Knowledge-Based Entreprenuership in Poland

Abstract

The importance of new firm creation in the post-Communist economies of East Central Europe (ECE) has been subject to extensive research. This paper focuses on an area of entrepreneurship which has received relatively little attention in the transition economy context but which is of particular importance for the modernization of the transition economies: knowledge-based entrepreneurship (KBE), or new firm creation in industries considered to be science-based or to use research and development (RD there is very little evidence of distributed, or open, innovation here. These firms have also managed to achieve their successes with little or no help from the state, and have, in most cases, had to rely on networks of families or friends (including those in local industrial clusters) in order to sustain and develop their business.