Walking a tightrope between artistry and entrepreneurship: the stories of the Hotel Woodpecker, Otter Inn and Luna Resort

In this paper we tell a story about the artist/entrepreneur Mikael Genberg and his trilogy of housing, the Hotel Woodpecker, Otter Inn and Luna Resort which are looked upon as both art installations and acts of entrepreneurship. Taking our point of departure in Genberg and the trilogy of housing, we discuss the content of entrepreneurship by focusing on the following aspects: Creativity versus Imitation, Identity versus Legitimizing, and Opportunity creation versus Discovery recognition. Firstly, from a traditional Schumpeterian perspective Genberg could be portrayed as a very good example of a hero entrepreneur, an archetype of the creative artist/entrepreneur. But instead we have somewhat demystified Genberg and described him in terms of a creative imitator, an everyday characteristic of normal men and women. Secondly, the Schumpeterian 'hero entrepreneur' is associated with a fixed and strong identity, clearly different from the 'normal' individual. This picture of the entrepreneur has dominated entrepreneurship research. Challenging this picture we suggest that the use of double or multiple identities is important in the legitimizing work which is much more illustrative to the content of entrepreneurship than finding the true identity of the hero entrepreneur. Thirdly, we view discovery recognition as attributed to the individual---often linked to the hero entrepreneur---while opportunity creation signifies the process of making discoveries collectively shared. Hence, creativity, discovery recognition and the identity of the entrepreneur form the traditional image of the content of entrepreneurship. In contrast, we suggest that another image is worth taking into consideration if we are interested in broadening our understanding of what is going on in the black box of entrepreneurship. In this image imitation, jointly created opportunities and legitimization are made visible.