A Multidimensional, Comparative Analysis of the Regional Entrepreneurship Performance in the Central and Eastern European EU Member Countries

This paper aims to examine the entrepreneurial performance of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) regions by applying the Regional Entrepreneurship and Development Index (REDI) approach. The REDI structures the individual and the institutional elements of entrepreneurship in a systemic way by taking into account the mutual dependence of its components. We have demonstrated that the overall entrepreneurial performance of the CEE regions is below that of the other two macro-regions, Southern European (SE) and the Northern and Western European (NWE). We found that CEE country regions tend to cluster together—as do SE and former East German regions. Besides notable similarities, CEE country regions differ significantly in terms of the configuration of their 14 pillars. In general, CEE regions are weak in entrepreneurial attitudes but relatively strong in entrepreneurial aspirations-related pillars. Albeit the entrepreneurial abilities-related opportunity start-up is the most problematic pillar that reflects to the high ratio of necessity-motivated start-ups in these regions. In the final section, we present an entrepreneurship policy portfolio for each CEE region, based on the assumption that the weakest performing elements of entrepreneurship should be improved in order to achieve maximal improvement in the overall REDI scores. The penalty of bottleneck methodology underlines the importance of an individual-based tailor-made policy as opposed to a uniform, ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach.