Culture and organising of entrepreneurship, innovation and development in Lillehammer and Gudbrandsdalen

Abstract

This master thesis is a research on Lillehammer and Gudbrandsdalen´s organisation and cultural context of entrepreneurship, innovation and development. It investigates five municipalities of Lillehammer, North-Fron, Lom, Sel and Dovre. It will highlight the challenges the municipalities face in facilitating entrepreneurship to a local community where entrepreneurship is still new, and have a long history of local mentality that keeps a hold on development and engagement within the region. The mayors and heads of economical development have all acknowledged the need for entrepreneurship to be able to create labour, increase inhabitants and achieve a better economical growth. Facilitating and creating a cultural environment for entrepreneurship requires knowledge and learning, it is the most fundamental resource that can increase the innovations activity and achieve economical growth. The public sector needs to continuously develop knowledge and learning for them selves and also to the local community to make them more aware of the possibilities and opportunities that entrepreneurship can bring. This thesis is researched through a qualitative study of semi-structured interviews with five mayors and five heads of economical development from the municipalities in Lillehammer and Gudbrandsdalen mentioned above. The research questions to my masters thesis is: How should the municipalities facilitate their resources to engage the local community in entrepreneurship and innovation? Do Lillehammer and Gudbrandsdalen have a sustainable entrepreneurial culture? How can the municipalities increase the entrepreneurial knowledge flow, learning and development within the region? The main findings are: - The municipalities are not proactive enough when it comes to managing innovation strategies, which makes the processes unstable, harder to map and learn from. - There are still fragments of the law of Jante within the region, which makes it difficult for the local community and the public sector to engage in entrepreneurship and innovation. - The municipalities do not have a strategy for knowledge development, which creates uncertainty and decreased innovation activity.