Entrepreneurship in Transition Countries:A Review

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the key issues surrounding entrepreneurshipdevelopment in transition countries focusing on six main themes. Though it can be argued that thetransition countries started from more or less the same point when they embarked on theirtransitional path, in this paper, we indicate a number of the differences in initial conditions whichfurther influenced SME development. By surveying the existing literature on SME development,this paper illustrates that as the transition process progresses, entrepreneurship development intransition countries is a story of increasing divergence. The transitional context providesunique opportunities for entrepreneurship activities to develop. However, at the sametime this environment presents unique challenges for entrepreneurial developmentespecially knowledge-based entrepreneurship as the free-market system matures within acontext with low levels of SMEs and inherited negative views towards entrepreneurship....