In efforts to strengthen local economies, business development programs are often a way in which governmental organizations and state affiliates try to facilitate innovation and successful entrepreneurship. There is a mutual interest from both the public and private sector that these funds are put to good use. Extensive research has been conducted with the focus of the general effect of public support programs. However, not much research has been done on what external factors affect the situation for receiving businesses. This study attempts to examine whether one specific such factor, the level of maturity on the markets that the recipients operate in, has a discernible effect on the needs for different types of Entrepreneurial support.

The main aim of this thesis is to examine what motivates people to become entrepreneurs and how they are motivated to continue being it. We have decided to focus on four elements: the driving force of being an entrepreneur, the environment, the individual background and important personal characteristics of the entrepreneur. Qualitative interviews were carried out with six information consultants. The theoretical background has its focus on Entrepreneurial motivation. A model of Entrepreneurial motivation by Naffziger, Hornsby and Kuratko 1994 is presented.

In today?s Sweden there is great belief in entrepreneurship and the benefits it can bring to the country. The Swedish government has taken note of this growing enthusiasm and realized the contribution it can make to facilitate national growth. Successful efforts have been made in Sweden to support entrepreneurship and innovation, which has resulted in a relative ease for individuals to start their own businesses.The number of companies started today is higher than ever and there are signs of a common faith in growth among new entrepreneurs. Unfortunately only a small fraction of these new businesses succeed in growing big.

The aim of the study was to show whether or not there exists, and if so, to understand, a common creativity, vision and imagination of the members of Småland?s Entrepreneurial Academy?s organisation.The method used for this research is the fictive narrative collage , which consists of the collection of fictive stories. The author has also made her own additions to the method. A composer composes songs to the narratives, two artists illustrate the narratives. The research is carried out on the total population within Småland?s Entrepreneurial Academy which consists of 10 permanent members of the organisation.The theory focuses on different areas, such as creativity, vision and imagination as well as on the entrepreneur and the organisation.

Lately an increasing portion of the public debate in Sweden has been devoted to how societies may facilitate entrepreneurship, yet a negligible portion of this debate has discussed the impact of the community spirit on Entrepreneurial activity. Further, this connection is a relatively uncharted field in terms of research as well. The aim of this study is accordingly to advance the study surrounding the impact of community spirit on the propensity for Entrepreneurial activity and add new empirical data and insights to the existing body of theory. A four-month ethnographic study of the Provo-Orem region in Utah, USA, comprising of in-depth interviews and participant observations, was therefore undertaken with the aim of understanding the community spirit in the studied region and its influence on entrepreneurship. The thesis finds that numerous values such as self-reliance, family focus and security together with a strong religious culture make up the essence of the community spirit in Provo-Orem.

The aim of this study is to understand the situation on the Swedish Market for Drugstores and a creation of a new approach to marketing research, based on the thesis? methodological proceeding. With the help of different methodological approaches and different theories the study's purpose will be solved in an uncommon, untraditional way..

The EU market is being deregulated, which sees Swedish farmers that have traditionally been governed by different support systems being forced to adapt to a free market system and having to deal with the concept of supply and demand. The farming sector has during the past several years experienced harder conditions and the deregulation of the market has directly affected farmers. The need for entrepreneurs and that way of thinking has been identified (McElwee, 2006). Swedish farmers are neither familiar with a free market or being required to think in an Entrepreneurial manner, does this therefore implicate that Swedish farmers are not entrepreneurs?LRF is a national farmers? organization in Sweden and functions as a support for Swedish farmers.

Background: The growth of the venture capital industry has given birth to new relations between investors and Entrepreneurial firms. Venture capital firms are by definition investors serving as an active partner which implies a deeper relation between investors and entrepreneurs than has been the case previously. This new situation leads to a number of questions. Do venture capitalists really act as active partners with a long term interest in the venture? Do they add any value besides capital? How important is their influence in the portfolio company's decision making process? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to give a deeper understanding of the relation between venture capital firms and IT companies in the start-up phase.

This essay presents a business plan for the idea of a Pet Shop in Stockholm. The initial purpose of the essay was to investigate weather the company would be financially profitable or not. During the process we encountered problems and pitfalls that we felt contributed to the fact that our business idea is yet not realized. Therefore the second purpose of describing the process that an entrepreneur goes through when starting a new business came about. Besides the business plan for Pet Shop we present a selection of the theories that we found relevant for our situation, among others behaviour of Entrepreneurial teams, network theory and execution.

Leaders have many tools in their toolbox when it comes to managing their firms, assuring that they are moving in the right direction. One of these tools is vision. Vision can be a powerful tool for steering a company. But to be able to use it fully, you must also understand how vision is best conveyed to employees and followers. If you understand the vision as a tool, you can fully utilize it.

The purpose of this study is to investigate which types of cultural capital gives high status in the current field of ?the creative industry? ? a group which could be seen as a new power elite in Gothenburg ? and how people with the ?right? cultural capital is included in the field. The author is invited to several free events within this field, and is investigating the process of inclusion with an auto-ethnographic method. The study will show that the process of inclusion is working quite absolute in the field of the creative industry, and that the audiences are mainly homogenous: masculine, white, middle class, has a taste disposition of the ?eclectic omnivore?, has Entrepreneurial knowledges and is an active social media agent.

Att vara egenföretagare är en anställningsform som blir allt vanligare och genom att skapa en förståelse för varför denna anställningsform växer ökar även kunskapen om egenföretagarnas drivkraft och trivsel. Motivation har en nära koppling till arbetstillfredsställelse och är en viktig del i egenföretagarnas vardag.  Studiens syfte var att skapa en förståelse om vad som påverkar egenföretagarnas arbetstillfredsställelse och även att ta reda på betydelsefulla motivationsfaktorer. Denna kvalitativa undersökning är baserad på intervjuer av 15 egenföretagare. Resultatet visade att en god arbetsmiljö, utmaningar och självständighet har en positiv påverkan på arbetstillfredsställelsen medan en hög arbetsbelastning påverkade arbetstillfredsställelsen negativt. Variation och skapande i arbetet, erkännande och utveckling visade sig vara bland de starkaste motivationsfaktorerna för att egenföretagare skulle fortsätta driva sitt företag..

The senior essay examines the geographical imaginations, notions of Self and community that were mobilized in the media and by the government in conjunction with an event, namely, the space voyage of Christer Fuglesang ? the first Swedish astronaut in space on December ___ 2006. The study is a critical investigation of media discourses, representations of space, and geographical imaginations that were triggered by the event. The specific issues addressed by this study are (a) which representations of Sweden were mobilized in narrating the event? (b) In what ways has Fuglesang´s space voyage influenced the image of Sweden? (c) How was the event rallied vis-à-vis discourses of Entrepreneurial culture and neoliberal growth by the government? (d) Which themes and clichés were mustered in the media dramaturgy of the event? (e) Which topics were excluded in media narratives and representation of the event? (f) Have familiar geographical imaginations, notions of Self and community been reconfigured? If so, how?The present study analyzes narratives of the event in the two largest newspapers in Sweden - Aftonbladet and Dagens Nyheter, as well the two biggest TV-channels ? Swedish Television and TV4.

This study has as its purpose to reveal whether female and male entrepreneurs are offered the same kind of conditions in their role of entrepreneurs in their respective media representation. This is studied by analyzing portrayals in the magazine Entreprenör (Br.E. ?Entrepreneur?). Methodologically the analysis will be making use of textual analysis, semiotics and discourse analysis in order to expose the underlying gender perspective(s) in Entreprenör.The entrepreneur portrayals? texts and visuals will be studied in the light of gender and entrepreneur theory, and more specifically on the basis of theories about representation, discourse and stereotypes.The main conclusion of the study is that female and male entrepreneurs are not offered the same conditions in their roles of entrepreneurs in a medium such as Entreprenör.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to find out how much influence underlying factors have in connection to the internationalization of Born Global firms. Methodology: This study has a qualitative approach in which data is obtained mainly through interviews and secondary data which consists previous theories about the internationalization in small and medium sized firms and recent theories that entitle these firms as Born Global. Conclusion: Based on the existing theories and the qualitative data, we have concluded that the underlying factors for the Born Global firm?s internationalization are abilities and opportunities to create insidership in relevant networks. The most crucial underlying factors for Born Global firm?s internationalization are the ability to create processes to break old patterns of thoughts and the ability to ally with right partners. .