Institutions, Governance and the Development of Entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

Although the specific policy priorities for entrepreneurship development vary between individual economies, key underlying themes are the importance of institutional development and capacity building and the development of a market-oriented system of governance, over which governments exert a key influence. In some countries an appropriate and effective institutionalisation of small business policy is still one of the main preconditions that need to be fulfilled before productive and sustained private sector development can become embedded. In others, more should be done to unleash the potential role of regional and local authorities, both in promoting entrepreneurship and in facilitating its development, in view of the fact that it is at the local level that policy and institutions touch entrepreneurs most directly.