Promoting the 'Civic' in Entrepreneurship: The Case of Rural Slovakia

The literature on entrepreneurship emphasizes the importance of the characteristics of individual entrepreneurs, their social networks, and the broader economic, cultural and political institutional landscape. In Slovakia and many of the emerging market economies of Eastern Europe, attention to social and cultural concerns and the institutional framework to support economic development was given insufficient attention at the beginning of the transition to capitalism. This paper shows the importance of social and cultural norms and experiential learning in providing the foundation for entrepreneurship and economic development. It presents a successful rural development model from Slovakia, which used mini-grants to build individual and community capacity for civic entrepreneurship as a precursor to economic entrepreneurship.