Summary

In summary, the Swedish culture is characterized by collaboration and flat hierarchies. Its small domestic market size and thin population density have enabled Swedish businesses to become communication technology leaders at a global level. The penetration of communications technologies in Swedish society have enabled the region to become a global test market. A traditional focus on intellectual capital has caused Sweden to use pioneering concepts to link high technology and university education in order to prepare the knowledge workers it will require in the future.

The Swedish market overview indicates that the region's high-tech success in part resulted from a natural evolution. Many argue that Sweden just happened to be at the right place at the right time. They claim that Sweden happens to have a tradition of telecommunication industries and that Ericsson just happened to move to Kista when suddenly global wireless telecom markets started booming, and the entire region found itself in a strong position to cater to these emerging global markets. Within such a context, foreign regions may conclude that the creation of regional wealth through high-tech clusters is not merely a matter of short- or mid- term policies. Rather, the Swedish example shows that traditional skills and capabilities that lay unexposed for generations enabled Sweden to become what it is today. The exposure of these skills was aided by global economic developments and a national economic crisis; these made it apparent that the Swedish government needed to initiate wide- ranging reforms and to introduce small business-friendly policies to leverage existing Swedish skills and position the country for the global Innovation Economy.

However, the determined action recently taken by Swedish government, as well as research and industry organizations, indicate that tradition and good fortune alone do not suffice in order to develop successful high-tech clusters. In this sense, three areas of specific importance for Sweden have been:

• Political entrepreneurship

• Successfully attracting and leveraging human resources

• Enabling an entrepreneurship revival

Next, we will take an in-depth look at each of these focus areas. They describe in greater detail how short- and mid-term projects and policies have enabled the application of traditional skills and capabilities to new contexts within the Innovation Economy.

About the Author

This chapter was co- authored by Philip Heimann . He studied management at ESCP-EAP European School of Management in Paris, Oxford, and Berlin, has worked for the consulting firm A.T. Kearney and is currently preparing his doctoral thesis on linking corporate and regional innovation systems. Philip currently resides in Berlin, Germany.