Creating an entrepreneurial region: exploring the entrepreneurial capacity of the East Midlands

This paper explores the notion of the entrepreneurial region and, in particular, the relevance and appropriateness of this concept to the East Midlands. An outline framework is developed that depicts aspects and dimensions of an entrepreneurial region. This is then applied to the East MIdlands to gauge how entrepreneurial the region is

What drives ICT clustering in European Cities?

ICT clusters have attracted much attention because of their rapid growth and their value for other economic activities. Using a nested multi-level model, we examine how conditions at the country level and at the city level affect ICT clustering activity in 227 cities across 22 European countries. We test for the influence of three country regulations (starting a business, registering property, enforcing contracts) and two city conditions (proximity to university, network density) on ICT clustering. We consider heterogeneity within the sector and study two types of ICT activities: ICT product firms and ICT content firms. Our results indicate that country conditions and city conditions each have idiosyncratic implications for ICT clustering, and further, that these can vary by activities in ICT products or ICT content manufacturing

The Impact of the Business Environment on the Size of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise Sector; Preliminary Findings from a Cross-Country Comparison

AbstractAccording to the study Voices of the Poor from the World Bank, poor people expect to escape poverty through “income from their own business or wages earned in employment”. A streamlined business environment supporting the sustainable development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) may contribute to improve the living conditions of low income households in terms of employment opportunities. The paper tries to determine if having a larger SME sector is the result of competitive or constraining business environments. Applying an OLS estimation of a multiple linear regression model using cross-country data, the study attempts to assess how much of the cross-country variation in the contribution to employment and the size of the SME sector in the economy can be explained by cross-country variation in business environment regulations. The estimation results show that low entry costs, easy access to finance, and good levels of business sophistication and innovation predict a larger SME sector. There is a weak association with high exit costs as well. A productive and competitive SME sector must be associated with sophisticated and innovative business environments, in that sense the paper tries to contribute a basis for gauging this approach

A design theory for e-service environments: The interoperability challenge

The delivery of e-services across organizational boundaries poses a number of issues in terms of design of inter-organizational systems that support service delivery effectively. In this context interoperability emerges as a mandatory requirement for the design of Information Technology (IT) platforms supporting collaborative e-service environments. In this paper we address this issue by presenting a design theory for IT platforms supporting e-services based on both a deep understanding of the interoperability concept and a design research approach. Through the analysis of a cooperation framework developed in the context of an EU funded project, we instantiate the theory by providing the concrete example of a solution addressing this design problem. © 2012 Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg.The delivery of e-services across organizational boundaries poses a number of issues in terms of design of inter-organizational systems that support service delivery effectively. In this context interoperability emerges as a mandatory requirement for the design of Information Technology (IT) platforms supporting collaborative e-service environments. In this paper we address this issue by presenting a design theory for IT platforms supporting e-services based on both a deep understanding of the interoperability concept and a design research approach. Through the analysis of a cooperation framework developed in the context of an EU funded project, we instantiate the theory by providing the concrete example of a solution addressing this design problem. © 2012 Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin Heidelberg.Monograph's chapter