Knowledge based firms from Central and East European countries: A comparative overview of case studies

The explosion of new firm creation the post-Communist economies of East Central Europe (ECE) has been explored in a large literature on the subject, and its role in the restructuring and revitalizing of those economies has been crucial. It is a well-established fact that much of this entrepreneurial wave has occurred in sectors such as services and trade, neglected under central planning. This paper focuses on an area of entrepreneurship which appears to be both underdeveloped and under-researched in the ECE context, but which is of particular importance for the modernization of these economies: knowledge-based entrepreneurship (KBE), or new firm creation in industries which are considered to be science-based or to use research and development (R&D) intensively.

In order to find common features of knowledge-based entrepreneurship, Richard Woodward, Deniz Yörük and Slavo Radosevic conducted a comparative analysis of thirteen knowledge-based firms in six Central and Eastern European countries. Also, the authors find explanations why firms in this region differ in various ways from their Western counterparts.

CASE Network Studies and Analyses No. 428: Knowledge based firms from Central and East European countries: A comparative overview of case studies