Entreprenörskapets Vidunderliga Resa - Remneland, Björn

gaining support and funding from the regional government, Idebanken.se
was financed by the entrepreneur himself. The former became labeled as an
“Innovation System initiative”, placing a strong emphasize on regional development
and growth, which influenced both the rhetoric around the project
and the potential actors involved in the progress. The latter turned more toward
the virtual space of the Internet, associating itself with open innovation
and similar interactive online communities. The two IT-systems were also
built on different principles. The platform of Kompetensarena Väst looked
more like a traditional Knowledge Management System, consisting mainly
of a vast amount of explicit “dead” information about available intellectual
capital and resources. Idebanken.se was built as a community with interactive,
ongoing communication and dialogue among free membership participants.
A dramatistic approach to entrepreneurship
The developing narrative can be viewed as a drama with such components
as stage, décor, actors, scripts, audiences and a plot formed around epic ingredients.
Merriam-Webster defines drama as;
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»a composition in verse or prose intended to portray life or character or to
tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue
and typically designed for theatrical performance.«
A framework known as dramatism (Burke, 1945) is being used in the writing
and discussion of the empirical story. The dramatism approach is built on
five pillars which are often referred to as “Burke’s pentad”, i.e. act, scene,
agent, agency, and purpose. The drama is analyzed through these elements,
the point being that the various elements are all intertwined and should
therefore be treated symmetrically. Jerome Bruner (1990) explains the use of
the pentad for analyzing a narrative drama by introducing a sixth component;
the trouble. He means that it is through the equivocal relations and tensions
between the five elements that the plot emerges, then becoming interesting
and captivating. Thus, in the pentad’s quest for balance, the narratives are
given moral as well as epistemic status since the five elements’ tensions
highlight right from wrong.
The empirical story shows that the performed activities (ACT) of Kompetensarena
Väst and Idébanken.se are highly related, and influenced by the entrepreneurs’
(AGENTS) background – beliefs, attitudes and values; the aims
and visions (PURPOSE); the means and approaches being applied (AGENCY);
and the selected contextual environment (SCENE). The constant striving to
integrate and balance various gaps between the elements drives the plot.