Transforming a Society from "Don't Stand Out" to "If She Can Do It, So Can I" Swedish companies are generally considered to be poor at marketing, which is explained by the fact that the venture capital scene historically had all its focus on technical evolution. In Sweden, entrepreneurs traditionally had a hard time acquiring money for marketing concepts, unlike in the U.S. Until a few years ago, Sweden seemed a hostile environment for entrepreneurs. The egalitarian approach to wealth distribution inhibited any one person from making much more money than anyone else. High personal taxation discouraged individuals from taking on initiative, while corporate taxation was low, since corporate profits could be redistributed to society through their shareholders. Privately owned companies were regarded as personal enrichment at the cost of everyone else. As a result, innovation occurred mostly in large corporate structures. So strong was the egalitarian culture in Swedish society, that a traditional code of conduct called the "Jante-Lo" taught Swedish citizens that they should not see themselves as better than others. Self-aggrandizement was frowned upon, even if someone was very good at something. When the "Swedish Model" collapsed in the early 1990s, Sweden's far-reaching economic reforms indicated a path to a "New Sweden," driven by a social market economy built on structural renewal, personal initiative, and entrepreneurship. Jane Walerud is director of advanced products of Alteon Sweden. The Swedish software company Bluetail, which she co-founded in 1999 and headed as CEO, was purchased by Alteon of the U.S. for U.S.$152 million in 2000. Ms. Walerud believes that the entrepreneurship revival in Sweden has been successful because of the character traits inherent to the Swedish people, qualities that merely lay suppressed under societal norms for many decades, waiting to emerge. Today, she says Sweden leads other high-tech clusters such as Munich, Germany, which does not have the same degree of individualism and self-sufficiency and does not show the same degree of acceptance of entrepreneurship. Jane Walerud Allowing nails to stick up ” Unfolding the potential of the Swedish entrepreneur There used to be a saying in Sweden that you should not believe you are anything because any nail that would stand up would get hammered down to the level of the others. This attitude was a clear regional disadvantage for a long time. During the last decade , the societal paradigm has been transformed to, "If she can do it, so can I!," which has proven a much healthier attitude toward creating personal initiative and innovation. Instead of treating success with jealousy, the Swedish norm is now to say, "How did you do that? Because I have an idea and want to start something similar." Even though personal wealth creation has become an accepted phenomenon in Swedish society, it is still much less the wealth that Swedish entrepreneurs aspire to, when comparing them with their American counterparts. Rather, it is the ability to realize their own technical idea, to have fun, to have an impact on the world, and of course also to make money. There is a certain arrogance in believing one can impact the world. This arrogance is required to become a successful entrepreneur, and Swedes have always been prone to this kind of arrogance . The paradigm change that occurred around personal initiative can be illustrated by Sweden's interpretation of national taxation: "The social democrats have traditionally played the role of milking the cows of capitalism . If you want a lot of milk you must take good care of your cow." For this reason, company taxes were fairly reasonable, causing the locking-in of money and innovation into the companies. However, even though the taxation system has not fundamentally changed over time, the message gained by its interpretation has changed completely since the entrepreneurship revival: "If regular salaried work is taxed very highly, then don't work at a regular salary. Instead, start and own your own company." The new values that have emerged in society are enabling people to take advantage of this logic and are starting them on their way to independence. There weren't any key events that initialized this metamorphosis. It seemed that suddenly, it was okay to be an entrepreneur. Before, people with their own companies were seen as being dishonest, failing to contribute to society. Today, starting a company has become very trendy in Sweden. There has always been a fear of being wrong and a fear of being different in Sweden, driven by the Swedish consensus-driven culture. Starting a company today is something to be considered simply because others are doing it. Swedes will always have a haircut that is reasonable because a lot of other people have it. This is also why Sweden went quickly from nobody owning shares to everybody owning shares and from nobody having a cellular phone to everybody having one. Trends catch on very quickly in Sweden. Swedish society is being driven by the feeling of trends and the following of trends. For this reason, the New Economy hype may have been stronger, and the crash more devastating than in other countries . Successful entrepreneurs act as important role models for future generations of entrepreneurs in Sweden, who say to themselves, "If she can do it, so can I." Icon Medialab founder Johan von Holstein is one such entrepreneur role model. He publicly criticized Swedes for not being proud of what they do, claiming instead that Swedish entrepreneurs could successfully expand throughout Europe and the rest of the world. The fact that three Ericsson spin-offs alone were sold for more than U.S.$120 million each in 2000 has had an incredibly supportive effect in this context. | Our discussion with Ms. Walerud showed that entrepreneurship in Sweden was promoted by an emerging trend of rebellion against traditional society paradigms , and by Sweden's consensus-driven culture that allowed it to catch on faster than in other European countries. The future sustainability of this trend will rely on an ongoing supply of success stories, embodied by entrepreneurial role models. Whereas political initiatives were not the driver behind this revival, the business environment created by political entrepreneurship and the presence of high-level intellectual capital will aid the entrepreneurship culture to become more deeply rooted in Swedish society. Much of the entrepreneurial impetus in Sweden today comes from global high-tech corporations that have set up R&D centers in the region. However, we next explore the question of how regional culture plays an important role when trying to efficiently leverage entrepreneurial skills in a global company. |
