Business Support Centres in the transition economies - progress with the wrong model?

• Autores: Milford Bateman
• Localización: Enterprise development & microfinance, ISSN 1755-1978, Vol. 11, Nº. 2, 2000, págs. 50-59
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • During the 1990s networks of Business Support Centres (BSCs) were promoted in the transition economies of eastern Europe, aimed at supporting business start-ups and microenterprises. The funding came from western donor agencies, who were convinced that support services within local government were ineffective, and instead funded private-sector BSCs. This article argues that an essentially neo-liberal ideology underpinned the BSCs' design, before going on to point out some of the main drawbacks and opportunity costs which followed from this approach. Now that funding is being withdrawn, the BSCs are not being adopted by local government, and they are obliged to fund themselves with consultancies from large businesses. It is argued that the 'tiger economies' provide examples of successful state involvement in SME development, a model which was ignored, but would have been more appropriate in Central and Eastern Europe.