Entreprenörskapets Vidunderliga Resa - Remneland, Björn

English Summary
The Winding Road of Entrepreneurship
This dissertation is a story about entrepreneurship as emergence; of dreams
being transformed into materialized structures, and the feelings and doubts
that then appear. It is a drama in the landscape of creativity and endurance. It
follows the fluctuating beliefs and desire of so called “nascent entrepreneurs”
(Reynolds, 2000), eg. entrepreneurs in the ongoing work of implementing
their visions, in this case web-based IT-platforms for knowledge
exchange.
It is said that both the market economy and the field of science and technology
are dependent upon entrepreneurship and innovation for building growth
and development. Commercialized innovations have had significant roles in
economic development not only for companies but also regions as well as
nations. Corporate innovation work is traditionally done “inhouse” but in
recent decades many spokespersons have announced a business paradigm
shift. New means of communication and collaboration have emerged
through the rapid escalation of information technology, thereby giving both
opportunities and challenges to established hegemonies. With the introduction
of various forms of IT-platforms for shared innovation, companies such
as Procter & Gamble, Eli Lilly and IBM have started to open up their innovation
processes, inviting and engaging outside human resources to participate
in wealth creation. We have seen the Lego Corporation gaining thousands
of free R&D-hours by activating their users of the Mindstorm products.
We have seen iPod hackers illegally tinkering with the closed codes
owned by Apple in order to tailor its functions and contents to fit their extended
needs. There is peer-to-peer sharing, music mixing, movie ripping,
elaboration on all kinds of software and hardware. The Internet platforms for
individuals (MySpace.com, YouTube etc.) as well as companies (Yet2.com,
InnoCentive, YourEncore etc.) have grown rapidly to mind-boggling size,
scope and wealth.
Many fascinating and colorful examples of this form of collective action –
legal as well as illegal – are now circulating, where thousands, if not millions
of active users connect to interactive – so called – Web 2.0 sites, building
content, relations and astronomic value. These romantic success stories
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