Community-Based Entrepreneurship und Regionalentwicklung

How can municipalities in Central Europe create favourable conditions for local business? What and how can municipalities learn from each other? How can each individual in the local area contribute? And what requirements have to be met before know-how can successfully be transferred on a communal level? To answer all these questions, based on a four year research programme funded by the Jubiläumsfonds of the Österreiche Nactionalbank (ÖNB), the authors of this book comprehensively discuss the manifold opportunities, restrictions and prerequisites of establishing favourable conditions for small and medium enterprises in rural municipalities in Central Europe. First, by using Austrian sample municipalities, the various different prerequisites for economic development in municipalities are illustrated and analysed in detail. On the basis of intensive research interviews with parties involved (mayors, opposition councillors, entrepreneurs and representatives of citizens` initiatives), two municipality portraits are developed for each of the ten different types of municipality identified. Both have started from a similar initial situation, but showed dramatically different success in economic development between 1991 and 2001. By comparing these diametrically opposed development trends, suggestions for successful intervention measures for municipality development are derived. In the next step, it is established which measures - and under which conditions - are suitable for know-how transfer with transitional countries in Eastern Europe bordering on Austria (Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia) and which barriers have to be overcome. For this, 2,000 questionnaires were sent out and more than 60 qualitative interviews were conducted. The analysis culminates in the formulation of 17 theses on the transferability of strategies successful in Austria. From the barriers identified, the need for action for the decision-makers on both sides of the border is determined. For anybody interested in the development of rural areas, this book presents in a concise manner: " measures for successful intervention in municipality development as the subject for know-how transfer between municipalities in Central Europe " prerequisites for functioning know-how transfer " obstacles to be overcome.