Domesticating startup culture in Finland

Abstract

In recent years, startup entrepreneurship–understood not only in economic but also in cultural terms–has become increasingly important for nations’ economic growth. This article examines startup culture as a global form and its domestication in local contexts. I analyse how startup entrepreneurship is made sense of in Finnish society, utilising Finnish startup guidebooks and non-fiction literature as research material. As a theoretical framework, I draw on the literatures of domestication of global trends and neoliberal, entrepreneurial subjectivity. The analysis reveals that the domestication of startup culture is founded on the juxtaposition of startup entrepreneurship and Finnish culture, constructing certain elements of Finnish culture as obstructive to and incompatible with startup entrepreneurship. Simultaneously, the books negotiate startup entrepreneurship in relation to Finnish historical meaning systems. The texts invite the Finnish audience to rework their national identity, which in part functions as the domestication of neoliberal, entrepreneurial subjectivity.