Growth of small businesses is vital to the Swedish economy, and many entrepreneurs want their enterprises to grow. However, the business climate of today is more changing than ever, and attributes becoming increasingly important for companies in order to deal with this are flexibility, speed, and adaptability: characteristics normally attributed to small enterprises. As a larger organization often is associated with more rigidity as a consequence of a higher degree of formalization, entrepreneurs are hesitant to seize growth opportunities, as they fear it will have negative impact on the aforementioned competitive advantages their enterprise possesses as a small business. This simple case study of a growing small enterprise investigates the effects of organizational growth on a small business' organizational structure and through its above mentioned advantages. The study finds that avoiding formalization while growing damages the competitiveness of the firm, and concludes that a degree of formalization is a necessity to maintain the flexibility, speed and adaptability in a growing small business..

Previous research has suggested that there is a strong and positive relationship between being an entrepreneur and possessing a high degree of subjective well-being as well as job satisfaction. The big five personality traits have also been argued to be significantly related to both subjective well-being and job satisfaction. Little is however known if personality affects entrepreneurs and regular employees differently. In this paper the impact of personality traits on the cognitive part of subjective well-being as well as job satisfaction are investigated separately among entrepreneurs and regular employees. This is done through OLS-regressions using a Swedish nationally representative survey Employment, Material Resources, and Political Preferences (EMRAPP), where entrepreneurs were oversampled in order to be able to compare entrepreneurs (N = 2483) and regular employees (N = 2642).

It is well known that small businesses and entrepreneurs in the initial phase has difficult to gain access to external capital and bank loans. With the background of the problems that entrepreneurs face when they ask for capital has since the financial crisis the phenomenon of crowdfunding developed and evolved. Crowdfunding is an alternative source of funding for entrepreneurs to fund their ideas through small or medium-sized capital contribution from a larger amount of investors, often investors who have any kind of relationship with the entrepreneur or to the very idea. This study examined the factors that motivate and guide an investor's decisions when they select their projects. The results of the study show that the motives of the various existing forms of crowdfunding is big.

The purpose of this thesis was to illustrate the connection between personal networks and entrepreneurial business in the music industry. It also aims to examine how and why entrepreneurs in the music industry use personal networks in their entrepreneurial business activities. In order to explore the extent to which entrepreneurs in the music industry obtain support through personal networks, a case study was conducted based on interviews with entrepreneurs in various areas of the music industry. The study has shown that entrepreneurs in the music industry clearly see distinct advantages through the use of their personal networks, especially in terms of an enhanced supply of resources and through an increased amount of business opportunities. Personal networks have also shown to constitute a considerable amount of moral support for the entrepreneurs in the development process of the entrepreneurial business.

Public procurement in Sweden is regulated by the Act on Public Procure­ment (lagen om offentlig upphandling, LOU, in Swedish). The Public procurement in Sweden stands every year approximately for 500 bil­lion Swedish crowns of the taxpayers? money. It is therefore im­portant that the money is spent in the best possible way. The focus in this study is set on the relationship between the small- and medium sized building entrepreneurs and the government.

This is a qualitative case study that aims to examine the small entrepreneur?s choice of financing solutions and their thoughts on various forms of financing. The authors have chosen to specifically examine entrepreneurs who do not have experience that stretches more than three years in entrepreneurship and the restaurant business. The study used three different companies in the restaurant business in Stockholm and semi-structured interviews were conducted with all owners of the company, corresponding to a total of six respondents. The study's findings show the relationship of entrepreneurs who believe that the experience of the industry and entrepreneurship is valuable also are more prone to giving away some ownership in exchange for a certain expertise and funding..

The role of small businesses is fundamentally important for the economic development in countries. Within this context, business incubation is used as an entrepreneurship development instrument to promote and support new firms in the early stage of their existence. However, research in the field tends to disregard the perspectives of incubatee entrepreneurs. The performed investigation is based on interviews with entrepreneurs from two different business incubators at Swedish universities. This study uses a Situated Learning Theory (SLT) as a theoretical framework, to examine the entrepreneur's experience of the learning environment in a business incubator.

line of business/industry and family, to more clearly discern how male and female norms are acquired among female entrepreneurs. The purpose of this study was to gain a greater understanding and knowledge of women's conditions regarding entrepreneurship, in relation to society's norms. The study is based on a textual thematic analyses, using two themes derived from Helene Ahls ?The Scientific Reproduction of Gender Inequality. A Discourse Analysis of Research Texts on Women`s Entrepreneurship?.

The female labour is still a rather unexploited resource in many parts of the world. Unleashing women?s potential, giving them the possibility to start their own enterprises would increase the economic growth. Not only does women's entrepreneurship foster greater equality in the world but it also creates a more versatile economy. Sweden is considered to be one of the most equal countries in the world; still, entrepreneurship is an area with sharp gender differences, especially in some industries.

The purpose of this study is to gain understanding of how self employed entrepreneurs (hereafter referred to as ?entrepreneurs?) develop their competence based on their perceived learning space. The main question is: How do these entrepreneurs develop their competence based on their perceived learning space? Other questions relevant for the study are: How important is the social environment for these entrepreneurs and how do they interact with their social environment in order to develop their competence. The study has a qualitative approach.

Background: Of those who start companies, only about 30 % are women. Women's companies also often have both fewer employees and lower turnover. Several efforts are therefore being made to try to influence and encourage more women to start businesses and to get them to expand. Two of these ventures are special network for women and about women entrepreneurs as role models, something that also the theories believe is very important for a more egalitarian business. While entrepreneurship is encouraged for growth in the community, it also has a male character, something that needs to be considered.Purpose: As both the EU and the Swedish government through measures such as Tillväxtverket, is investing large sums to promote networking and role models, we intended to analyze the importance of networking and role models for entrepreneurial women.

Entrepreneurship is a subject of growing attention, especially within public policy, media and research. Many studies have been done, but the subject of entrepreneurial exit has to a large extent been ignored. The aim of this study has been to investigate how entrepreneurs at an early stage in their career think about exit within a near future, and what factors influence their attitude towards exit. The study was conducted through a survey answered by 253 entrepreneurs active within business incubators in Sweden. Based on previous research on entrepreneurial intentions, a model of exit intentions was developed, and tested against several other factors.

The tourism industry is a young industry in Sweden but important for the economy and a large part of the field is mountain tourism. Marketing a place is called destination marketing, which has become a huge phenomenon and an important part of efforts for promotion in the tourism industry. The entrepreneurs in the tourism industry are an important part, as these are a big part of the destination. Their marketing and communication becomes a force to reckon with in order to attract tourists to the area. The purpose of this study is to examine how entrepreneurs through destination marketing reach their target market and with the intention to identify marketing channels that the entrepreneur uses.

The aim of this study is to, by developing ideal types, describe why studententrepreneurs participate in self organised business network. The investigation is based on answers from 41 participants in the business network ?Företagare på Lnu?, as well astwo semi-focused groups, which where analysed by using Webers (1978) ideal types.The investigation shows that there are several reasons for student entrepreneurs to participate in self organised business network. For instance some people participate to gather knowledge from other student entrepreneurs for their own future, since they have an idea of soon starting their own business. Others participate just for the fun of knowing what?s going on at the university..

For a long time, economic activity has decreased and shows a downward trend in the food sector. To break this requires efforts to strengthen corporate position with the ability to meet market challenges. In the small producers is a great potential for them to be able to increase its profitability thanks to its ability to offer added value in the product. But to achieve this requires not only a willingness and creativity out of the ordinary but also factors that lead us into this report, current issues. The issues are related to marketing, brand building and the importance of developing a stable network. The study aims to investigate how small businesses operate in rural areas are experiencing the possibilities of support from various networks and organizations and that, from a business perspective, and also see which areas that they need more support in to achieve a growing business. The work has been followed by an inductive method, when we initially could not say anything about the empirical results.