Entrepreneurial and Vocational Education and Training

The social, economic and political systems of former communist countries have faced considerable changes since the late 1980s. Most countries in Eastern and Central Europe have undergone their own individual brand of transition from a centrally planned, command system to a more or less liberalized, Western-style market economy Many observers agree that in general there is still a great deal to be done to achieve the key goal of economic liberalization, but there is little agreement among academics as to what would constitute an effective and stabilizing transition in the region. In common with contemporary Western beliefs and attitudes, much of the new thinking and hopes for economic regeneration in Eastern and Central Europe have centred on entrepreneurship and small business development. In the early years of transition, the influx of international aid became a stumbling block to the establishment of the kind of support systems that had proved crucial for the survival and growth of small businesses in Western Europe. The demand for entrepreneurial skills and the deficiencies inherent in their new labour markets exposed post-communist economies to external shocks such as those caused by the termination of COMECON agreements and the Gulf War. The longitudinal research on which this paper is based was closely modelled on ongoing work by the authors, which involves an in-depth investigation of the ‘paradox of training’, the difference between attitude and practice, that exists in the small business sector of the UK economy. Following the results of a pilot study undertaken in the UK, the research was extended to include small business sectors across Eastern, Central and Western Europe.