ABSTRACT
This chapter sets out to review and analyse entrepreneurship in transition economies from a conceptual perspective, concentrating on whether current entrepreneurship theories can adequately embrace forms and patterns of entrepreneurship found during the transition period. While the previous chapter has focused on the macro context for entrepreneurship, we now turn to behavioural aspects of entrepreneurship at the micro level. In considering elements and concepts of entrepreneurship in a transition context, it may be helpful to briefly clarify some definitional issues, including what is meant by entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship involves both inputs and outputs. Gartner (1988, 1995) emphasises a process view, where entrepreneurship is understood simultaneously as behaviour (i.e. actions that entrepreneurs take) and outcome (e.g. new organisations). Inputs involve entrepreneurial skills and qualities, with participation in the competitive process as the main output. A firm is a vehicle for transforming the personal qualities and ambitions of entrepreneurs into actions and outputs. Context may be viewed as a third dimension of entrepreneurship, since the specific internal organisational and external operating contexts provide the framework within which the input and output dimensions can take place (de Wit and Meyer 1998).
