Entrepreneurship as a Strategic Management Tool for Renewal—The Case of the Swedish Public Employment Service

Linda Höglund and Maria Mårtensson
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Linda Höglund: School of Business, Society and Engineering (EST), Mälardalen University, Högskoleplan 1, 722 20 Västerås, Sweden
Maria Mårtensson: Academy of Management Accounting and Control in Central Government, School of Business, Stockholm University, Frescativägen, 114 19 Stockholm, Sweden

Administrative Sciences, 2019, vol. 9, issue 4, 1-16

Abstract: In this paper, we study how entrepreneurial and strategic processes develop in a public-sector organisation through a theoretical lens of Strategic Entrepreneurship (SE). Previous literature on SE practices identified a number of organisational aspects—such as organisational culture, structure, and entrepreneurial leadership—that are important to manage in order to benefit from new opportunities and strategic actions. So far, there is little knowledge about SE practices in the public sector and their possible consequences. There are also few qualitative studies in the field of SE, though arguments have been made for it. Our study is based on a longitudinal and qualitative process approach focusing on the work of the Swedish Public Employment Service’s (SPES) efforts to realise its new strategy through entrepreneurial and strategic processes. The results showed that there are several organisational tensions in relation to the processes of entrepreneurship. We have empirically contributed to previous literature by studying the SE practices of simultaneously balancing the processes of entrepreneurship and strategy. We have also contributed to a more nuanced discussion of the complexity of implementing SE practices and their relationship to organisational culture, structure and entrepreneurial leadership.

Keywords: strategic management; strategic entrepreneurship; strategy implementation; public sector; case study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
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