“Making Culture” to “Cultural Making”: Unpacking Immigrant Entrepreneurship and Cultural Entrepreneurship in Norway

Description

Traditionally, immigrants have been found to demonstrate higher entrepreneurial drive than non-immigrant populations, which has spurred an increase in international scholarly attention to this theme. Studies on immigrant entrepreneurship have tackled a variety of related topics, such as the uncovering of entrepreneurial intentions, opportunity recognition, and the role of diaspora networks. Cultural entrepreneurship has emerged along these lines, centering on the role of culture and heritage in entrepreneurial ventures. Concomitantly, interest has grown in investigating cultural entrepreneurship from the prism of culture-making—deploying culture towards making culture, and thus altering frames of reference. But despite the boom in research on these matters internationally, as well as more than 25% of all entrepreneurs in Norway are immigrants, it remains a rather limited research field in the country. This talk offers critical reflections on this angle and highlights fruitful pathways for future research. The aim herein is to tackle the topic of cultural entrepreneurship, by advancing knowledge on the role cultural entrepreneurship may play in encouraging greater equitability and mutual understanding among communities in multicultural societies.

About our Speaker:

Marte C. W. Solheim carries out research on diversity and innovation, combining insights from organizational theory, innovation studies and economic geography. She is particularly interested in understanding how innovation is inspired when a variety of diverse knowledge intersect, and the contextual factors affecting this association. Solheim has studied the nexus between various forms of diversity and different types of innovation and has particularly focused on the role of foreign-born workers and innovation & export, experience-based and educational diversity and innovation, and diversity management.

Solheim is actively engaged in the public debate on migration, diversity and innovation-related issues in Norway and is invited to speak at national diversity conferences as well as to national policy makers, political spheres and other institutions. She has been involved in several national and international research and consultancy projects as lead, member and as expert advisor. Solheim is Regional Studies Association (RSA) Ambassador to Norway, member of the prestigious Academy of Young Researchers in Norway. She is on the steering committee of Smart Cities at the University of Stavanger, and currently supervising PhD Candidate Xiangyu Quan on Smart Cities, Innovation and Policy and Alina Meloyan on Universities and Regional Development.