This book draws together leading academics to provide a state-of-the-art overview of the key challenges to entrepreneurship in Europe. Relationships between entrepreneurship, competitiveness and local development are assessed from various perspectives, and the important role played by entrepreneurs and small firms in fostering economic development in emerging as well as in developed countries is explored. Topics included within these parameters are venture capital, start-ups, entry barriers, the role of gender, refugee entrepreneurship and technological entrepreneurship.

Researchers and scholars focusing on the areas of entrepreneurship and small business management will find much to interest them within this book, as will policy-makers involved in the promotion and support of local development and entrepreneurship.