The paper addresses the issue of contextualizing entrepreneurship, and this with reference to the exploration of new opportunities by people working together, and the exploitation of historically and socially constructed ideas. Treated as a dynamic phenomenon entrepreneurship thus stretches between present, forward-looking and past, back-ward-looking activities and interaction. Empirically the paper directs attention to strategic renewal in consumer cooperation that over time has pursued the specific ideas of member influence and mutually organized self-help for the purpose of contributing to the development of a “happier mankind”. A happier mankind is based on “responsible entrepreneurship” that, rooted in humanistic and liberal tradition, entails business ethics, social involvement, quality assurance, supplier inspection and health care. Operations toward creating a society characterized by ecological sustainability are also seen to be of utmost importance and therefore included in responsible entrepreneurship. The democratic structure, which links ownership to membership, allows the members to contribute to this, and in the light of the movement toward the development of highly integrated chains in the Nordic market for consumer goods, the idea of the consumer, the owner-member, as the driving player is strengthened.

The paper also addresses a strategic dilemma. Exploring economic opportunities in the Nordic market for consumer cooperative retailing, at the same time exploiting consumer cooperative ideas implicate a strategic dilemma. A strategic dilemma concerns the exploration of economic factors, primarily associated with the generation of scale economies and the gaining of access to new markets and technology, and the exploitation of non-economic factors mainly attributable to membership democracy.