Introduction: Systematic “Transition” and Entrepreneurship Theory

Abstract

By emphasizing the need for contextualizing entrepreneurship research, we discuss diverse pathways of development within various transition countries, i.e. former socialist countries, mostly in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). We further address certain forms of entrepreneurship, such as unproductive entrepreneurship and informality, and highlight the contribution of transition studies to ‘general’ entrepreneurship theories and vice versa. Our key argument is that theoretical developments within the entrepreneurship research domain, the availability of cross-country data and the increasing number of single country studies have generated substantial knowledge on the development of entrepreneurship in transition countries. Yet, entrepreneurship development, especially in a transition setting, which tends to be more dynamic compared to more advanced market economies, needs to be constantly reassessed. In the context of this discussion and drawing on insights from existing literature on entrepreneurship in transition countries, we further introduce with the contents of this volume.