Book launch: Questioning the Entrepreneurial State - 25 April 2022

On April 25 we hosted a book launch for "Questioning the Entrepreneurial State" where 30 scholars from around the world presented novel work on innovation policies.

Start time: 2022-04-25 at 16:30

End time: 2022-04-25 at 18:00

Location: Stockholm School of Economics, Room Ragnar, Sveavägen 65, Stockholm, 113 83

Following geopolitical turmoil, environmental challenges, and financial crises, authorities are increasingly turning inward towards top-down approaches to guide innovation policy. What do we know about the effectiveness of various innovation policies for enhancing innovation and meeting societal challenges? What can authorities do, and what can the private sector do?

We invited those interested to a book presentation where 30 scholars from around the world presented novel work on innovation policies. Comments were offered by Maureen McKelvey (Swedish Research Council professor in Knowledge-Intensive Entrepreneurship, University of Gothenburg), Amar Bhidé (Thomas Schmidheiny Professor, Tufts University), and Anders Broström (incoming CEO Entrepreneurship Forum & assoc. professor Royal Institute of Technology).

Following the seminar, discussions continued over drinks and light food.

"Creative destruction, innovation and entrepreneurship are at the core of economic growth. The government has a clear role, to provide the basic fabric of a dynamic society, but industrial policy and state-owned companies are the boulevard of broken dreams and unrealized visions. This important message is convincingly stated in Questioning the Entrepreneurial State."

- Anders Borg, former minister of finance, Sweden

"While governments undoubtedly have an important role in “setting the table” for entrepreneurship, their track record in direct interventions to this end has been much more problematic. The thoughtful essays in this volume highlight the many obstacles that aggressive government efforts to boost entrepreneurs can encounter, and provide a healthy corrective to naïve prescriptions by academics and policymakers alike."

- Josh Lerner, professor, Harvard Business School