Charlotte Norrman

Entrepreneurship policy to support new innovative ventures: Is it effective?

Using Swedish data, we investigate whether the effectiveness of an entrepreneurship policy programme can be traced over time among those firms it supports. The results are drawn from a longitudinal matched pair analysis. Hypotheses were tested every year for eight years. The main conclusions are: when bias is considered the public support programme has not generated measurable additionality and the programme has to some extent been able to select firms on a general level; however, among those selected, the scheme has not been able to identify potentially successful firms.

An Entrepreneurship Policy Programme: Implications and Expectations

This paper investigates the extent to which the expected outcomes from a public support programme match the real outcomes and whether the support given matches the needs of the receivers. The findings are drawn from a survey of 154 ventures supported by a major Swedish entrepreneurship policy programme. The results show that public support increases motivation and has a positive effect on product development processes. One major implication is that there is a mismatch between product development and market development. This should therefore be an important consideration for the designers of all types of public support programmes.

Seed Funding for Innovative Ventures: A Survey of Selection Mechanisms for a Public Support Scheme

This paper focuses on public innovation support for ventures in their early stages of development. Based on quantitative analysis of programme-specific data, the authors explore and discuss what mechanisms have influenced a public sector actor in selecting ideas for funding. The main findings show, first, that the ‘legal form of the firm’ and the ‘type of industry’ are the main factors that discriminate among firms that have gained public financial support and, second, that explicit and tacit selection criteria affect the process that determines which ideas are to receive support.