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Research on entrepreneurial ecosystems has advanced over recent years and has become a popular topic. Despite the interest, previous work has focused on entrepreneurial ecosystems in large cities in the United States. Ecosystems in small cities, underpopulated rural areas, university towns and outside the USA have not been considered much. This paper begins to address this deficit by reviewing three groups of literature.

From the review, the paper builds a conceptual framework to consider entrepreneurial ecosystems led by universities. After summarizing the literature on entrepreneurial ecosystems, entrepreneurial universities and entrepreneurship education, the paper suggests a conceptual framework outlying the structure, components and mechanisms that enable universities to operate as catalysts in the creation of entrepreneurial ecosystems.

It is evident that on many of the “ingredients” of a successful entrepreneurial ecosystem, a resource-constrained environment would have many gaps. Building an entrepreneurship ecosystem in such contexts would be inherently challenging. The model presented suggests that the presence of a university in such locations should enhance the prospects of progress but that the nature of the university itself would impact any outcomes. Universities that make concerted efforts to be entrepreneurial and that have entrepreneurship programmes have strategies available to them that can enhance entrepreneurship ecosystems over time.

The contribution of this paper is to show “how” a university and its entrepreneurship programme can operationally address deficits in a local ecosystem and how it might bring about positive change. The paper also opens new avenues for entrepreneurship education researchers.

This article seeks to explore some of the principal issues and debates on the relationship between institutions, firm level governance and employment relations outcomes in Eastern and Central Europe.

This paper particularly focuses on the countries that are encompassed by the papers covering the special issue.

Introducing new and meaningful forms of labour regulation becomes very much more difficult in times of economic crisis. This means that the regulation of employment relations is likely to be diminished, or, as is probably more likely in the case of the bulk of countries in the region, a situation of “muddling on” is likely to persist. Firm level employment relations practices are likely to be persistently diverse, both within and between countries. Key areas of division are in terms of country clusters, which range from proto‐social democratic through to “wild capitalist”, distinguished by variations in terms of firm size, and between the formal and informal economies.

This study highlights the extent to which institutional variations and change may mould the choices made at firm level.

There is a tendency to conflate the region into a loose transitional category. This paper highlights the divergent paths followed by the countries in the region, and the extent to which this has been associated by diversity in employment relations both within and between countries.

The purpose of this paper is to assess the relationship between ownership structure and company performance of public companies. The central tenet of the analysis is that separation of ownership and control has an adverse effect on the value of the firm, as information asymmetry between owners and managers is exploited by management.

A cross sectional regression is conducted using data on 669 companies, which were members of the S&P 500, BUX (Hungary), WIG (Poland), SBI (Slovenia), PX (Czech) indexes in the third quarter of 2005. Owners with at least 5 percent share ownership are collected from Reuters and Business and Company Resource Center databases.

Results for CEE companies are in line with that of Earle et al. and also support Zwiebel's “space creation” concept. The negative effect of multiple shareholdings is due to collective action problems instead of alternative explanations such as manager repression. Companies in the CEE region have rather concentrated ownership, which implies that at least there is one blockholder with dominant stake allowing him to influence corporate decision making. The contribution to management control of the next largest blockholder generates tension between the two causing costs that exceed the benefits of control. Interestingly, enough in case of institutional investors as largest blockholders the formerly positive effect on performance became negative. This is in contradiction with the popular literature that emphasizes the beneficent role of institutional investors. Results for the US firms also show that dominant blockholders “create their own space” in another word when the ownership stake of the largest blockholder exceeds 10 percent the contribution of smaller owners to the monitoring and control of management is negative. This implies that even though the dominant blockholder is much smaller in size relative to the one in the CEE sample its willingness to cooperate is low. On the other hand, when the largest blockholder is not dominant the coalition of blockholders is able to create value by efficient monitoring. Institutional investor as dominant blockholder further enhances the efficiency of control, while decreases it when coalition consists solely from institutional investors.

The definition of ownership concentration outlined by Zwiebel is applied. To assess the effect of coalition of blockholders on company performance the concept determined by Earle et al. is used. Their notion is extended by differentiating between blockholder identity and the homogeneity of blockholder coalition, in order to scrutinize the consequence of shareholder activism.

This research seeks to ask to what extent model transfer in employee relations (in terms of employee representation, participation and workplace bargaining) occurs between Nordic and Baltic countries from the principal firm to the subsidiary. It also looks into explanations as to why model transfer occurs – or does not occur – from the perspective of the Nordic industrialist's labour management strategy.

This is a case study comprising three clothing manufacturers and three engineering shops in different Baltic States: Estonia (population 1.4 million), Latvia (2.3 million) and Lithuania (3.4 million). These production sites have headquarters in three Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Semi‐structured (thematic) interviews are carried out among managers, shop stewards and employees of the subsidiaries.

There is little model transfer between the Nordic principal firm and the Baltic subsidiary, whereas the Nordic employer prefers local forms of employee relations. Modest model transfer derives from the desire for controlling the labour process, where the Nordic investor seeks to utilise differences between the regimes.

The Nordic industrialists' search for the distinction between different regimes and the Baltic drive at liberal market economy (LME) together may prove fatal for labour conditions. Such production policy will not improve the position of the Baltic worker.

The findings question the very idea of model transfer: where any labour management strategy existed, there was either an unambiguous assertion of indigenous solutions or adoption of “best practices” not peculiar to the Nordic labour relations regime.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate labour market practices in a transition economy in relation to broader institutional configurations.

Through a review of relevant literature and the analysis of statistical data the paper reveals some specific factors influencing labour market practices in a transition economy.

The paper establishes a link between inefficient enforcement and the emergence of compensating institutional arrangements on the one side and the unusually broad implementation of flexible working time and flexible pay on the other as a crucial factor that made the stabilization of employment in Russia possible.

The paper reveals how a formal regulatory system, which on the face of it is similar to what is a norm in the majority of European countries, may coexist with a distinctive labour market model and explores issues of relevance to academics, researching in the field, policy‐makers, human resource managers, employers and employees.

This paper aims to assess the extent to which convergence in institutional regimes is likely to occur, by examining all ten new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe in terms of their development of comparative advantages in high‐tech export markets either by drawing on foreign investors in the form of multinational companies or by making use of domestic institutional resources.

The article uses fuzzy sets and qualitative comparative analysis to examine both necessary and sufficient causes of success in high‐tech export markets. By doing so, it can address the important issue of institutional complementarity.

While it finds that countries that have stronger records in such markets share common features, there are also important differences between them – not least in the areas of employee relations. This, together with other evidence presented in the paper, suggests that convergence around a specific institutional model is unlikely to happen.

Analysing, unlike many previous studies, all ten new EU member states in Central and Eastern Europe enables conclusions to be drawn that apply to the whole region. The novel method used in this article means that the extent of any complementarity between different institutions can be addressed, and ensures that issues relating to convergence/divergence are explored. The article, therefore, contributes to a number of important debates on the convergence among types of capitalism, the dependency of the new EU member states on foreign investors, and the institutional foundations for success in high‐tech export markets.

The main aim of this paper is to examine the role of the board of directors in Russia with specific attention to their independence, employee relations and ability of successful adaptation of the international standards.

The authors used a survey questionnaire to provide an empirical example from a transition economy to the corporate governance literature by exploring the attitudes of the 55 board directors from 30 listed companies on the Russian Trading System (RTS) Stock Exchange.

The respondents recognise the board of directors as an important instrument of efficient and good corporate governance practice. More surprisingly, they are also in favour of employee representatives on the board of directors and agree that board size and composition should be enhanced by employee representatives on the board.

Even though 200 questionnaires were distributed and the response rate was 28 per cent, the authors know that they cannot generalise results for all directors of 1,414 listed companies on the Russian Trading System Stock Exchange from this level of response. In addition, questions might have some elements of subjectivity.

Policy makers in Russia should continue reforms in Russian corporate governance to improve transparency and accountability to adopt international standards and to attract foreign capital.

This study is one of the most comprehensive studies to explain the role of directors of listed companies in corporate governance throughout a survey questionnaire in Russia. The authors believe that the study contributes to the literature in two ways: theoretically by examining the attitudes of Russian listed company directors in the literature and empirically by conducting a survey among listed companies' directors to evaluate the attitudes of boards of directors, and employee relations in Russia.

The primary aim of the paper is to draw attention to the similarities in the historical background and in the transitional period of the post‐socialist CEE (Central and East European) countries, which make this region a distinctive cluster in Europe.

In this paper, the authors attempt to supplement existing research by outlining the modernisation of a range of HR functions in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and would like to explain how this special issue arose, to provide a historical perspective for the work undertaken by the Cranet research team from Bulgaria, Estonia and Hungary and to outline the context and significance of each of the attempts at modernisation in the HRM field.

This analysis of developments, based on the Cranet surveys, aims to describe and explain the similarities and differences found among the three specific countries (Bulgaria, Estonia and Hungary), the somewhat broader sample comprising the CEE region and the full sample of those participating in the survey. All of these signs increase the need for a contextual Comparative HRM model – which supports not only the snapshot analysis, but also a longitudinal one, incorporating both the path‐dependent and the path‐creation considerations of the changes taking place.

The need to understand HRM from a European – as opposed to a merely Western – perspective has become a dominant theme as the HR peculiarities of the new capitalism emerge. However, during the transition period, everyone needed – somehow – to meet the great challenge of turning the omelette back into eggs!

The article aims to consider the relationship between foreign investors and trade unions in forging new labour relations and workplace institutions in Polish firms. The research focuses on the role of foreign investment and the agency of workers' organisations in the transformation of workplace relations

An institutionalist approach is adopted which focuses on structural, institutional and political influences on workplace relations. The research is based on interviews with senior managers and trade unions in 15 foreign investment firms in Poland.

There is a continued presence of trade unions in brownfield foreign investments and the establishment of new trade union branches in greenfield foreign investments. Labour relations in the majority of the case study companies were characterised by managers and workers as conflictual. Efforts by foreign investors to introduce their home or global practices were contested by trade unions. A continuation of previous legacies was evident in the importance placed by trade unions on communication, negotiation and establishing agreements with management.

The sample was comprised of transnational manufacturing companies and the conclusion cannot automatically be applied to other sectors where foreign investors have a strong presence.

Insights into workplace relations in Poland are provided which will be of interest to foreign investors and European trade unions.

Trade unions have been neglected in analysing new corporate structures in Poland and this article addresses their role in the workplace and their interrelationship with foreign investors.

This paper aims to examine the phenomenom of wild capitalism under post Communist transformation. Many commentators on post Communist transformation focus their attention on dysfunctional corporate governance and the deleterious consequences of liberalisation on business ethics. Poor business ethics and bad corporate governance may be a consequence of labour exploitation for comparative advantage, and the abandonment of party authority. This allowed rapacious rent‐seeking by a minority well placed to benefit from the newly de‐regulated regime. A by‐product is a burgeoning informal economy encouraged by insider dealing of privatised state assets. State regulation, where it exists, is often ignored. Employment relations are fragmented, with state‐owned enterprises retaining some form of collective regulation, while newly privatised enterprises seek to marginalise union activity.

The paper analyses why Serbia has diverged from the Slovenian case in the former Yugoslavia and determines norms of behaviour as a product of both structural and agency dynamics. Evaluates the Privatisation Agency's programme and reviews documentary evidence on business transparency. Records evidence of labour disputes from trade unions, press reports, semi‐structured interviews with trade union leaders and activists. The researchers also held a Round Table of trade unionists, journalists and employers in Belgrade in September 2008, funded by the British Academy.

The paper concludes that wild capitalism is an integral, rather than deviant mode of behaviour in Serbia.

The findings have relevance for other post Communist states, which may be subject to a greater or lesser degree to political clientelism and fragmentation of employment relations.