering and the private sector performing. Generally, vested interests are created by these kinds of public-steering–private-performing innovations, which hinder or malinvest resources through their interests or information problems when market forces are put out of play. We present examples that explore the process of two successful deregulation cases and one failed case to highlight differences in the processes leading to the different outcomes; the most important being the existence of institutional entrepreneurs acting as typical change agents in the successful cases and the lack thereof in the failed example. These cases highlight the importance of both passive incumbents and proactive entrants for enabling institutional change. We contrast these examples with the public-steering and private-performing framework.
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| 4. |
- Brattström, Anna
(författare)
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Cultural ideals in the entrepreneurship industry
- 2022
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Ingår i: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State : Status-quo, Pitfalls, and the Need for Credible Innovation Policy - Status-quo, Pitfalls, and the Need for Credible Innovation Policy. - Cham : Springer International Publishing. - 1572-1922. - 9783030942731 - 9783030942724 ; , s. 133-133
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- As both public and private organizations are spending resources on fostering entrepreneurship, we have witnessed the emergence of an entrepreneurship industry. Using the entrepreneurship industry in Sweden as a case and example, this chapter provides an explorative analysis the emergence, manifestations and consequences of cultural ideals within this industry. The analysis reveals how the entrepreneurship industry is not only a producer of goods and services for opportunity discovery and development; but also, a producer of entrepreneurship culture. Moreover, how the production and consumption of entrepreneurship culture can lead to problems of inefficiency and discrimination, problems which ultimately hampers the entrepreneurial output that the industry is supposed to produce.
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| 5. |
- Daunfeldt, Sven-Olov, et al.
(författare)
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Do Targeted R&D Grants toward SMEs Increase Employment and Demand for High Human Capital Workers?
- 2022
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Ingår i: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State. - Cham : Springer. - 9783030942755 - 9783030942724 - 9783030942731 ; , s. 175-198
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Most previous studies on the employment effects of government R&D grants targeting SMEs are characterized by data-, measurement-, and selection problems, making it difficult to construct a relevant control group of firms that did not receive an R&D grant. We investigate the effects on employment and firm-level demand for high human capital workers of two Swedish programs targeted toward growth-oriented SMEs using Coarsened Exact Matching. Our most striking result is the absence of any statistically significant effects. We find no robust evidence that the targeted R&D grant programs had any positive and statistically significant effects on the number of employees recruited into these SMEs, or that the grants are associated with an increase in the demand for high human capital workers. The lack of statistically significant findings is troublesome considering that government support programs require a positive impact to cover the administrative costs associated with these programs.
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| 6. |
- Hjalmarsson, Dan
(författare)
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Building Local Innovation Support Systems: Theory and Practice
- 2022. - 1st Edition
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Ingår i: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State: Status-quo, Pitfalls, and the Need for Credible Innovation Policy. - Cham, Switzerland : Springer Nature. - 1572-1922. - 9783030942731 - 9783030942724 ; 53, s. 95-109
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Interest in innovation as a way of meeting societal challenges is increasing. Interest in different types of public innovation support is therefore increasing as well. Umeå University has many years of experience in developing and operating a well-functioning innovation support system. A common theme is to offer project owners creative arenas as context for entrepreneurial judgments and assessments during the various steps of the innovation process. Improved program theories are needed to enable evaluations that provide feedback, learning, and accountability.
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| 7. |
- Sandström, Christian, et al.
(författare)
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Directionality in Innovation Policy and the Ongoing Failure of Green Deals : Evidence from Biogas, Bio-ethanol, and Fossil-Free Steel
- 2022
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Ingår i: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State. - Cham : Springer. - 9783030942724 - 9783030942755 - 9783030942731 ; , s. 251-269
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Environmental policy is no longer only about imposing regulations on industry. It is increasingly regarded as industrial policy. Both the European Union and national governments are taking more active roles in initiating green deals and various technologies aiming at sustainable development. In this chapter, we describe and discuss some recent experiences of green innovation policies. Historical examples concerning efforts in both biogas and ethanol are combined with a more contemporary description of fossil-free steel, i.e., steel made using hydrogen instead of coal. We argue that the presence of large public funds from different funding bodies such as the European Union, various government agencies, and municipalities has distorted incentives, making it rational for firms to pursue technologies without long-term potential. The result has been an absence of sustainable development, mounting debt, and financial problems for the actors involved. We explain these results and draw policy conclusions concerning the risks related to green deals. Relatedly, we argue that the European Union’s current efforts in hydrogen gas face similar challenges.
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| 8. |
- Wennberg, Karl, et al.
(författare)
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Introduction
- 2022
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Ingår i: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State. - Cham : Springer. - 9783030942724 - 9783030942755 - 9783030942731 ; , s. 3-18
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Bokkapitel (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- Western economies are struggling to recover from a decade of Plagued by structural crises, an ongoing pandemic, high unemployment and sluggish growth. As progressively looser monetary and fiscal policies have not helped, both the EU and national governments have increasingly turned towards interventionist industrial policies. Mariana Mazzucato’s The Entrepreneurial State (2011) provided an intellectual justification for these efforts, and consequently gained popularity. The message was clear: in order to get more innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainable development and growth we need more government, not less. In this book, 30 international scholars address the core ideas underpinning the entrepreneurial state. We provide evidence of both historical and recent failures of “green deals” and similar efforts, while also developing novel directions for innovation policy. In many regards, this book is a warning: huge government schemes towards specific, noble outcomes have historically been plagued with failures. In sum, we argue that innovation policy needs to be inverted: instead of being specific and targeted, it needs to be broad and general, focusing on the general conditions for firms to operate. Instead of providing targeted support to certain firms, industries or even technologies, innovation policy needs to constructively deal with barriers to innovation, including the proactive handling of vested interest groups.
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| 9. |
- Wennberg, Karl, et al.
(författare)
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Questioning the Entrepreneurial State: Introduction
- 2022. - 1st Edition
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Ingår i: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State: Status-quo, Pitfalls, and the Need for Credible Innovation Policy. - Cham, Switzerland : Springer Nature. - 1572-1922. - 9783030942731 - 9783030942724 ; , s. 3-18
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Western economies are struggling to recover from a decade of Plagued by structural crises, an ongoing pandemic, high unemployment and sluggish growth. As progressively looser monetary and fiscal policies have not helped, both the EU and national governments have increasingly turned towards interventionist industrial policies. Mariana Mazzucato’s The Entrepreneurial State (2011) provided an intellectual justification for these efforts, and consequently gained popularity. The message was clear: in order to get more innovation, entrepreneurship, sustainable development and growth we need more government, not less. In this book, 30 international scholars address the core ideas underpinning the entrepreneurial state. We provide evidence of both historical and recent failures of “green deals” and similar efforts, while also developing novel directions for innovation policy. In many regards, this book is a warning: huge government schemes towards specific, noble outcomes have historically been plagued with failures. In sum, we argue that innovation policy needs to be inverted: instead of being specific and targeted, it needs to be broad and general, focusing on the general conditions for firms to operate. Instead of providing targeted support to certain firms, industries or even technologies, innovation policy needs to constructively deal with barriers to innovation, including the proactive handling of vested interest groups.
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| 10. |
- Grafström, Jonas, 1985-
(författare)
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Less from More: China Built Wind Power, but Gained Little Electricity
- 2022
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Ingår i: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State. - Cham : Springer. - 9783030942724 - 9783030942731 ; , s. 219-231
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Bokkapitel (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This chapter investigates Chinese wind power development and concludes that innovation cannot be pushed by the efforts of many, and that when the state clarifies directions and objectives, these can be achieved but with severe and unexpected side effects. Two topics are explored: wind curtailment and low technological development, both examples of unproductive entrepreneurship induced by government policies. The goal of wind power capacity expansion leads to construction (i.e., generation capacity) but little electricity. Examples of failures include low grid connectivity with, some years averaging 15% of generation capacity broken or unconnected to the grid. A key lesson for Europe is that forced innovation often amounts to little and that the old saying holds up: “no plan survives contact with reality.”
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