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Executive Summary
Entrepreneurship is a complicated phenomenon in each society. Many scientific teams
are involved in the study of various aspects of the entrepreneurship. The main objective of the
publication is to demonstrate development of the attitudes towards entrepreneurship;
specifically to completely measure the dynamics of entrepreneurial activity and assess the
conditions of entrepreneurship. Participation of Slovakia in Global Entrepreneurship Research
Association – GERA served as the basis of the publication. GERA oversees the world project
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor – GEM. GEM is the largest ongoing study of
entrepreneurial dynamics in the world, investigating the role of entrepreneurship in national
economic growth. GEM explores the role of entrepreneurship in national economic growth,
unveiling detailed national features and characteristics associated with entrepreneurial
activity, aspirations and attitudes of individuals. Moreover, GEM studies entrepreneurial
environment and its characteristics and focuses on one hand on the national characteristics
supporting entrepreneurship and on the other hand on characteristics that need to be promoted
in order to achieve economic growth of the country.
In 2011, Slovakia joined GEM for the first time. Slovakia’s national coordinator in
GEM project was Faculty of Management at Comenius University in Bratislava. National
Agency for Development of Small and Medium Enterprises was the main partner.
GEM outcomes serve as important source of information for additional researches of
entrepreneurial aspects on academic level, but primary they serve for authors of national
policies in the entrepreneurship development field. Considering just one-year data for
Slovakia, it is important to emphasize, that any conclusions explaining impact of the
entrepreneurship on the Slovakia’s economic growth would be inaccurate and would not
thoroughly explain the impact. Thus, it is important to base conclusions on a longer history of
data and merge them with other relevant information sources.
Considering that Slovakia participated in the project for the first time, the 2011
research was primary oriented on comparing Slovakia with set benchmarks. The main
benchmarks were European countries participating in the GEM project, especially the
countries of the Visegrad Group, also called the Visegrad Four – V4. In addition, the data for
Slovakia were compared with all the participating countries in GEM project in 2011 as well
as with the countries with the efficiency-driven economies (Slovakia was classified as
a country with an efficiency driven economy in 2011 by World Economic Forum).