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Recent developments that have focused on the institutions, support mechanisms and entrepreneurship in the European Union (EU) are mostly fragmented either focusing on statistical presentation of the current situation or analysis of the impact of the regulations on business creation. In addition, recent studies do not capture thoroughly the differentiating factors of the local, regional, national and supranational governance. Moreover, the recent trends tackling social and environmental challenges through entrepreneurship have not been explored and researched in an extensive way. Indeed, in the last decades a variety of tools, regulations, and funding and support schemes have been developed in the EU to promote and enhance entrepreneurial activities. Within this context, this collective volume aims to provide the go-to source of current thinking in this area as its scope will extend to all major, relevant and interrelated aspects of institutions, support mechanisms and entrepreneurship in the EU.

The volatile tax system is a huge disincentive for taking business, as frequent changes in the tax system create extremely difficult problems. It is a major barrier to entrepreneurship, it fails to address them economic inequalities, is too complex, changing very often, and is made in a way that facilitates tax evasion.

The factors that discourage investors from investing in our country are as follows (as research has shown in the past five years in our country by researchers and scientists): high taxation, complex institutional framework, bureaucracy, corruption, political liquidity and limited access to finance. These pathogens hamper the ability of the economy to produce competitive goods and quality services on the market.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the main pathogens of the tax system which are a brake on the development of Greek entrepreneurship and how they can be tackled so that our country produces competitive goods and quality services.

In this chapter, we approach and examine the issue of innovation as applied to family and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Cyprus, using, for research purposes, a structured questionnaire addressed to the particular type of business through mapping and grouping of the sample. The analysis concerns the periods 2015–2017, which are interesting due to the economic conditions that prevailed in the market in general. In this chapter, innovation is analyzed at both the policy level of the European Union and the institutional level. In particular, we examine the institutional dimensions of innovation in SMEs in Cyprus, such as, for example, the issue of financing, as well as the barriers often encountered by the companies in implementing innovative products, services or solutions. The chapter ends with interesting conclusions and an attempt to discuss future research extensions in the field of the institutional analysis of innovation.

The aim of this chapter is to examine the way in which small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) adapt their financial and operational planning in order to develop green entrepreneurship. This is examined through two different practices which may be followed by companies: policies and strategies that lead enterprises to energy upgrade and policies and strategies relating to environmental protection. This chapter draws upon the dataset from 100 Greek SMEs. The process of data collection was conducted by delivering questionnaires to the sample of companies in question. The novelty of this research, in comparison with other surveys, is that the level of adopting green strategies is approached not only in the fields of energy or environmental efficiencies but also attempts to introduce techno-economic parameters with related items in the questionnaires delivered to the SMEs. Hence, a more thorough analysis for the greenness of Greek SMEs is discussed based on 10 (i.e. techno-economic) research hypotheses. The results indicate that the SMEs should be supported more effectively by the Greek government and European Union through funding initiatives. The funding initiatives do not have the expected results so far towards this direction. However, it seems that the SMEs realize the importance of green strategies as they believe the consumers are willing to pay more for green products.

This chapter aims to conceptualize the general framework of policies to support entrepreneurship and competitiveness by indicating a move from a dispersive comprehension of competitiveness towards an integrated macro-meso-micro perspective, by taking as a case study the European South. First, it presents theoretical contributions to entrepreneurship enhancement policies, which mostly suggest that intervention can be effective in a fragmentary and relatively incoherent way. Then, it counter-proposes the ‘competitiveness web’ approach, which gives an integrated policy framework for the competitive strengthening and evolution of a socioeconomic system. In the framework of competitiveness web, we analyze and propose a meso-micro level policy via the Institutes of Local Development and Innovation (ILDI), which is a policy for empowering the local and regional business ecosystems through the enhancement of business innovation. Finally, by using the competitiveness web filter, we propose the structuration of a mechanism that could identify the level at which the socioeconomic entities in different spatial levels can articulate their policies for entrepreneurship enhancement in the macro-meso-micro integrated approach.

The chapter discusses the preliminary evidence for the state of Vocational Education and Training (hereafter VET) for social entrepreneurship and organizations and especially for European Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE). Drawing upon a European project, and gathering information from five countries; Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Greece and Italy, this study aims to demonstrate that educational programmes are encompassed among the necessary SSE support mechanisms in the EU's socio-economic framework. Moreover, this chapter shows that this connection between SSE and adult education is not coincidental, but is founded on the converging principles of these fields, as well as in their common belief in society's transformational potential. This evidence tends to fill a gap in the literature of European SSE given that it is a recent, under-researched subject in general and especially in linking it to VET. This is all the more important in view of ongoing crises (e.g. financial, COVID-19, environmental), which highlight that social economy perspectives can no longer abstain from the political agendas across the world.

The chapter presents recent development in the field of entrepreneurship education of several European universities – partners within Erasmus+ project on blended learning entrepreneurship course development, covering subjects from everyday instructional and practical approaches to support (under)graduate entrepreneurship and theoretical connections with modern worldwide educational and socioeconomic policies. Theoretical overview of the subject of entrepreneurship education is presented in the first part, and in the second part, good practice of BLUES Entrepreneurship course is discussed (BLUES Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union: Blended-learning international entrepreneurship skills programme; European Entrepreneurship Experience project). The chapter discusses the needs of universities and university professors and entrepreneurship instructors by highlighting how blended learning addresses some challenges of entrepreneurship education implementation while also brings some new challenges in managing such a course. Blended learning is suggested as a conducive environment for entrepreneurial learning in both academic and nonacademic settings. Based on the presented methodology entrepreneurship professors are able to implement and/or adjust the BLUES methodology within their own course, parts of it or the whole course that is provided through online massive open online courses (MOOCs) and toolkit for face-to-face exercises in class. Chapter provides a systematic and integrated perspective with relevance for business students, educators and policymakers.

The entrepreneurial vision, strategic goals, organizational capabilities and processes, alone, will not be adequate to attain business success, unless there is a quality management philosophy in the company (Al-Dhaafri, Al-Swidi, & Yusoff, 2016). Successful entrepreneurial endeavours essentially rest on action, assertiveness, persistence and know-how of leadership (Azyan, Pulakanam, & Pons, 2017) who comprehend the application of quality management methods as a long-term ‘quality journey’. The appropriate implementation of a quality management system (QMS) or total quality management (TQM) system results in enhanced organizational performance (Sahoo & Yadav, 2017).

A wide range of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have nowadays been aware of the indisputable importance of quality and have reaped the benefits of TQM, having in mind that TQM is not just a method or a tool but a whole business philosophy. TQM is a systematic approach that focuses on continuous improvement of the organizational processes with the participation and contribution of all the stakeholders, so as to manage and enhance quality, productivity and customer satisfaction. It is the best way for the enterprise's growth and domination in the contemporary national and international competitive marketplace (Kriemadis, Thomopoulou, & Sioutou, 2017). According to several studies, by embracing the TQM philosophy, SMEs can compete in the global competitive environment (Womack & Roos, 1990; as cited in Karani & Bichanga, 2012; Sainis & Kriemadis, 2019; Pashiardis & Kriemadis, 1999).

The present study aims to develop a generic TQM model for SMEs in order to improve their competitiveness, productivity and quality as well as to enhance their entrepreneurial orientation.

Innovation project development is becoming more important in boosting competitiveness of universities and enterprises. It will not be possible to ensure rapid economic growth of enterprises without competitive innovations and without their introduction into education and business practice. The object of the research paper is innovations in teaching entrepreneurship. The subject of the research paper is analysis of the effective entrepreneurship education at the universities. The objective of the research paper is to study the integration process of technological business environment (TBE), intellectual capital (IC) formation, innovation project (IP) development at the universities and enterprises.

The tasks advanced in order to reach the objective: to identify the concept of IC, IP, the methodology of IP development at the universities, their main actions and methods; to carry out analysis of the TBE in Latvia, indicators characterizing it environment, the factors of TBE influencing IC, IP development at the universities and enterprises; to estimate the IP development as the teaching method at the universities and business practice in Latvia. The research period is from the year 2007 till the year 2020. This is the first research on the analysis of indicators of TBE influencing IC formation, IP development at the universities; the efficiency of involvement of academic staff in the formation of IC and IP development into entrepreneurship education in Latvia; definition of the IP development as the teaching method and presentation of its theoretical and practical interpretation.