The evolution of corporate entrepreneurship in Swedish industry—was Schumpeter wrong?

This paper analyzes the evolution and role of corporate entrepreneurship in Swedish industry, particularly for the 1945–1980 period, based on data on the 100 economically most important innovations during this period. Privately owned large corporations (Schumpeter Mark II) dominated in launching innovations in almost all industrial sectors and in all subperiods but decreasingly so. 20% of the innovations were launched by new firms (Schumpeter Mark I) but most of these new firms were spun-off and/or acquired by large corporations. State entrepreneurship was marginal. Universities played an important role, although sector-specific. New firms and existing firms had similar growth rates and almost identical and short gestation times to international markets for their innovations. 80% of the corporate innovations were product renewals rather than product diversifications or process innovations. No evidence of an evolution from autonomous over corporate to state entrepreneurship, as hypothesized by Schumpeter, was found. Evolution of a dynamic coexistence of. these forms of entrepreneurship is hypothesized in this paper. The paper finally presents a model, synthesizing Schumpeter Mark I and II, for analyzing technological change and entrepreneurship.