For Policy Makers

For Policy Makers
www.elie-project.eu
Introduction
What were the main findings?
The ELIE (Employability: Learning through International
Entrepreneurship) project focussed on providing the tools to
enable migrants including enterprises and students within the
European Union to create their own jobs; and through their
entrepreneurship to create employment for others.
•
Bureaucracy acts as a barrier to entrepreneurship.
•
Entrepreneurs are not deterred from start-up, expanding
or investment by higher rates of taxation but are
extremely deterred by perceptions of unfairness in the tax
system.
•
Social and cultural barriers to entrepreneurship are as
significant as lack of capital in preventing business startups.
•
Teaching of modern foreign languages is often
inadequate for mobility within the European Union.
•
Stereotypes of entrepreneurs are a significant factor
in preventing some types of small companies from
developing to their full potential.
•
Stereotypes of entrepreneurs also act as a factor in
discouraging entrepreneurship amongst some groups of
students.
•
The experiences of immigrant entrepreneurs within
the ELIE project made reference to social networks as
supportive or central to their entrepreneurial endeavours
in most cases.
Working closely with small/medium enterprises in the UK,
Greece, Poland and Finland ELIE’s research established
which were the most effective methods of developing the
capabilities and skills for entrepreneurship.
Our methods were developed from the ‘bottom-up’, being
based on interviews with 200 migrant entrepreneurs from
four participating countries. The project benefitted from
people who had real experience of entrepreneurship and
gave us a significant understanding of the needs of our
target groups.
Additional benefit came from the contribution of
international students, who evaluated the developing
learning materials and contributed to the focus groups and
workshops.
What did the project research involve?
The primary aim was to reinforce the link between studies
and future skills and employment needs amongst students in
universities across the European Union, by highlighting the
opportunities of mobility within the EU and the benefits of
entrepreneurship. The project also aimed to:
•
Explore the nature of social and cultural barriers to
entrepreneurship.
•
Provide relevant and accessible learning opportunities for
SMEs wishing to expand into international markets.
•
Develop skills for entrepreneurship and creative thinking
amongst students and migrants.
Cultures of Entrepreneurship
The ELIE project did not find any significant cultural influences
on entrepreneurship, but found that values reflecting hard
work and dedication were important.
Institutional Settings for Entrepreneurship
Institutional factors such as government policy, regulation,
infrastructure, local, regional and national networks,
financing mechanisms and structures reported as critical
institutional factors.
Social Factors and Entrepreneurship
What are the main policy messages?
The social milieu, in which an individual operates and his or
her position within that social structure, has an identifiable
impact upon the decision to be entrepreneurial, upon how
the business might develop and upon the type or nature of a
business.
•
Language teaching and the development of modern
foreign language curricula to include language skills for
entrepreneurship, negotiation and networking across the
European Union is a key policy recommendation.
•
Supporting and signposting of business support
organisations is vital as a means of supporting
entrepreneurship.
•
Start-up grants and support for SMEs should be available
through a common process across the EU.
•
Business planning education and mentoring schemes
appear to improve the chances of success of the new
business.
•
Governments could provide a guarantor scheme to
facilitate bank lending for a business start-up loans
where these are needed.
•
The EU should promote a business-friendly and fair
taxation strategy to enable growth and development
through new business start-ups.
•
Regulations relating to SMEs could be available in a
range of European Union languages and through an
online facility in order to facilitate access to everyone.
•
Levels of bureaucracy within some EU countries are seen
as a significant barrier to enterprise.
•
Levels of taxation were not seen as a barrier to
enterprise, so long as these were seen to be fair. There
was disquiet where taxes were seen as being avoided by
larger companies, where corruption was suspected.
They mainly underlined the importance of family support,
networks developed through education, business networking
organizations, business groups, chambers of commerce and
industry.
Skills, Learning and Entrepreneurs
Immigrants usually arrive in their new country with a range of
skills and abilities. If they do not speak the local language and
have little cultural awareness they will find it difficult to get
work or to do very well as an entrepreneur no matter how
excellent their qualifications are.
All details of the ELIE project, including reports, learning
materials and academic outputs can be found on
www.elie-project.eu
Project Partners
University of Salford, United Kingdom (Project Coordinators)
Carolyn Downs, Elena Vasilieva, E.Vasilieva@salford.ac.uk
The Business Group, Salford, United Kingdom
Jon Monk, info@thebusinessgroup.org
Turku School of Economics, University of Turku, Finland
Elisa Akola, elisa.akola@uti.fi
Ardin Software Oy, Finland
Arcady Khotin, arcady.khotin@ardinsoftware.fi
Management Faculty, University of Lodz, Poland
T. Bartosz Kalinowski, tbkalinowski@uni.lodz.pl
South East European Research Centre, Greece
Lambros Lazuras, llazuras@seerc.org
Thessaloniki Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Greece
Georgia Molioti, molioti@ebeth.gr
With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the
author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.