PurposeThe main objective of this paper is to analyse the influence of environmental factors on entrepreneurship at the Spanish regional level, using institutional economics as the theoretical framework for the research. Additionally, this work aims to emphasize how environmental conditions have different effects according to the gender of entrepreneurs.Design/methodology/approachRegional panel data (19 Spanish regions and the 2006‐2009 period) from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), specifically from the Spanish National Expert Survey (NES) for environmental conditions and the GEM Adult Population Survey (APS) for entrepreneurial activity were analysed within a fixed effects model with panel corrected standard errors.FindingsThe main findings of the study indicate that both informal (cultural and social norms, perception of opportunities to start‐up and entrepreneur social image) and formal factors (intellectual property rights) influence entrepreneurship, but the informal are more determinant than the formal. Concerning the gender issues, informal and formal institutions are also determinant, but female entrepreneurship is significantly associated with the women's support to start‐up, whereas primary and higher education are associated only with male entrepreneurial activity.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of the research should be interpreted carefully, because the availability of data constrained the analysis to a time period that is not reflective of the economic cycle; on the contrary, the data correspond to a period of recession, and thus the results cannot be generalized. Also, the study could extend the analysed period and compare the obtained results with international data, considering the global number of participant countries in the GEM Project.Originality/valueThe study provides a methodology to analyse the environmental factors for new firm creation at a regional level, combining GEM data and institutional economics.

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Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial activity, University support, Intentional models, GEM, Spain, G20, L50, M13,

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Entrepreneurship is widely argued to be critical for economic development and alleviating extreme poverty. However, entrepreneurship research in sub-Saharan Africa has not received much attention over the last few decades possibly due to a lack of sufficient resources. It is becoming increasingly important as Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, is developing rapidly and moving from a resource-based economy to one of innovation and progress. Using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), this paper discusses the opinions of national expert informants in Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa and looks at the factors which are possibly hindering and inhibiting entrepreneurial development. The results indicate that there are four main inhibitors ranging from lack of access to finance, government policies, regulations and practices for entrepreneurs and the poor levels of entrepreneurship education. Some recommendations are made as to what can be done to assist in promoting economic development.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to establish a readiness for entrepreneurship theoretical framework. The paper marks the first of three stages to build a scale to measure readiness for entrepreneurship. Design/methodology/approach – The current paper is conceptual. The research approach consists of formulating proposals and definitions based on an extensive literature review. Findings – The literature review reveals that no such readiness for entrepreneurship measurement tool exists. The literature review also yields definitions and components of key concepts for the theoretical framework. Research limitations/implications – The paper offers a new, holistic perspective of readiness for entrepreneurship. This research addresses measurement of readiness for entrepreneurship from a rigorous, scientific approach. The main limitation lies in capturing and organizing extensive information on topics from diverse disciplines (i.e. sociology, psychology, and business management). Practical implications – This theoretical framework enables the design and creation of a scale to measure readiness for entrepreneurship. The literature review confirmed the possibility of building such a measurement scale. Social implications – A complex tool able to identify and measure readiness for entrepreneurship would be applicable in numerous situations including the following: determining entrepreneurial abilities, analyzing potential for entrepreneurship, simulating organizational transformations, and evaluating investment recommendations. Originality/value – No holistic, scientifically grounded tool to measure readiness for entrepreneurship exists, yet there are numerous entrepreneurial capacity tests with no rigorous scientific grounding. As a remedy, this paper provides solid scientific foundations upon which to develop an instrument for measuring readiness for entrepreneurship.

The term ‘entrepreneurial eco-system’ (EES) currently belongs to the most popular ones in economic geography – and in the practice of start-up support policies in many countries, too. Due to its exclusively positive connotations the usage of this term creates unrealistic hopes among entrepreneurship support practitioners. Scholars may be reminded to previous supposed panaceas of regional economic policies like clusters, ‘creative class’ members or high-tech industries. As for these predecessors as well, the concept is “fuzzy” (Markusen 1999), the available empirics are “scanty” (ibid.) and its perception among policymakers is oversimplified, exclusively positive and partially naïve. To a degree, this is a consequence of an extremely unclear definition of what is meant by an EES. The undertheorization of the EES discourse, as observed by some scholars, is not due to a lack of conceptual approaches per se, but due to a lack of convincing, theoretically strong approaches. In fact, the majority of the EES publications is conceptual or even theoretical, usually without any serious empirical underpinning. From our perspective the latter has one important consequence: EES theory is weak because there is a lack of representative, comprehensive and sophisticated empirical studies, indicators and methods to measure EES. This paper provides a unique attempt to measure EES at the sub-national level of regions, that is, from our perspective, the most appropriate spatial level to identify and measure (and theorize) EES as the regional entrepreneurship literature provides striking evidence in favor of entrepreneurship as being primarily a regional (or local) event. Our paper contributes to the current EES debate by arguing that a robust empirical measurement of various EES at the sub-national level may help to improve the quality of EES theory. We propose to start with Erik Stam’s interpretation of an EES based upon ten “conditions” for whom we develop specific variables for application in concrete data collection exercises in different regions. We develop an overall EES index as well as subnational indices for each of the ten conditions. We also propose a method to care for the various weighting problems to be solved. Our attempt has been successfully pretested in Germany and Spain and has meanwhile entered a more ambitious pilot phase in 2018. One of this paper’s aims is to get feedback from scholars studying EES regarding our proposed method.