Municipally Owned Enterprises as Danger Zones for Corruption? How Politicians Having Feet in Two Camps May Undermine Conditions for Accountability - Ratio

Municipally Owned Enterprises as Danger Zones for Corruption? How Politicians Having Feet in Two Camps May Undermine Conditions for Accountability - Ratio

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Article (with peer review)

Does local government corruption inhibit entrepreneurship?

Wittberg, E., Erlingsson, G. Ó., Wennberg, K.

Publication year

2024

Published in

Small Business Economics, 62(2), 775-806

Abstract

The dominant ‘sand in the wheels’ view holds that entrepreneurship is strongly inhibited by corruption. Challenging this, the ‘grease the wheels’ view maintains that corruption might increase entrepreneurship in highly regulated economies. We extend the basic predictions of these theories by examining entrepreneurs’ start-up decisions, as well as their location choices, in a seemingly low-corruption environment: Swedish municipalities. Combining a validated index of corruption perceptions in local government with population data on new entrepreneurs, nested logit models reveal that even in a low-corruption setting such as Sweden, perceptions of corruption can deter latent entrepreneurs. We also find that a minority of entrepreneurs relocate from their home municipalities to establish their start-ups elsewhere. Surprisingly and contrary to expectations, these relocating entrepreneurs often relocate from relatively low-corruption municipalities to others that are more corrupt. Implications for future research and public policy are discussed.

Article (with peer review)

Subsidy Entrepreneurs: An Inquiry into firms seeking public grants

Halvarsson, D, Gustafsson, A. & Gustavsson Tingvall, P.

Publication year

2020

Published in

Journal of Industry Competition and Trade

Abstract

This paper studies the incentives and characteristics of firms that apply for, and eventually receive, one or multiple governmental grants intended to stimulate innovation and growth. The analysis departs from a contest model in which entrepreneurs are free to allocate their effort between production and seeking grants. The results suggest that highly productive entrepreneurs abstain from seeking grants, moderately productive firms allocate a share of their effort to grant seeking, and low-productivity firms allocate most resources to seeking grants. Due to their efforts in seeking grants, these low-productive subsidy entrepreneurs also have a relatively high probability of receiving the grants. Using comprehensive data over grants from the three largest grant-distributing agencies in Sweden, we find concordant evidence of a negative relation between the probability of receiving a grant and firm productivity. As we go from single- to multiple-grant-supported firms, this negative relation becomes more pronounced.

Article (with peer review)

The openness of open innovation in ecosystems

Öberg, C., & Alexander, A.

Publication year

2019

Published in

Journal of Innovation & Knowledge

Abstract

Open innovation has rendered increased interest both in practice and research, and has expanded from dyadic transfers of ideas, to ecosystem levels. Knowledge is at the heart of open innovation, and this paper describes and discusses knowledge-transfer linkages for open innovation. It does so based on a literature review. The paper links together open innovation research with general management research to categorise and discuss linkages among parties in terms of their openness and how they relate to knowledge management. Conclusions indicate that openness needs to be considered in different dimensions that also links to different knowledge management outcomes. The paper’s contribution consists of how it connects open innovation research to the general management literature, and how it builds a practical understanding of how linkages between firms can be categorised to aid firms to consider which mechanisms they may choose and why.