ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN SCANDINAVIA- Bridging Individualism and Collectivism by

• Main Author: Bengt Johannisson Professor Dr
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Greenland; Norway; Faroes; Iceland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.119.3550; http://vxu.se/ehv/filer/forskning/entreprofil/publikationer/entrepreneurship_in_scandinavia.pdf

Iceland, the Faroes and Greenland – are usually presented as very homogeneous- nationally as well as when compared with one another. A possible reason for this is that these countries, in addition to their geographical proximity, have colonised each other. Finland was part of Sweden until the beginning of the l9th century and then forced Norway into an alliance for a hundred years. Until then Denmark had ruled in Norway, in the Middle Ages also in Sweden, and Denmark continued to dominate the Western part of the Scandinavian realm well into modern times. An indicator of the socio-cultural homogeneity of the Scandinavian countries is their image in the seminal study of Hofstede (l980). He reported very similar findings in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland as regards work-related values. As a matter of fact this study puts Scandinavia very close to the North American culture. The Scandinavians, though, adopt more feminine values. After the Second World War the Scandinavian countries emerged into advanced welfare economies. A huge public sector and, especially in the case of Sweden, a number of large corporations managed to create wealth and economic success until the l980s. 1