Beyond Startups: Sweden’s Scale-Up Challenge

This paper analyzes Sweden’s entrepreneurial performance from an institutional and evolutionary perspective, using the concept of the collaborative innovation bloc. It argues that economic development is driven not by entrepreneurial entry per se, but by the capacity of institutional arrangements to channel entrepreneurial effort into large-scale, productivity-enhancing activities. Sweden provides an instructive case: despite strong performance in innovation and start-up formation, the economy performs less well in turning young firms into globally competitive enterprises. The analysis emphasizes the complementarity between entrepreneurs and key actors—investors, skilled employees, and competent customers—and the role of institutional incentives in coordinating their interaction over time. While past reforms have improved conditions for entry, remaining distortions in taxation, labor market regulation, and capital allocation may bias outcomes toward early exit rather than sustained growth.