Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of ability, desire and opportunity on the individual's intention to be self-employed. Design/methodology/approach The authors created a database from Swedish national registers consisting of all individuals residing in Sweden sometime during the period 1997-2010 and selected all 333,001 full sibling pairs, 12,810 maternal half sibling pairs and 15,944 paternal half sibling pairs. Three types of entrepreneurs were defined based on information from the Swedish Tax Register. The authors divided the intention to be self-employed into ability and desire and defined ability as a genetic factor and desire as a common family factor. A classical twin model was used to separate the variance of the outcome variables into genetic, common and unshared environmental factors. Findings The study demonstrates that the influence from opportunity on the intention to be self-employed is generally strong and that all factors, ability, desire and opportunity, differ, both in size and content, for the three outcomes of entrepreneurs. Originality/value The authors divide self-employment into three distinct company types, which enables a sophisticated additive genetic analysis of the ability, desire and opportunity to be self-employed. The authors contribute to the understanding of why individuals become self-employed by examining the influences from internal and external factors of family on the intentions of self-employment.

The evidence for associations between area characteristics and entrepreneurship is fairly consistent in most studies. These studies, however, have disregarded the fact that the areas might be constructs that have no effect on the individual differences in entrepreneurship and, furthermore, have conflated entrepreneurship and sole proprietorship, disregarding the impact of area constructs on different forms of business organizations. Therefore, we investigate and quantify, within a multi-level framework, the importance of municipalities and regions for understanding individual differences in entrepreneurship and self employment (defined as sole proprietorship). By using register data comprising the entire Swedish population for 2000-2010, we decompose the variation for the respective form of business organization into three levels: the individual, the municipality and the region. Our results show that about 10% of the total variation in entrepreneurship can be attributed to the municipality and region level. The corresponding numbers for self employment are 3-4%. Our results indicate that regions and municipalities differ markedly in area impact for entrepreneurs compared to self employed. The results from the present study show the importance of taking into account the form of business organization in economic analysis, and they can be used when considering whether it is appropriate to focus on specific municipalities and regions for policy interventions on self-employment.

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence that family factors have on an individual's intention to be self-employed. Design/methodology/approach - The authors selected, from Swedish national registers, all full siblings born between 1945 and 1960 and their biological children, who were born before 1985. The authors created one family database consisting of male individuals (n = 1,204,436) and one family database consisting of female individuals (n = 1,349,904). The authors defined the outcome variable during the years 2003-2010. Separate analyses were conducted for each of the four outcome variables: all self-employed individuals, owners of limited liability companies, sole traders and hybrids. The authors used multi-level logistic analysis for this study. Findings - The study demonstrates that the influence that family factors have on an individual's choice of company type is strong; however, it varies depending on intentions transferred within the family. Originality/value - The authors divide self-employment into three distinct parts based on the company type, which enables a sophisticated analysis of self-employed individuals and of the transference of intentions to be self-employed within families. The authors contribute to the understanding of why individuals become self-employed by examining the impact of family factors on the intention of an individual to choose different types of company.

Recent research suggests that self-employment among immigrants is due to a combination of multiple situational, cultural and institutional factors, all acting together. Using multilevel regression and unique data on the entire population of Sweden for the year 2007, this study attempts to quantify the relative importance for the self-employed of embeddedness in ethnic contexts (country of birth) and regional business and public regulatory frameworks (labour market areas). This information indicates whether the layers under consideration are valid constructs of the surroundings that influence individual self-employment. The results show that 10% (women) and 8% (men) of the total variation in individual differences in self-employment can be attributed to the country of birth. When labour market areas are included in the analyses, the share of the total variation increases to 14% for women and 12% for men. The results show that the ethnic context and the economic environment play a minor role in understanding individual differences in self-employment levels. The results can have important implications when planning interventions or other actions focusing on self-employment as public measures to promote self-employment often are based on geographic areas and ethnic contexts.

According to the theory of “defining moments” dramatic events such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 make a deep impression especially on the minds of young people and eventually lead to the formation of cohorts bound by common values. Knowledge of such cohorts can be used for many purposes, such as marketing, staff management or political campaigns. This paper analyses the impact of dramatic events on people in different age groups in Sweden through a survey answered by nearly a thousand people – of which 40 percent are foreign-born – from the city of Malmö.

Forskningen om etniskt företagande har ökat internationellt och efter hand också i Sverige. Motivet är både teoretiskt och praktiskt. Man vill förklara de skillnader som finns mellan olika etniska gruppers företagande t ex beträffande drivkrafter för företagandet. Man vill också visa möjligheterna till integration genom egenföretagande t ex genom att peka på hinder för företagandet som bör undanröjas. En viktig fråga, som också är en huvudfråga i denna artikel, är vilka faktorer som har betydelse för den individuella benägenheten att vara egenföretagare. Det är en fråga som ofta tar sin utgångspunkt i de skillnader som finns mellan olika etniska gruppers andel egenföretagare.

Higher-level skills are increasingly demanded by the knowledge-based economy. But with rising mobility and demographic change, it is no longer so simple to invest in a skilled workforce for the future. Actions are needed on a variety of fronts, including attracting and retaining talent, better integrating disadvantaged groups into the labour force, and upgrading the skills of low-paid workers. Much of the responsibility for these actions falls squarely on the shoulders of local policy makers. Drawing from a wide array of case studies, this book analyses best-practice local strategies for increasing workforce skills. And it also takes a close look at the opportunities and challenges presented by international migration. The in-depth case studies in this report range from Shanghai’s “Highland of Talent Strategy” to new “career ladders” which help immigrants escape low-skilled, low-paid employment in New York. National and local-level recommendations on local skills development are provided, for both OECD and non-OECD countries.

The conceptual development of Sweden’s integration policy is a remarkable journey in itself: from the influx of foreign labour in the 1950s and 1960s, via refugees and their reception in the 1970s, immigrants and introduction programmes of the 1980s and 1990s, to diversity and integration in the 21st century. This conceptual development reflects many different aspects – and this article discusses some of them. The main questions addressed are: To what extent is integration policy driven by central state directives or by municipal’s experiences, capacity and ability? Is integration work the sole concern of local government authorities and public agencies, or are other societal actors involved? What kind of ideas, strategies and courses of action have affected and influenced integration policy? How does management at the local level react to an increased immigration and its effects in the formation of the municipality’s integration work? With a focus on the development in Malmö, this article describes the management’s ideas, strategies and the municipality’s courses of action with regard to integration. Management is seen as a result of economic and demographic changes, the discovery of ethnic diversity and its effects in the city, legislation concerning the multicultural society and national integration policy, discrimination and diversity perspectives and the system’s inherent prerequisites with regard to work, roles and competence. Management is not regarded as something individual – which is the most common way of studying it – but as a collective and political phenomenon. Management is distinguished by the measures, policies, decisions and course of events that can be discerned over time and where the underlying ideas and assumptions of reality can be interpreted. Some development characteristics are very evident. Firstly, that a united political front of the dominant parties against popular and xenophobic political currents was established as a defence of the multicultural society; a front that recognised and accepted migration to Sweden from a humanitarian point of view and as a dynamic factor in societal development. Despite well-informed warnings of the weaknesses of “social engineering solutions” to “the immigrant problem” the political leadership has nevertheless relied on such special solutions for immigrants and on traditional welfare policies combined with the development of a comprehensive administrative field for the reception of refugees/immigrants nationally and locally in the municipalities. The united political front of the established parties allowed the administrative powers to create specialised reception and integration systems without any critical analysis of the resources provided for integration. For politicians it was a question of breaking down the opposition to a multicultural society among citizens and preventing xenophobic forces from gaining political power. It would seem, however, that the impact of xenophobic political parties – parties that are not in accord with multicultural ideology – has not been curbed. In the 2006 elections the Sweden Democrats won a considerable number of seats on local councils, particularly in Skåne, which means that xenophobic forces are once again to be found on the political playing field. Secondly, a long line of projects were initiated at the end of the 1990s and beginning of the 21st century in order to influence the organisation, its members and improve integration in society. These were mainly concerned with educational efforts and project work designed to change and improve the organisation’s way of working with diversity and included themes like “Staff Training in Discrimination Issues”, “Diversity as a Personnel Concept” and management training initiatives like “Commitment for Malmö”. Initiatives to affect the situation in “densely populated immigrant areas and exposed districts” were also included in collaborations with the state, such as the co-called “Blommanpengarna” (Development grants), “Nationellt exempel” (National examples) and “Storstadssatsningen” (Metropolitan investment). In spite of all this alarming reports about the situation for immigrants in Malmö increased and the situation still doesn’t seem to have improved as far as immigrants are concerned. Thirdly, the diversity ideology “bites” slowly in the organisation, despite considerable efforts to establish it within the municipal organisation. While diversity ideology certainly leads to a number of discussions at management level, it seems to stop there. In other words, such efforts don’t lead to many integrating actions of a diversity nature “on the shop floor”, in the shape of utility-oriented assessments of diversity in the recruiting of co-workers and managers, or a diversity content relating to an inclusion of “all differences”, or a pointing out of the qualitative aspects in the encounter between internal differences and external relations. Discrimination ideology does gain ground, however. Action plan objectives for a certain quantitative representation of foreign born people are agreed on in the organisation. At the beginning of the 21st century such an approximate representation was reached in the organisation as a whole, and is a goal that carries great weight. Even though such a representation exists, it doesn’t reach as far as the category of management or to the political mandate, where representation is considerably weaker. In itself this quantitative ethnic representation allows for spontaneous encounters and the development of a diversity idea, although this doesn’t happen in the permeating and utility-directed way aimed at in diversity ideology. In spite of the double undertaking of welfare and growth in the recently (2004) launched programme for integration (entitled Welfare for All), which indicates a change in integration policy in Malmö from “local government to local governance”, the long-term goals still tend to be classic general socio-political welfare goals, namely, that every able-bodied person should have a job, every student should have complete grades, everybody should be offered housing, and the crime rate should be zero. The immigrant issue only appears as a background formulation (multicultural resource) and as a restriction (abolishing segregation in the city) in the success of the programme; something that is explained in terms of the municipality shouldering an integration burden that is actually the state’s responsibility. A clear social engineering perspective also characterises the programme and is strengthened by an expectation that collaboration must take place if the problems are to be solved. While such collaboration is expressed as other public agencies on the one hand and industry and voluntary organisations on the other, no explicit reference is made to immigrants and immigrant groups. A number of reports show that such collaborations are not always successful. Those experiencing least success are, not surprisingly, immigrant entrepreneurs, immigrant associations and immigrant citizens, whereas collaborations prove more successful in terms of the public sector agencies such as the police, the employment agency and the social insurance office.

Both public organisations, such as local governments, and private organisations, can be seen as gateways for immigrants into the new country. This paper discusses the manner in which such organisations address fundamental gateway concepts such as empowerment and diversity, and how the interpretations of these affect their actions.