The global financial crisis of 2007-2008 changed the landscape of financing a business, affecting all projects that are looking for growth based on access to capital. Non-bank finance and new forms of equity access started to emerge not only for attractive born-global start-ups but also for...

This document, intended to be discuss and criticized, aims for the implementation on the city of Barreiro, Portugal, of a Local Investment Agency. The final objective of such project is to allow entrepreneurs and investors to build in the city new ventures that can create employment, build an...

I explore the relationship in partnering strategy [exploration – based on weak ties vs. exploitation – based on strong ties], national culture and and firms’ organizational model in the context of global ICT Industry. In the highly uncertain global environment, partnering is the one of the...

Against a background of rising costs and increasing competition, it is besoming more and more difficult for the small and medium-sized firms of the German mechanical engineering industry to be economically successful. The thesis that rapidly changing markets, products and production processes...

Start-ups and their respective market partners are faced with severe problems of asymmetric information due to their lack of prior production history and reputation. Given this situation, it is most likely that outside financiers will not be informed about the potential gains, losses, and risks...

This chapter summarizes the salient results of the World Business Environment Survey (WBES). It shows that important dimensions of the climate for business operation and investment can be measured, analyzed, and compared across countries, and that governance is key to the business environment...

The main aim of the paper is to identify the succession strategies (especially the ways in which they attempt to balance the strive to maintain family’s control over the company with the goal of firm’s growth) of the first generation of Polish entrepreneurs. Research survey was conducted on...

The paper verifies the existence of relations between development of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and the particular factors of regional environment as well as demographic parameters of entrepreneurs and their enterprises. SMEs localized in Southern Poland in accordance with NUTS -1...

The main focus of the article is to elaborate on the importance and role of small and medium-sized enterprises in Slovak economy. The authors show development tendencies of SME sector in Slovakia in the years 1993-2006. Where it was possible the authors enumerated the data for the year 2007. The...

Following paper presents the case of Business Incubators (BIs) as future educational and learning centres. It explores the question of how feasible and relevant is this concept andt how they can be designed to deliver educational & training programmes that meet the requirement of knowledge...