Rural Entrepreneurship and Regional Development

Entrepreneurship accepts various meanings and has been assigned a wide range of definitions in the international scientific literature. Contemporary rural development policies treat entrepreneurship as a core element of the sustainable growth of lagging, mountainous, less-favoured areas. However, it seems that regional policy has adopted a rather fragmented and spontaneous approach to fostering entrepreneurship. In this paper, we review the various definitions of entrepreneurship and examine whether current regional and rural development policy instruments stimulate entrepreneurship. Evritania, a mountainous region in Greece has been selected in the framework of the European Union Research Project (EMASE) as a case study area. Past and current development efforts are reviewed to reveal the context for supporting entrepreneurship. More specifically, the regional development frameworks up to 1997 and the rural development schemes are included.