Entrepreneurship in Transition Economies

Abstract

This article examines the opportunities and constraints for entrepreneurship offered by the evolving institutional environment and the characteristics of the people who stepped up to the challenge. It places the concept of entrepreneurship in a transition context, before identifying in the third section the unique features of entrepreneurship in transition economies. The article discusses the evolving business environment, and reports the scale and nature of entrepreneurship in transition economies. The personal characteristics and the business strategies of entrepreneurs in transition economies are also discussed. The article concludes by outlining directions for future work.

Institutions and entrepreneurship development in Russia: A comparative perspective

“…There is also evidence that in the former socialist economies of Central and Eastern Europe, the communist heritage left a particular legacy of serious institutional weakness, especially with respect to entrepreneurial activity (Johnson et al, 2000;Estrin et al, 2006), though there have been real improvements, especially in the European Union Accession economies such as Poland, in recent years (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Transition Report, various years). The literature also indicates that market-supporting institutions are especially problematic in Russia (Estrin, 2002).…”

“…Literacy rates are high and educational standards are comparable to Western Europe (Estrin et al, 2006). Also, Russia has a high proportion of students in 'hard' subjects -science, mathematics and engineering (World Bank, 2005).…”

Theoretical Foundations

“…Most large incumbent firms were in state ownership and going through a process of privatization (Filatotchev et al, 2000;Megginson & Netter, 2001;Meyer, 2002), while structures of corporate governance were often ill defined and in flux (Djankov & Murrel, 2002;Estrin, 2002). Private start-ups often benefited from the resourcefulness of their entrepreneurs, but initially remained small and lacked scale to compete (Estrin, Meyer, & Bytchkova, 2006;Peng, 2001;Puffer, McCarthy, & Boisot, 2010).…”

Features of Small Business Development in the Cis Countries: Does Institutional Environment Affect

“…Investigation of the influence of the institutional environment for the operation of the most complex enterprises is reflected in the works of foreign researchers : Commander S. et al (2008) came to the conclusion that the institutional environment (according to surveys of individual enterprises and according Doing Business) has little impact on performance, which in turn, explains the subjectivity of data; Estrin et al (2005), had investigated the possibilities and limitations for business development, defined among them the institutional environment and the characteristics of people who entered into changes; the main obstacles in the way of institutional environment of development of small businesses were studied in work of Polishchuk L. (2013); Aidis R. (2006) identified the main barriers for the small business sector in various stages of transition and among influencing factors on the initial conditions of a particular country were identified geographical factors, cultural and institutional legacy of central planning. However, questions about depending of vector of small business development from the previous path-dependence as well as from changes in the institutional environment in the national economy have been still covered in the scientific literature insufficiently.…”