Comparing the conditions for small business and entrepreneurship in Sweden and Australia: Lessons for the European Charter for Small Enterprises

A growing body of literature is concerned with explaining cross-national performance of small business and entrepreneurs in advanced economies. This literature has considered a range of policy and institutional variables which create an environment supportive of small firms and entrepreneurial activities including macroeconomic variables such as taxation, labour market regulation, social security and income policy; regulatory factors such as establishment legislation, bankruptcy policy, administrative burdens, compliance costs, deregulation and competition policy; and cultural factors such as social and cultural norms that support entrepreneurship. However, this literature has not always distinguished between the policy environment of small firms operating in different industry sectors. The purpose of this paper is to examine the institutional and policy environment of small firms in knowledge intensive sectors. The characteristics of the business environment of particular relevance to knowledge intensive firms are somewhat different from the conditions for entrepreneurship and small business success more generally. This paper compares the science, technology and industry infrastructure of Australia, Denmark, Sweden with other OECD countries. The purpose of the paper is to identify cross-national differences in the business environment of small knowledge intensive firms. The paper seeks to explore whether particular institutional environments appear to be more supportive of small firms in knowledge intensive sectors.

Individualist and collectivist norms: when it's ok to go your own way

We conducted two studies to investigate the influence of group norms endorsing individualism and collectivism on the evaluations of group members who display individualist or collectivist behaviour. It was reasoned that, overall, collectivist behaviour benefits that group and would be evaluated more positively than would individualist behaviour. However, it was further predicted that this preference would be attenuated by the specific content of the group norm. Namely when norms prescribed individualism, we expected that preferences for collectivist behaviour over individualist behaviour would be attenuated, as individualist behaviour would, paradoxically, represent normative behaviour. These predictions were supported across two studies in which we manipulated norms of individualism and collectivism in an organizational role-play. Furthermore, in Study 2, we found evidence for the role of group identification in moderating the effects of norms. The results are discussed with reference to social identify theory and cross-cultural work on individualism and collectivism. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.