What is clear after completing the study is that entrepreneurship is a combination of personal, societal, business and environmental factors that all work together in encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship in a society. There is no question that personal driving forces are extremely important in bringing out ambition and an entrepreneurial spirit but external factors are also extremely important such as public policy, access to finance or advice, education and ability to exploit an opportunity.
Regardless of nationality there are some common personality traits of entrepreneurs such as a need to achieve, driven by an idea, a willingness to exploit a challenge, to persevere, to work hard, a high level of self belief and the ability to work with or delegate to others.
To encourage and inspire entrepreneurial behavior it is important that entrepreneurial characteristics are nurtured and developed within the educational system and are valued within the wider culture and society while ensuring that an environment exists to further encourage entrepreneurship.
Ireland has seen an increase in economic growth over the last few years and this has created many new opportunities and different avenues for people to pursue. Despite these new opportunities many Irish people are still afraid to leave their job and set up business on their own. This is mostly because the fear of failure stops them from leaving a safe work environment to one that is more uncertain. This could be helped if entrepreneurship was more diffused into the education system, although there is plenty of initiatives and competitions in the education system, entrepreneurial education is perhaps still a little low. Some aspiring entrepreneurs may need to be coached about the barriers that exist and how they might over come the issues. Usually among successful entrepreneurs there is a characteristic of perseverance that even if they experience failure first time they are more likely to try again until they succeed. Among entrepreneurs, experiencing failure is usually seen as learning from your mistakes but if the Irish are more risk averse this hinders the level of entrepreneurship in society. This is evident as Ireland has high levels of entrepreneurship in comparison to many EU countries, but it trails many countries outside the EU, including US, Canada, Iceland, New Zealand and
Australia. There has been an increase in government policies and awareness to improve entrepreneurial education recently but there is still more work to do to utilize the full capacity of the Irish entrepreneurial market. Finance which is one of the key issues for new business owners needs to be made more available and more women need to be encouraged to participate in the Entrepreneurial market. The transfer of research, technological development and innovation from universities to business needs to be addressed and the process made smoother.
Other techniques that could be used to promote entrepreneurship in Ireland could be to encourage development agencies and small business representative bodies to promote the achievement of entrepreneurs more by illustrating the achievements, highlighting the economic benefits and illustrating the risks that have been overcome by successful entrepreneurs. By building a positive media interest and goodwill towards entrepreneurs and improving the recognition of entrepreneurship as a career choice it will facilitate the acceptance and encourage more entrepreneurialism. Another method of encouraging entrepreneurship in other disciplines besides the area of business would be to offer modules at third level education in all fields of study so that a more evenly educated group of entrepreneurs could be encouraged. To facilitate the commercialization of new ideas, solid links need to be developed and maintained between researchers and entrepreneurs who have the skills and motivation to bring about fruition of the innovation.
Ireland’s entrepreneurs often start small and remain small this can be for many reasons but the internationalization of any new company should be more of a priority at the early stages rather than becoming resigned to the fact that the company is small and will probably stay that way. Often in Ireland the financing at the early stages of setting up a business can be difficult as the availability of finance, informal investment or equity and debt finance, might not be as readily available as in some other economies.
Cluster development is important and Ireland needs to create more clusters. If there were more clusters this would allow SMEs to use the cluster and networks to gain advantage in
the world markets. Business owners need to be educated on the advantages of being part of a network. Maybe by providing a network resource center, businesses can have a way to facilitate connections. Collaboration between networks and clusters is important so as to improve the innovative framework that already exists.
Taiwan’s economic performance has been very strong recently and the increase in GDP directly results in a higher rate of new start-up companies. Technology is considered to be one of the most important factors in raising Taiwan’s industrial competitiveness and they have increasingly invested in R&D, which results in the country being able to introduce new technologies faster than their competitors.
Taiwan’s entrepreneurial culture is based on the utilization of increasingly more advanced technologies as well as the intensive use of physical and human capital.
Taiwan’s enterprises have become efficient at producing a great deal of goods that they had no experience in at all a few years ago. Taiwan’s industrial base is very heavily dominated by small companies which can be incapable of achieving rapid innovation on their own. This leaves the state the responsibility of investing in national projects to help reduce the dependence of small firms on imported technology.
The structural change in the economy over the last few years has given rise to massive changes in Taiwan and increased levels of innovation. This occurred when the IT industry grew with remarkable speed as compared to other industries from 1991 to 2000 and there was a decline in the manufacture of traditional products while electrical and electronic products for national export increased, resulting in increased levels of GDP.
More recently the globalization and the accession to the WTO offered new opportunities for the development of entrepreneurship. Today entrepreneurs can enjoy a sound regulation system, better financial support and a more open market economy. But there are still challenges as there are a massive number of global rivals emerging from developing countries and there are rising costs of labor, land and environmental protection.
Appendix 1
Appendix 2
Formulating Porter’s Diamond
Appendix 3
Appendix 4 1. Please select your nationality and answer the questions below related to your own country only:
Irish: Taiwanese:
2. Please enter your basic data for statistical purposes only:
Male/Female.
Occupation.
Firm / business type.
Highest level of education obtained.
Age.
3. Please select the level to which you agree or disagree: Strongly Agree
Agree Unsure Disagree Strongly Disagree
1) My country is innovative.
2) There are lots of entrepreneurs in my country.
3) Entrepreneurship is a good career choice.
4) I feel that I have the necessary skills to become an entrepreneur.
5) There is a stigma attached to entrepreneurs whom fail.
6) The government does enough to support
entrepreneurs. i.e. finance, grants, policies, laws etc
7) There are many entrepreneurial opportunities in my country.
8) The media does a good job highlighting the entrepreneurs in our society.
9) I am or personally know entrepreneurs in my society.
10) I would consider becoming an entrepreneur.
References
Acs, Z. J., B. Carlsson and C. Karlsson "The Linkages Among Entrepreneurship, Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and the Macroeconomy." Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press. (1999)
Aldrich, H. E Using an ecological perspective to study organizational founding rates. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 14(3), 7–24 .(1990)
Benjamin M. Oviatt, Patricia P. McDougal, Baylor University, “Defining International Entrepreneurship and Modeling the Speed of Internationalization (2005)
ttp://road.uww.edu/road/peltierj/Papers%20entre/Defining%20international%20entrepreneurship.pdf Bird, B. The operation of intention in time: the emergence of the new venture. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 17(1), 11–20, (1992)
Breda Kenny, John Fahy “Examining the link between international business networks and performance in international trade-a research agenda”, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Volume 6, no 6,( 2006)
Brenner, R..National policy and entrepreneurship: The stateman’s dilemma. Journal of Business Venturing. 2: 95 – 101, (1987)
Casson, M.. 'Entrepreneurship and the theory of the firm'. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 58 (2) , 327-348, (2005)
Chen Chien-ting: Developing a Regional Niche Industrial Cluster, Taiwan Thinktank,
http://www.taiwanthinktank.org/ttt/servlet/OpenBlock?Template=Article&category_id=16&article_id=34
&lan=en
Defining a Small Economy – World Bank, Projects and Operations
http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/PROJECTS/0,,contentMDK:21512464~pagePK:41367~pi PK:51533~theSitePK:40941,00.html
David B. Audretsch, Isable Grilo, A. Roy Thurik, Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurship Policy, Edward Elgar Publishing, Chapter 7,8
David, P. and D. Foray “Innovation in the European Chemical Industry”, paper prepared for the Eurostat Conference on Innovation Measurement and Policies, May (1995).
Davidsson, P. Researching Entrepreneurship. Springer: New York. (2004)
Den Hertog, P. et al. “Assessing the Distributional Power of National Innovation Systems: Pilot Study of the Netherlands”, TNO Centre for Technology and Policy Studies, Apeldoorn, Netherlands. (1995) Dreher, Carsten, “Measuring Innovations in Manufacturing: Diffusion, Adoption Potentials and Characteristics of Technical and Organisational Process Innovations”, paper prepared for the Eurostat Conference on Innovation Measurement and Policies, May. (1996)
Drucker, Peter F. Innovative and Entrepreneurship, Practice and Principles. Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. ( 1985)
Eoin O’Mally and Chris Van Egeraat: Industrial Clusters and Irish Indigenous Manufacturing: Limits of the Porter View, The Economic and Social Review, Vol 31, No. 1, January, pp. 55-79, (2000)
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation; Entrepreneurship and Urban Success: Toward a policy concensus, http://www.kauffman.org/item.cfm?item=1013
Finfacts Ireland, Ireland Economy Irish Economic News Reports Celtic Tiger http://www.finfacts.com/econ2000.htm
Fu-Lai Tony Yu, Ho-Don Yan and Shan-Yu Chen; Adaptive Entrepreneurship and Taiwan’s Economic Dynamics, http://fce.ufm.edu/Publicaciones/LaissezFaire/24-25/LF-24%5B5%5D_(Taiwan).pdf Gartner, W. 'Who is an entrepreneur? is the wrong question'. American Journal of Small Business (Spring): 11-31. (1988)
Greg Coombs: Essays on Regional Economic Development, Factors Influencing the Growth of Small Regional Economies, Definition of a Small Regional Economy, Wakefield Press, (2001)
Hong Kong Trade Development Council, The SMEs’ Status in Taiwan, Major Economic Indicators http://www.moeasmea.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=770&CtNode=331&mp=2
Ivan Mbirimi, Bridger Chilala, Grynberg: From Doha to Cancun: Delivering a Development Round, Commonwealth Secretariat International Trade
John Hurley: Financial stability and recent market developments in Ireland, http://www.bis.org/review/r080201a.pdf
John Bristow: Taxation in Ireland: An Economist’s Perspective
Katz, J. A psychological cognitive model of employment status choice. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 17(1), 29–37, (1992)
Mark Rogers, “The definition and Measurement of Innovation”, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne. http://melbourneinstitute.com//wp/wp98n10.pdf Michael E Porter and Scott Stern “Ranking National Innovative Capacity: Findings from the National Innovative Capacity Index” Harvard University, Northwestern University and National Bureau of Economic Research chapter 2.2
Michael E. Porter, “The Competitive Advantage of Taiwan” Harvard Business School, Commonwealth Speech, Taipei, Taiwan July 31st (2001)
Newsletter from the European Commission’s enterprise DG March, “Information and technology transfer”, http://cordis.europa.eu/itt/itt-en/04-2/dossier.htm.( 2004)
Paula Fitzsimons, Colm O’Gorman,“GEM The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2005 The Irish Report”.
(2005)
Reprot from InterTradeIreland, Business Networks on the Island of Ireland,
www.intertradeireland.com/module.cfm/opt/29/area/Publications/page/Publications/down/yes/id/323
Sarasvathy, S. D. Report on the seminar on Research Perspectives in Entrepreneurship Journal of Business Venturing. 15(1): 1-58, (2000)
Schumpeter, J.A.. The Theory of Economic Development. Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press.
(1934).
Stephen Xingang Xu, Rod B. Mc Naughton “High-technology cluster evolution: a network analysis of Canada’s Technology Triangle”, International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, Volume 6, no 6, (2006)
Terrence E Brown, J. M. Ulijn, “Innovation, Entrepreneurship and culture, The Interaction between Technology, Progress and Economic Growth”, Published 2004 Edward Elgar Publishing. Chapter 8 Culture’s role in entrepreneurship: self-employment out of dissatisfaction, Geert Hofstede, Niels G.
Noorderhaven, A. Roy Thurik, Lorraine M. Uhlaner, Alexander R.M. Wennekers and Ralph E. wildeman, (2004)
The Entrepreneurship Center at Miami University of Ohio “Definition of Entrepreneurship”
http://westaction.org/definitions/def_entrepreneurship_1.html
The Federation of International Trade Associations, Taiwan, http://www.fita.org/countries/taiwan.html Understanding GDP and GNP – BBC News, Wednesday, 12 February,
2003http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/88618.stm, (2003)
Wennekers S, Thurik R, Linking Entrepreneurship and Economic Growth. Small Business Economics 13: 27–55, (1999)