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The purpose of this paper is to review the results of studies that investigate the most important active labour market policy (ALMP) measures in Germany. A focus is also on programmes devoted to foster entrepreneurship which can make important contributions to a country’s growth and social welfare.

The study relies on quantitative and qualitative assessments and a comparison of results of previous studies on ALMPs.

The available evidence suggests that most ALMP measures increase labour market prospects of the participants. In particular, evaluations of the entrepreneurship promotion activities show high success rates as well as high cost efficiency. The bulk share of participants of entrepreneurship measures is still self-employed after several years and nearly one-third of these businesses had at least one employee. The authors mention problems regarding the evaluation of previous programmes and highlight future challenges of German ALMP.

This is the first study on ALMP that has an extensive and explicit focus on entrepreneurship-promoting programs.

Looks at problems and experiences of the so‐called “bottom‐up” transformation of the post‐socialist countries of Eastern Europe. Bottom‐ up transformation stands for the change of economic structures by means of new enterprises and already existing private firms. Discusses the experiences with the performance of small and new firms in the countries of the West, the potential role of small firms in post‐socialist countries as well as the prerequisites and impediments to the establishment of an economically strong small‐firm sector. Based on information on the development of the small‐firm sector in post‐socialist countries during the past years, analyses the relationship between private‐sector share and economic performance. Draws conclusions concerning implications for the future economic policy, the main conclusion being that bottom‐up transformation may be the only viable way for post‐socialist countries of Eastern Europe to transform but this way requires thorough support by government policy.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the contextual factors that influence entrepreneurial intention to start the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Iran and to investigate why some manufacturing sector entrepreneurs achieve growth objectives while others do not.

In-depth semistructured interviews of 25 participants were used to investigate the contextual factors of entrepreneurship intention. On the basis of the data collected, a thematic content analysis has been carried out.

A set of contextual and cultural factors has been highlighted by the analysis. Data analysis led to the extraction of three main themes: external, internal and personal factors that were found to be significant determinants of entrepreneurship intention. In relation to the effect of these factors on their entrepreneurial behaviors, it emerged that there were the major barriers to entrepreneurial intentions including lack of resources, financial challenges and economic situation, which affected how they made strategic decisions about their plans. Moreover, the findings show that the key dimensions of organizational structure, public policies, social media, education and soft skills development are vital features and being influential in entrepreneurship.

The study has industry-specific, size-specific and region-specific limitations. The qualitative research approach affects the generalizable character of the results.

The research findings have important implications for practicing entrepreneurs, start-ups and policymakers. The manuscript suggests a transition to a more collaborative approach from experts and practitioners in the field through policymakers to tackling the underlying determinants of entrepreneurship intention in Iran as a motive to economic growth. This research is significant since its findings should help regulators and investors better understand the opportunities and threats among manufacturing SMEs. This study implies a step forward in research into the entrepreneurship intention and SMEs literature, since the results differ from the evidence found for large companies in developing countries such as Iran. There is also a great contribution toward the debate regarding the need to consider the context and the type of firm in enterprise development studies.

This is the first empirical study conducted in Iran that explores three key elements of entrepreneurship intention interactively in Iran through qualitative research analysis. The research study fills a literature gap on the determinants of manufacturing SMEs’ functions. This manuscript explores the contextual factors that influence on entrepreneurial behavior in a conflict country context, using a thematic analysis for in-depth results. A new approach to evaluating entrepreneurial opportunities was used. The advantage of this empirical strategy is that it takes into account in more detail the content observations and experiences with the industry-specific insights. It also gives more description about the contingent nature of practice. Moreover, this qualitative research acknowledged the areas of conflict and contradiction around entrepreneurship phenomena among SMEs.

This paper aims to present a requirements analysis for the processing of water-based electrode dispersions in inkjet printing.

A detailed examination of the components and the associated properties of the electrode dispersions has been carried out. The requirements of the printing process and the resulting performance characteristics of the electrode dispersions were analyzed in a top–down approach. The product and process side were compared, and the target specifications of the dispersion components were derived.

Target ranges have been identified for the main component properties, balancing the partly conflicting goals between the product and the process requirements.

The findings are expected to assist with the formulation of electrode dispersions as printing inks.

Little knowledge is available regarding the particular requirements arising from the systematic qualification of aqueous electrode dispersions for inkjet printing. This paper addresses these requirements, covering both product and process specifications.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between culture and entrepreneurial activity at both the national and regional levels of analyses. While there has been significant progress in investigating the effects of culture on entrepreneurial activity, most work overlooks the effects that time-orientation may have on national or regional entrepreneurial activity. Specifically, this study argues for the connection between long-term orientation (LTO) and subsequent levels of entrepreneurship such that the more a nation or region is long-term oriented, the higher the subsequent entrepreneurial activity will be.

Data from the World Value Survey (WVS), which is a global project that measures individuals’ values across 62 countries (World Value Survey, 2011), were used for this project. The final sample consisted of 36,652 individual observations across 29 nations and 262 regions and was analyzed using ecological factor analyses and multilevel modeling.

The findings suggest that LTO as a cultural dimension does influence entrepreneurship activity levels. The findings also suggest that the effects of LTO at the regional and national levels vary widely. Specifically, the authors find LTO to be positively related to entrepreneurship at the regional, but not national, level of analysis.

The findings reveal important nuances about the implications that the understudied cultural factor of LTO has on entrepreneurial activity across multiple levels of analysis.

This study aims to test the emerald model on the regional basis for the identification of the most important sources of competitiveness in the states of the US.

Using the emerald model and its assertions, data are collected over the period 1998-2013 from 47 states in the US. Multiple regression analysis is performed with a lag structure of four, six and eight years as alternative time intervals to explain the dependent variable.

The empirical results support the emerald model except for its R&D attractiveness dimension in its ability to explain competitiveness in the states of the US. In the longer term (eight-year lag), cluster attractiveness has the highest impact, followed by environmental attractiveness, ownership attractiveness, educational attractiveness and talent attractiveness. Comparison of regression models with different time lags indicates that once the very early phase is over, the impacts of most attractiveness dimensions become rather consistent across time and do not disappear.

The study contributes to the literature on the measurement of regional competitiveness by performing an overall assessment of the emerald model and by analyzing the impacts of the model’s dimensions on competitiveness over time. On the other hand, the identification of the sources of regional competitiveness paves the way for a more efficient allocation of resources regarding policies and improvement programs.

Extensive attention has been given in recent years to the role of entrepreneurship in facilitating global economic development, with research indicating that much employment growth originates from the “entrepreneurial sector” of the economy. In many parts of the world, emphasis has also been placed on the so‐called “informal sector” (comprising all activities that fall outside the formal net of registered, taxed, licensed, statistically documented business enterprises) as a contributor to the economic welfare of society. Aims to explore further the nature of the informal sector, and specifically, to distinguish entrepreneurial from non‐entrepreneurial business activity within this sector. Describes the results of a series of in‐depth interviews with owners from a cross‐section of small businesses located in a black South African township. Identifies a sub‐group of firms that demonstrate relatively strong entrepreneurial orientations and distinguishes this group from the remainder of the sample. Draws implications for theory development, ongoing research, and public policy.

The main concern of policymakers is to avoid the problems resulting from the economic crisis. One way to avoid these problems is to stimulate economic growth, as well as the economic activity, needed to reduce unemployment and increase well-being. Recent academic literature shows entrepreneurship as a key factor to increase economic growth, so it is important to understand a set of concepts related to this topic and their relevance to the economic growth of these firms. The purpose of this paper is to analyse some concepts about public policies associated with entrepreneurship and the internationalization processes of firms.

The findings result from a number of multivariate techniques based on the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2012 survey.

The data allowed calculating a coherence index that shows that respondents tend to associate the different responses, which suggests that there is a reputation effect when experts evaluate public policies.

This paper takes advantages of one of the GEM limitations, i.e. data refer to perceptions, rather than on real data, to explore how different countries see a more or less dispersed perception of public policies effectiveness.

This paper informs policymaking and sheds light into the importance of building on a reputation to make policies more effective.

The coherence index developed in this paper is an original contribution, based on the dispersion of experts' perceptions on the effectiveness of public policies.

This paper offers an approach for outlining the main dimensions surrounding clusters in three areas of knowledge: economic geography, strategic management and operations management, the first being considered its natural field of knowledge.

The work was developed using the citation analysis technique as applied to a database of 627 articles and 22,980 citations, taken from 15 important journals in the areas selected.

The results proved that the theoretical and conceptual bases are unique to each of the areas studied and that they have few topics in common between them. They are complementary, however, and this facilitates their reconciliation.

The sample base, despite considering fairly influential periodicals in the areas of knowledge selected, can be considered to be a limitation.

Common themes and different areas of knowledge surrounding the cluster concept were identified; despite being considered “common”, a more detailed examination of their content reveals very different, but certainly complementary emphases, which makes it possible to reconcile the areas of knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to study the linkage of innovation and entrepreneurship to economic growth in countries with different levels of development.

Following quantitative analysis, the authors carry out three empirical approaches to examine the effects of innovation and entrepreneurship on competitiveness. In accordance with their initial study framework, they test the conceptual model of competitiveness through applying descriptive statistics, structural equation modelling (SEM) and hierarchical cluster analysis. Descriptive statistics and SEM data sources from the Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum were analysed for 148 countries. The hierarchical cluster analysis furthermore analysed Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data on 67 different countries.

The study confirmed that innovation and sophistication factors are crucial to the competitiveness of economies. The study also revealed the definition of five clusters relative to the competitive performance of advanced economies following the introduction of new entrepreneurship variables.

This research aims to open up avenues for the development of regional competitiveness studies.