Entrepreneurial Culture as a Coordination Mechanism: A Case Study of Strawberry and Petter Stordalen

Sammanfattning

This study examines how entrepreneurial culture can be maintained in large-scaleorganisations despite increasing bureaucracy and structural complexity associated withorganisational growth. While growing firms are often expected to become more formalisedand less entrepreneurial over time, this thesis explores how entrepreneurial culture can besustained through decentralised leadership, founder influence and shared organisationalvalues, using Strawberry as an empirical case.The study applies a qualitative case study design based on thirteen semi-structuredinterviews, including interviews with operational employees, corporate representatives andthe founder, Petter Stordalen. The empirical material is further complemented by corporatedocuments and public communication. Using a Gioia-inspired thematic analysis, the findingsdemonstrate that entrepreneurial culture within Strawberry is sustained through value-drivenculture, decentralised responsibility and symbolic founder influence rather than throughformal bureaucratic control systems.The findings further suggest that organisational culture functions as a central coordinationmechanism, enabling the organisation to maintain flexibility, autonomy and entrepreneurialbehaviour despite increasing scale and organisational complexity. The study contributes toresearch on entrepreneurial culture and founder-led organisations and entrepreneurialleadership in large-scale service organisations.