Projektet Björntanden Om beslutsprocesser, entreprenörskap och politik

Sammanfattning: The present licentiate thesis deals with decision processes, entrepreneurship, and politics in a local context. The study focuses on the local project Björntanden in Östersund, an entrepreneurial idea aiming at regional development. The purpose of the thesis is to understand the decision processes that enable or hinder the realization of entrepreneurial ideas in a local context.The background of the study is the notion that regional development often is considered a condition for economic growth. Concepts such as local and entrepreneurial processes are commonly used in this context. These processes are seldom run in isolation by single actors but normally in cooperation with others. It is not uncommon that actors such as politicians and other representatives of local government and state agencies play an important role in influencing the conditions for local entrepreneurship. As decision processes in the private and public sector are different, this creates coordination problems.Cooperation between many actors also tends to create coordination problems when actors with different organisational principles and organisational cultures meet in a joint arena. This is further accentuated when business people, civil servants, politicians and others are to cooperate in decision-making on entrepreneurial ideas that often are inherently unclear.I followed the project Björntanden for four years by observations, interviews and studies of published and unpublished documents. On the basis of the experiences of the actors involved I have interpreted the meaning of their actions, i.e., what they have said and what they have done, in order to form the concepts used in the study. Through an interactive process between received theory and the gradually evolving results of the empirical study I have attempted to reach an understanding of the decision processes by linking local conditions, i.e. points of departure for entrepreneurial ideas in a local context, with different types of decision processes. The analysis indicates aspects that may create possibilities and space as well as obstacles for successful decision-making when entrepreneurship and politics are to act in cooperation.