Abstract  Background:                     In an equity crowdfunding campaign, the investor receives shares in the company in return for the investment, which makes equity crowdfunding similar to traditional sources of equity funding. Nevertheless, skeptics have referred to equity crowdfunding as “dumb money”, since it might not provide similar non-financial value added as realized from professional investors. The main literature used for the frame of reference were Boué (2007), Macht and Robinson (2008) and Macht and Weatherston (2014). The literature worked as a basis for deriving a table, outlining the non-financial value added received by venture capitalists and business angels, as well as showing where literature is lacking regarding non-financial value added by equity crowdfunding investors. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis was to explore the non-financial value added by equity crowdfunding investors to the entrepreneur. This purpose was answered by two research questions: (1) Do equity crowdfunding investors provide similar non-financial value added to the entrepreneur as traditional equity funding investors do? (2) Are there any additional non-financial value added realized from equity crowdfunding? Method: This thesis follows the interpretivist research paradigm and undertakes an abductive research approach in order to explore the purpose. Primary data was collected through semi-structured interviews with seven entrepreneurs who had successfully conducted an equity crowdfunding campaign in Sweden. Secondary data was collected from peer-reviewed articles containing relevant theories and models. Conclusion: This research suggests that there are similarities between professional investors and equity crowdfunding investors in terms of non-financial value added. The contribution from equity crowdfunding investors seems to be dependent on the effort that the entrepreneur puts into the relationship with the investors. Furthermore, equity crowdfunding also allows the entrepreneur to maintain ownership and control over the company. However, each equity crowdfunding case is different and there are no guarantees of receiving certain types of investors.

In order for corporations to develop their business, they could apply an approach of exchanging ideas and knowledge with other corporations could contribute to new significant innovations. The international approach is called Open Innovation and could be implemented both externally and internally within firms. The purpose of this thesis was to examine how Open Innovation is used by Swedish and Chinese entrepreneurs in an international market context. By implementing a qualitative research method, the researchers obtained a deeper understanding of how networks and trust affect Open Innovation when the approach is used. This thesis derived from an inductive approach since the authors made observations and generated theories from those observations, which created a theoretical synthesis. The theoretical synthesis conducted into the operationalization and the interview guide for the data gathering of the semi- structured interviews. The gathered empirical data was compared with the theories in order to analyze the similarities and differences between them. Lastly, the study was concluded by answering the research questions, theoretical, practical, and policy implications, limitations for the study, and suggestion for future research.

Abstract: Previous literature suggests that there are significant differences among Swedish and NonSwedish groups, as the non-Swedish counterpart of the system face more challenges and hurdles while obtaining finance for their businesses. The aim of the research paper is to map the processes of the obtaining finance from both private and government institutions and gather intelligence on the criteria to ascertain if there are any explicit difference in the processes a non-Swedish entrepreneur has to go through before it gets funded. Qualitative research approach is used in this thesis where we performed in-depth interviews in the form of open discussion with five organizations which includes government institutions and network of private of Investor. We identified two different mindsets and processes i.e. Government and Private Investors where they focus on different aspects of process even though the pre-requisite documents are similar and overlapping. The empirical data collected using qualitative methods were converted into narratives and build into process map to see whether there are any explicit differences in the processes defined for obtaining finance for non-Swedish entrepreneur. Our conclusion is that there is no difference in the processes but there are many elements which can lead to non-Swedish entrepreneur to fall out of the system. So, it‟s matter of small improvements of the system which will make it more efficient, transparent and inclusive for all the participants within the system. The research shows that there are some nuances which can add up and lead to the NonSwedish entrepreneur to be excluded from the system but there are no explicit differences in the process. In the suggested improvement, these gaps and loopholes can be covered to make the system more efficient, transparent and inclusive which can lead to equal opportunities for everyone and also increasing the economic activity within the Kronoberg region.