Entrepreneurship in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE): The Role of Economic and Social Context in Shaping Entrepreneurial Intentions and Behaviours

Special Issue

Background

From the beginning of the 1990s, all former communist countries have started their bumpy road towards democracy and a market economy. Citizens of these countries had to face many radical political and economic reforms, often demanding considerable social changes as well. Some of the countries, such as Poland and Hungary, went through the changes in a smoother way while some others like Romania had to experience bloody revolution first, and the majority of Balkan countries also suffered from a severe military conflict. In many Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries, following the Washington Consensus, one of the most critical shifts that accompanied the transition into the market economy was the privatisation policy and the rise of entrepreneurship. After the decades of frozen entrepreneurial activities and limited private ownership, entrepreneurship has started to be seen as a panacea for numerous economic and social diseases and deficits. At the same time, the scarce number of existing enterprises had to transform completely their functioning and enter more liberal markets. The neoliberal myth that all in life depends on an individual’s intentions and efforts worked well in societies with eyes often fixed on the Western world. However, despite an initial society’s enthusiasm towards reforms aimed at bringing longed-for prosperity, the restructuration of the economy soon brought many socially painful phenomena such as high unemployment or a galloping inflation (Ireland et al., 2008). It also resulted in rising income and welfare inequalities both within societies and in the geographical scale. The fierce competitiveness and the slow pace of institutional changes, enhanced by the economic crisis in Russia in 1998, brutally verified the existence of many companies and resulted in much social disappointment. The beginning of the 21st century brought more stabilisation, manifesting itself in the accession of most of CEE countries to European Union, which in turn further increased the interest in small and medium enterprises as a backbone of the economy and more funds for developing entrepreneurship. The year 2008 brought the next economic crisis, which has impacted the activity of entrepreneurs, however, in general, less severely comparing to their Western counterparts. Although the subsequent decade did not stop the economic progress of most of the CEE countries, but proved dangerous authoritarian tendencies on a political scene in some of them. This concise resume elucidates turbulent times of about the last 30 years. Looking retrospectively at this period, it is evident that the economic progress has been made and the challenge to catch up with the Western Europe has been taken up. This socio-economic progress to a large extent has been achieved through entrepreneurial activities, thanks to entrepreneurs. The question remains whether all decisions on macro, mezzo and micro level were adequate, what could be better done on a policy level and what we all could learn about the phenomenon of entrepreneurship from the experience of CEE countries. Addressing these questions provokes a series of another questions on any specificity of entrepreneurship in this part of Europe, which, from an academic standpoint, leads to the debate on the significance and meaning of social and economic context for entrepreneurship. After 30 years of experiencing entrepreneurship from scratch, it is high time not only to assess critically where do CEE countries head to in terms of entrepreneurship but also to reflect on changes in societies and economies affecting entrepreneurship or maybe on the way entrepreneurship affected societies and economies.

The purpose of this special issue is to make a theoretical and empirical contribution regarding entrepreneurship in CEE. This part of the world seems to be neglected in studies on entrepreneurship although, potentially, this marginalised context may contribute to the better understanding of political, economic and historical conditioning of entrepreneurship and its complexity. The topic of entrepreneurship in CEE received only moderate consideration in literature, with a few exceptions such as the book of Welter and Smallbone (2011) or Larcon (1998). It has been mainly explored from the point of view of economy, and researchers largely neglected not only the mutual interplay between entrepreneurship and social changes but also the perspective of an individual experiencing the entrepreneurial process. There is also an evident need to launch a more intense academic debate on the roots of intentions and behaviours of entrepreneurs in CEE who are often raised in non-entrepreneurial cultures without many role models and only scarce social acceptance. The cultural context has been argued to influence the development of entrepreneurial competences (Drakopoulou & Hynes, 2012; Welter, 2010), but it is also interesting to follow the development of social structures in CEE countries and relate this development to the transformative nature of entrepreneurship. Similarly, it is interesting to explore the view of the social embeddedness of entrepreneurs’ behaviours, where the action is hindered or facilitated because of its social context (Jack & Anderson, 2002; Kurczewska et al., 2014).

Focus of this Special Issue

In this special issue, the voice is given to researchers interested in the specifics of entrepreneurship in CEE countries. We look for exemplary research that presents novel and original topics and uses unique data sources. We aim to explore the entrepreneurship in this part of Europe from a broad perspective, be that historical, social or economic. In particular, this special issue is aimed at collecting both empirical and theoretical contributions that build on the complexity of entrepreneurship as well as provide new insights and provoke further discussion on its transformative nature. Applying a critical or even provocative stance enables developing contributions across multiple disciplines and perspectives.

Certainly, there are differences between countries, nations and their regions due to their understanding of entrepreneurship (Kurczewska et al., 2014); therefore, all interpretations of entrepreneurship as a social phenomenon in the CEE context are welcome as long as they enrich our understanding of the phenomenon. Also, any type of comparative analysis leading to the identification of nuances in entrepreneurship dynamics between different CEE countries (or in a comparison to other parts of Europe or world) are welcome.

Focal themes and exemplary research questions for this special issue are outlined below.

Timeline and Submission:

All submissions must be uploaded electronically at https://peerreview.sagepub.com/eie

Deadlines submissions (full paper): 28 February 2021

Expected publication date: January 2022

An optional abstracts submission route is also available to all who may wish to submit early abstracts for consideration by the SI editors. The deadline for the submission of abstracts is 30 September 2020.