Entrepreneurship Orientation in Policy Making

Abstract

This paper examines how the orientation of local governments towards entrepreneurship influences the organization and adaptation of local entrepreneurship policy. Entrepreneurship policy has long been investigated; however, the organizational aspects of policy delivery efforts seem to have gone unnoticed. Adaptability and collaboration are two organizational factors that are central to the configuration of local entrepreneurship support systems. However, as hypothesized in this paper, the level of collaboration and adaptability depends on the entrepreneurship orientation of the local government. In contingency theory, strategy is a determinant of organizational structure, and the entrepreneurship orientation of governments is such a strategy. Based on a survey of 86 (out of 98) municipalities in Denmark, the paper concludes that the more positively oriented the local government is towards entrepreneurship in its policy making, the better the adaptability and collaboration in the entrepreneurship support system.