Title: Entrepreneurship policy as institutionalised and powerful myths

Authors: Kim Klyver; Torben E. Bager

Addresses: Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management, University of Southern Denmark, Engstien 1, 6000 Kolding, Denmark. ' Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management, University of Southern Denmark, Engstien 1, 6000 Kolding, Denmark

Abstract: Entrepreneurship policy emerges, as other policy fields, across formal and informal institutional boundaries and should, according to rational reasoning, be tailored to specific institutional contexts. However, policies do not always adjust well to the rational needs in each institutional context. Certain policies and the way they are implemented may also disseminate from one nation to another. A prime reason for this tendency to harmonisation is the existence of policy communities across institutional boundaries. Researchers talk with researchers, policy makers with policy makers, etc. - and they often cross-fertilise. Such interaction tends to lead to legitimised conceptualisations of challenges and needed policies. These conceptualisations are built on and legitimised by rational arguments, but may in fact be only loosely connected to the specific situation and challenges of an institutional entity. These neo-institutional ideas about how entrepreneurship policy is formed are outlined in this article and supported with empirical evidence from a comparative study of entrepreneurship policy in Australia and Denmark.

Keywords: entrepreneurship policy; Australia; Denmark; neo-institutional theory; myths.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEV.2012.049816

International Journal of Entrepreneurial Venturing, 2012 Vol.4 No.4, pp.409 - 426

Received: 15 Sep 2009
Accepted: 09 Jun 2010
Published online: 31 Jul 2014 *

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