Chapter 2 Entrepreneurship Enhancement Policies and the Competitiveness Web: The Case of the European South

This chapter aims to conceptualize the general framework of policies to support entrepreneurship and competitiveness by indicating a move from a dispersive comprehension of competitiveness towards an integrated macro-meso-micro perspective, by taking as a case study the European South. First, it presents theoretical contributions to entrepreneurship enhancement policies, which mostly suggest that intervention can be effective in a fragmentary and relatively incoherent way. Then, it counter-proposes the ‘competitiveness web’ approach, which gives an integrated policy framework for the competitive strengthening and evolution of a socioeconomic system. In the framework of competitiveness web, we analyze and propose a meso-micro level policy via the Institutes of Local Development and Innovation (ILDI), which is a policy for empowering the local and regional business ecosystems through the enhancement of business innovation. Finally, by using the competitiveness web filter, we propose the structuration of a mechanism that could identify the level at which the socioeconomic entities in different spatial levels can articulate their policies for entrepreneurship enhancement in the macro-meso-micro integrated approach.