Re-writing the Danish American Dream? An Inquiry into Danish Enterprise Culture and Danish Attitudes toward Entrepreneurship

Authors

Robert Smith
Helle Neergaard

Keywords

Enterprise Culture, entrepreneurship, socio-historical, emigration

Abstract

This research story which to us reads like a fairytale is the secondpart of an exploration into Danish Enterprise Culture. It tells an oft forgotten tale, a Danish Success Story which we hope will one day be held even dearer by self-deprecating Danes everywhere. In telling this wondrous tale we are also serving a serious purpose in examining some socio-cultural and historical factors influencing the perceived low entrepreneurial drive of the Danish people, and perhaps also in the process helping to explain why traditionally Denmark does not have a vibrant Enterprise Culture. This work adopts a Verstehen based methodology because it considers both the historical and the social to determine the ideal typical social characteristics of Danes. The use of this imaginative investigative, socio-historical approach has its roots in the seminal work of the economist William Baumol1 who used a similar approach to understand Entrepreneurship from a historical perspective in readings of Roman, Medieval and Chinese history. This study is not an exhaustive, comparative study of American and Danish cultures but a limited scholarly inquiry. Nonetheless, it does re-examine the seldom told story that is the Danish-American Dream. The article extends the authors' research output into aspects of Danish Enterprise Culture. 2

Recommended Citation

Smith, Robert and Neergaard, Helle (2008) "Re-writing the Danish American Dream? An Inquiry into Danish Enterprise Culture and Danish Attitudes toward Entrepreneurship," The Bridge: Vol. 31: No. 1, Article 8.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/thebridge/vol31/iss1/8