CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CHANGE IN EUROPE (CSESCE) UCL - SSEES Centre for the Study of Economic and Social Change in Europe Knowledge Based Entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic and Hungary: Results from 4 case studies

This paper describes knowledge based entrepreneurship in the Czech Republic and Hungary, in particular the growth and development process of 4 firms are studied: Dekonta, an environmental services firm, Et netera, an IT services firm, both operating in Czech Republic, along with a data recovery firm, Kűrt, and a biopharmaceutical firm, Solvo, both operating in Hungary. The objectives of the case studies are to illustrate experiences of knowledge based entrepreneurship within a transition environment in terms of their different growth and development paths. By carrying out in depth case studies using semi structured interviews with the founders, top management teams, core employees and key stakeholders in industrial associations I am able to explain the growth process of entrepreneurial knowledge based ventures. I assume an ecological view of the firm and examine the role of internal, strategic, network and external factors in this development process. I propose that the relative importance of these factors evolve over time from start up to maturity. Moreover, I anticipate that there will be complementarities between these factors in the spirit of Milgrom and Roberts (1995) and Von Tunzelmann (2003). 1 This paper was carried out under the auspices of the Knowledge, entrepreneurship, innovation, networks and systems STREP project under the direction of Professor Franco Malerba, Universitá Bocconi, Milan. 2 I am grateful to Kristina Kadleckivova, at the Technology Centre in Prague and to Karel Muller and Anna Kaderabkova at VSEM, Prague for their insights on the knowledge based economy in the Czech Republic, and Robert Bodocs at the ITDH, Hungary for information on the biotechology sector. Thanks are also due to participants of the KEINS project workshops and to Professor Slavo Radosevic for helpful comments.