Research on gender and entrepreneurship, is a broad field of research developed in the intersection between theories about entrepreneurship and gender and feminist theory. Within this research field labor, family and the state are the key elements. The gender perspective is one of society's most important organizing principles and entrepreneurship is seen as important for promoting growth, creating jobs, etc. The study of gender and entrepreneurship in combination is therefore important to understand the forces that shape our history, our present and our future.

This book is the result of a workshop organized by the Research Center Enter Forum, at Södertörn University in December 2015. The theme of the workshop was Policy, Entrepreneurship and Gender. Starting from a gender perspective, the papers presented analyzed how economic development and social processes has led to the emergence of new industries, and how technology and policy in cooperation may outcrowd women’s participation in certain industries. Additional topics are the impact of gender on firms ability to survive in the long term; How women entrepreneurs see women in business; How social entrepreneurship can be the catalyst for women's rights; And the the challenges and opportunities of female equine entrepreneurs in urban businesses encounter in their daily activities

Suburbs represent an essential subject for regional studies and have a rapidly increasing economic significance within wider metropolitan regions (Phelps 2010). It is necessary to create inclusive suburbs with a stronger identity. The current growth of populations in major cities requires an ability to reorganize existing cities and a massive restructuring of urban infrastructure (Modarres and Kirby 2010). The interpretation of the needs of suburbs have previously called for a transdisciplinary and collaborative strategy (Després et al. 2004). We look at entrepreneurship and different types of 21 businesses as a source of vitalization of suburbs. These ventures are studied in the context of the diversity of the population of suburb. Entrepreneurial investments, the establishment of high impact enterprises as well as networking among local and migrant businesses represent elements that can vitalize previously marginalized suburbs. Enterprises that are clustered in suburban neighborhoods reflect the different impacts of suburban and city spatial forms. Newly arrived citizens draw upon the critical mass of ethnic members to form a niche market for ethnic business (Fong et al. 2007). Minorities may have limited access to financial capital in the larger urban economy, but ethnic enclaves may provide a source of a unique competitive advantage (Cummings 1999). Entrepreneurship rooted in a suburban surrounding represent a specific opportunity to become embedded in an economic and spatial dimension. The migrant may be seen as representing a diversity capital which penetrate specific market conditions located in ethnically diverse neighborhoods situated in the suburbs of major cities. The spatial and entrepreneurial dimension of ethnic business can thereby be given a relevant context for interpretation.

This article analyses long-term business entry in the Swedish brewing industry, presenting new data on its organisational historiography. Since 1830, the rate of entry has varied considerably; entries increased progressively from the 1850s, and fell at a decreasing rate from the early twentieth century. An increasing tendency to enter the trade can be observed from the mid-1980s – in particular, there has been a considerable resurgence since the turn of the millennium. The article elaborates on explanations that are both exogenous and endogenous. Above all, the results provide support for the role of endogenous conditions. The results should be viewed as complementary to previous analyses of the (Swedish) brewing industry, which either have employed shorter analytical time-frames or have mainly focused on the role of exogenous conditions, such as changes in the institutional framework.

Uppsatsen redogör för förklaringar till företagsdödlighet i såväl offentliga utredningar som inom ekonomisk och sociologisk forskning och teoribildning. Två fundamentalt olika föreställningar om hur och varför företag beter sig på ett visst sätt har dominerat de flesta studier. Ett perspektiv förutsätter en central roll för företagsledningens beslutsfattande och kompetens. Ett andra och motsatt perspektiv ser företags beteenden bestämda av externa krafter över vilka företagsledningen saknar kontroll. De olika föreställningarna påverkar resultat och slutsatser inom forskningen och har också betydelse för utformningen av den ekonomiska politiken.

Ekonomer betraktar vanligtvis konkursutvecklingen som en konjunkturindikator och därmed beroende av förändringar på ekonomins efterfrågesida: konkurserna förväntas öka i tider av ekonomisk nedgång och minska under högkonjunkturer. Flertalet analyser är emellertid kortsiktiga. I denna uppsats presenterar vi ny och unik empiri där vi ana­lyserar det långsiktiga sambandet mellan konjunkturväxlingar och konkurser i Sverige mellan år 1830 och år 2010. I uppsatsen diskuteras också problem som kan uppstå i tolk­ningen av konkursstatistiken, både historiskt och i vår samtid. Den statistiska analysen visar att det delvis går att fastställa ett samband mellan makroekonomiska svängningar och förändringar i konkursmängden.

We analyse firm survival and focus on several levels of analysis (both firm level and macro-level). We employ a unique longitudinal data set, recorded at the firm-level and covering nine complete entry cohorts of Swedish companies. The companies were founded between 1899 and 1992, and each firm is followed over nearly a decade. We adopt the semi-parametric complementary log-log (cloglog) model. The main novelty of our approach is that, unlike extant studies so far, we are able to distinguish between the impact on the hazard rate of founding conditions and contemporaneous, post-entry conditions. Using our new approach we test several hypotheses derived from the Industrial Organization and Organizational Ecology literatures.

Objectives: The knowledge of the effects of white-collar crimes is incomplete. In the article, we operationalize white-collar crimes as bankruptcy frauds. Economic models maintain that interlinkages between firms may give ‘domino effects’: bankruptcy events could lead to ‘bankruptcy chains’ in which a bankruptcy spreads to other firms. Analogously, criminologists assert that social and economic networks can be a major source of fraud diffusion, with the potential to drive other firms bankrupt. Recent empirical results show that crimes may have detrimental and even asymmetric (nonlinear) effects on economic activity. We analyze the diffusion and the aggregate development of bankruptcy frauds in Sweden over nearly two hundred years, specifically focusing on the relationship between bankruptcy frauds and the bankruptcy volume. We also consider linkages between bankruptcy frauds, bankruptcies, and the macroeconomic cycle. Methods: We use long, aggregate time series, collected from several different historical and contemporary sources. Applying the recently developed cointegrating nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) model, we investigate whether the bankruptcy volume reacts asymmetrically to increases and decreases in bankruptcy frauds, both in the short and the long run. Results: Bankruptcy frauds reveal a causal effect on bankruptcies, showing an asymmetric (nonlinear) diffusion effect from economic frauds to the bankruptcy volume. Increases in bankruptcy frauds have a positive and significant effect on the bankruptcy volume. However, decreases in bankruptcy frauds show no significant effect. No causal relationship between the macroeconomic cycle and bankruptcy frauds is found. Conclusions: Our data and research approach demonstrate how previously generated hypotheses in both criminology and economic research on the relationship between (economic) crimes, economic activity, and the diffusion of white-collar crime can be tested at an aggregate level. © 2018 The Author(s)

The link between new venture survival and the presence of founding teams is investigated, in particular the effect of the gender composition of teams. Furthermore, we study venture survival, gender, and institutional change. A unique longitudinal database is employed, covering a large number of Swedish ventures established during 6 specific years, 1930-2005. These data capture the initial gender diversity of start-ups. The contextualization of entrepreneurship involves situational and temporal boundaries, and we elaborate on contextual factors at different levels of analysis. Our results show that ventures founded by teams have a higher probability of surviving, but show no overall team gender homogeneity/heterogeneity effect. However, we find some support for the fact that ventures founded by all-female teams have lower survival chances. Nevertheless, the clearest negative effect is found for female solo start-ups. Furthermore, our results support the fact that institutional transformation may gradually have increased the likelihood of ventures founded by females to survive. 

Recent developments in entrepreneurship suggest a causal link between entrepreneurial activity and economic growth: entrepreneurship precedes economic growth. A positive effect from entrepreneurship on economic development in advanced, innovation-driven economies in the most recent decades is often maintained. Self-employment is one of the most common indicators of entrepreneurship. The present study uses very long series of non-interrupted data on self-employment in Sweden (1850–2000). It analyzes the relationship between variations in self-employment and economic growth. For the entire period, variations in self-employment had a significant, instantaneous positive correlation with GDP growth. However, no causal relationship could be discovered: variations in self-employment did not (Granger) cause GDP growth. We discovered a structural break in GDP growth as early as in the year of 1948. Up until 1948, (Granger) causality between self-employment and GDP could not be established for any direction. For the other segment (1949–2000), GDP growth (Granger) caused self-employment growth, but not the other way around. For the period 1949–2000, but not for the previous period, selfemployment lagged with respect to GDP growth.  Consequently, GDP growth preceded self-employment growth, but self-employment growth did not precede GDP growth. Given that self-employment is a suitable indicator, the empirical results in this study are, in several respects, in disagreement with dominating assumptions in mainstream research.

The interest in social enterprises has increased rapidly during the last decades in Sweden as in many other countries. The use of the concept continues evolving and a commonly agreed definition has yet to emerge— ‘different versions’ provide points of reference for different groups in society as well as in policy initiatives. Even if the concept of social enterprise remains relatively new in the Swedish context, the phenomena referred to as such today have a long history and must be understood in relation to the development and strong position of public welfare structures as well as theircurrent transformation. During the pre-welfare state phase in history, social initiatives predominantly focused on those who experienced social disadvantages in a rather poor society. These types of charity initiatives during late 19th century combined with strong social movements such as the labour movement and democracy movement, highlighting equality and democracy which later characterised the Swedish welfare state. Since late 20th century, services provided by the public sector have increasingly been subject to competition, thus growing the market for private welfare services– including those sold by social enterprises. Policies, procurements and different client choice models have not been limited to certain types of private initiatives. Social enterprises do therefore compete on the same market as non-profit organisations (NPOs) and conventional enterprises.

Det är viktigt att företagsekonomin inte sätter på sig skygglappar och har modet att ha en bred, systemisk syn på hållbarhet. Vi föreslår att företagsekonomin ger mera utrymme åt att söka och finna fungerande alternativ, inte genom att bara tänka ut nyheter hela tiden vilket inte är hållbart i längden, utan även genom att presentera organisationer som redan är i gång och kan inspirera till hållbart organiserande i större skala – en slags systemisk surdeg för hållbarhet. Vi illustrerar vår reflektion med berättelser från fältet. I en handlar det om sökandet efter en förståelse av det (alternativa) sociala företagandet och företagsamheten i det civila samhället. I den andra handlar det om små entreprenöriella organisationer som beskriver sig självasom fungerande utanför kapitalismen. I den tredje presenterar vi idéer kring hur organisering av konst/kultur i sin tur kan vara kopplade till hållbarhet.

According to Buchanan and Congleton (1998. Politics by Principle, Not Interest: Towards Nondiscriminatory Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), the generality principle in politics blocks special interests. Consequently, the generality principle should thereby promote economic efficiency. This study tests this hypothesis on wage formation and labor markets, by investigating whether generality defined as state neutrality could explain employment performance among OECD countries during 1970–2003. We identify three types of non-neutrality concerning unemployment. These include the level or degree of government interference in the wage bargaining process over and above legislation which facilitates mutually beneficial wage agreements, the constrained bargaining range (meaning the extent to which the state favors or blocks certain outcomes of the bargaining process), and the cost shifting (which relates to state interference shifting the direct or indirect burden of costs facing the parties on the labor market). Our overall hypothesis is that non-neutrality or non-generality increases unemployment rates. The empirical results from the general conditional model suggest that government intervention and a constrained bargaining range clearly increase unemployment, while a few of the cost shifting variables have unexpected effects. The findings thus give some, but definitely not unreserved, support for the generality principle as a method to promote economic efficiency. One implication may be that the principle should be amended by other requirements if the political process shall indeed be able to promote economic efficiency.

Finanskriser i sverige 

Den 15 september 2008 tvingades Lehman Brothers ställa in sina betalningar, vilket startade den mest omfattande internationella finansiella krisen sedan depressionen på 1930-talet. Krisens orsaker, bankernas agerade och statens roll i det finansiella systemet har diskuterats livligt. Men finansiella kriser är inte unika för vår tid utan har varit en del av ekonomins utveckling under de senaste århundradena. 

Denna bok fokuserar främst på de finansiella kriser som drabbat Sverige under de senaste 150 åren, det vill säga sedan landet började industrialiseras och den ekonomiska tillväxten ta fart. Finansiella kriser har ofta inträffat i samband med perioder med snabb tillväxt och ändrade förutsättningar för näringsliv och finansmarknad. I framställningen analyseras krisernas bakgrundsfaktorer, utveckling hur kriserna har lösts och framför allt vilken roll staten har spelat i denna process. Interaktionen mellan stat, marknad och aktörer har varit viktiga för framväxten men även för att lösa finansiella kriser. Boken ger en överblick över svenska finanskrisers drivkrafter, utveckling, räddningsaktioner och konsekvenser. 

Skandia har stått i centrum för försäkringsbranschens utveckling sedan bolaget bildades 1855. Dessutom har bolaget omvandlat sig själv vid upprepade tillfällen – inte minst under 1900-talets slut. Den här boken handlar främst om de senaste 30 åren i Skandias historia. En tid då omvandlingarna varit större än tidigare. Skandia gick in i 1990-talet som ett starkt inhemskt bolag med omfattande verksamhet på den nordiska marknaden och en bred närvaro internationellt. Under de följande decennierna genomgick Skandia flera grundläggande förändringar som omvandlade bolagets produkter, ägande, kundkrets och ekonomiska situation. Det är denna historia som författarna Mats Larsson och Mikael Lönnborg berättar, med utgångspunkt i ett omfattande och unikt arkivmaterial på Centrum för Näringslivshistoria och ett stort antal intervjuer med de personer som spelat en betydande roll i omvandlingarna.

The purpose of the reinsurance industry is to provide insurance for primary insurers. Primary insurers have fairly standardised policies, whereas those of reinsurers are often less so, more internationally oriented and likely to cover very large risks. There is little doubt that primary insurance policies, as well as an insurance market based on fixed premiums, would be difficult to sustain over the long run without reinsurance. Reinsurance enables portfolio diversification by the primary insurer in order to avoid the kinds of devastating losses that could threaten its survival (Kopf 1929; Golding 1930; Doherty & Smetters 2005; James et al. 2014; Borsheid & Haueter 2012).

This paper discusses the emergency of the Swedish life reinsurance market from the mid 19^th century and describe the development until the 2010s. In the wake of the founding of the first joint stock corporations in the middle of the 1850s, insurers set rather limited risk maximums and signed reciprocal treaties with mainly foreign insurers to limit their risks. During the following six decades the life reinsurance was handled by individual corporations but in 1914 a commonly owned life reinsurance company was organised to deal with the issue for reinsurance for the entire market. This continued until the end of the 1980s when most of the individual insurers preferred to set up their own corporations for dealing with the issue of life reinsurance and Sweden Re was transformed into a completely different organisation. 

For more than a century, mutual insurers have dominated the Swedish insurance market. Independent of the historical roots and traditions, companies that sell life and other (non-life) forms of insurance have chosen the mutual organizational form. We focus on two different mutual insurers—Folksam and Länsförsäkringar—in decoding their historical roots, governance and management structure. Our focus is on the differences and similarities with special attention to customer’s participation in governance. The chapter shows that it is indeed possible to organize successful hybrid organizations with longevity and that the state’s role in the process is vital but not always a precondition for successful development of hybrid firms. In addition, the chapter also shows that it is difficult to include customers/owners in the governance of these firms and that there exist many different options for creating such systems.

This study demonstrates that the presence of diversified corporate forms within the insurance industry does not always lead to the dominance of what is, according to theory, the most efficient business form, the joint-stock corporation. Swedish mutual insurance companies have often been connected to various popular movements, and have thus obtained quasi-monopoly rights for writing certain kinds of insurance. This has been important as a means of obtaining economies of scale and creating efficient organisations, and has allowed them to compete with their joint-stock rivals. Mutuals have also remained important players in the insurance market by keeping policyholders’ interests in focus through creative product diversification and by expanding nationally to reach customers outside of their original base. Mutuality also protected them against hostile take-overs that weakened the stock corporations. Mutual insurers not only survived as independent companies but also were a success. 

The Swedish insurance companies developed – in line with other Scandinavian countries – an unique kind of distribution system for selling insurance products. The origin of the Swedish insurance market was built on inspiration from in particular from United Kingdom and Germany when the first joint-stock company Skandia was founded in the 1850s. Swedish insurers copied among other things, insurance contracts, premium calculation schemes and organising agent networks. In line with these corporations, each insurance company established regionally based networks of agents with a general agent and a large number of subordinated agents. However, in the Scandinavian setting, the emergency of independent brokers was haltered by an interesting dilemma. Early on, agents used something called ‘returned commission’ where they offered potential customers to get a portion of the agents’s commission. This often led to that customers signed life insurance contracts with higher insurance sums and after some time the could not keep on paying the premium and had to cancel the contract. Due to the social element of life insurance, and the existence of so-called returned commission, cancelled contracts could jeopardize the legitimacy of the entire market. The only measure – according to the trade organizations – to control the agentswas to keep the system with that each insurers had their own employed agents. Thereby, the emergency of independent brokers did not developed on the Swedish insurance market.

In this paper we will follow the distribution system for the insurance industry during the 19th and 20th centuries until today and describe how the system was relative stable until the 1980s through legislation but also supported by formal cartelization and gentlemen’s agreement on the market. In particular one cartel agreement, that was implemented in the 1910s that focused on the agent system that changed repeatedly until the 1980s – and fundament of the entire distribution system – will be discussed. The paper will focus on the major changes that occurred from the 1980s and onwards, in particular in connection of the accession to the European Union in the 1990s that entirely changed the distribution system on the market.