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ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACTION PLAN 2020
The entrepreneurship action plan was adopted by the European Union on the 23
rd
of
May 2013 and it’s the second biggest economic growth’s action after Lisbon
Agenda. It aims to overcome the actual economic recession from a socio - economic
point of view unleashing the EU’s entrepreneurial potential and facing framework
challenges through three areas (or pillars) of intervention:
a. Entrepreneurial education and training to support growth and business creation
b. A flourish entrepreneurial environment
c. Disruption of the so called “glass ceiling” (support young people, women, disabled,
migrants and unemployed)
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a. Entrepreneurial mind-set represents one of the main goal.
Entrepreneurial skills are defined as ‘a sense of initiative’ in the European framework
or a necessary characteristic for European citizens for their personal fulfil, and for the
socio – economic framework defined by good citizenship and an active participation
in the European labour market
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. It includes creativity, innovation, risk taking and the
ability to plan strategies and reach objectives. It’s defined as a knowledge intensive
skills because it drives to innovation (active component) or entrepreneurs their selves
have the capacity to recognize and introduce innovation.
Entrepreneurship appears to be a spontaneous skill and some entrepreneurs haven’t
attended special courses or traineeship but education makes the difference. In fact,
entrepreneurs that lack of knowledge are facing problems as presenting their idea to
investors or enforcing a contract and this is quite usual for SMEs entrepreneurs and
particular employees
47
.
45
The European Commission (2013): “COM(2012) 795 final (2013) - Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan,
Reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe”, Brussels
46
The European Commission (2012): ‘Building Entrepreneurial Mindsets and skills in the EU’, Guidebook
series from How to support SME Policy from Structural Funds, Luxembourg
47
OECD (2010): “SMEs, Entrepreneurship and Innovation”, OECD studies on SMEs and Entrepreneurship,
Pg.164
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Students that went through entrepreneurial studies are more social aware, they learn
good governance and take jobs earlier. Moreover, they start businesses earlier and
contribute to SMEs’ innovation process. Though, Business involvement has been
unstructured. There are a number of barriers to business activities and participation, a
well-known lack of time and resources, a lack of incentives for engagement and an
unclear understanding as to how they could most actively be being involved with
entrepreneurship education.
The European Union has a specific key role solving these framework barriers
through the involvement of ministries and cross ministerial cooperation, social
partnerships at national levels and cooperating with national policies frameworks.
The development of local or regional support centres offers a framework for such
services to be utilized by teachers and assistants and spread information across every
national educational structure. Furthermore, the European Union makes use of
several associations or programmes for cooperating with MS as, for instance, the
Danish foundation for entrepreneurship, TF-test or Action Programme Education
Entrepreneurship. The Danish foundation was set up in 2010 as part of the national
strategy for entrepreneurship education. It was intended to create a coherent national
commitment to education and training in entrepreneurship and become a national
knowledge centre for education and training mainly to promote young people’s
competencies in order to make them independent. Concerning the Action
Programme Education Training, the main aim of this body is to increase the
amount of educational institutions which integrated entrepreneurships in their
structure. The TF-Test bring potential future entrepreneurs with the actual ones in
order to train them to achieve their results.
Collaboration with national or regional authorities can lead to positive externalities in
promoting entrepreneurship education at school and extent it at every level in those
areas in which relative national policies are absent. Spreading of entrepreneurial
mind-set in local and regional education ecosystems (schools, universities) through
clustering and partnerships is a necessary way, involving also SMEs and start-ups. In
fact, businesses are a source of the real life examples and experiences that are
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essentials for students and their skills together with the provision of social
responsibilities for future entrepreneurs.
According the European Commission, a way in which participation might be
augmented is through the promotion of the corporate social responsibility aspects,
identifying that the growth of enterprising people serves the whole of society –
business included. Participation can also bring profile and publicity benefits
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. VET,
for instance, it’s a task-oriented education. They consist in craft courses pursued by
self-employed or people working in micro businesses. Furthermore, cooperation with
organization as EUROPEN and JA-YE is stimulating the entrepreneurial mind-set’s
spreading. JA-YE helps students in understanding the economics of life and the path
useful to reach it. EUROPEN on the other side coordinates and promotes services or
simulated business environments in which objectives are mainly focused on
facilitating exchange of information, provides innovative training tools and promotes
the firm’s concepts. There are also other small national or regional associations with
different roles and concepts across MS.
All of them are persecuting the aim of spreading entrepreneurial education at every
level (especially for those countries with little or without an entrepreneurial
background as the ex-communist states), its importance for the labour market and
SME’s framework is due to the forecast of potential increasing of micro enterprises
or start-ups, more growth and innovation is SMEs and an increasing in job
opportunities and new approaches to them, including more creative, aware, self-
confident and innovative citizens. This process is intended to involve students from
primary school to university and young adults or unemployed in the optic that from
this wider pool of individuals a part might will set up their own businesses with the
necessary skills and adaptability demanded by the labour market. Ultimately,
entrepreneurship education is a contribution to a general development of a higher
understanding of businesses and more positive attitudes for entrepreneurs.
Generally speaking, achieving a more structured and systematic approach to
entrepreneurship education means spreading its knowledge easily within the overall
48
The European Commission (2012): ‘Building Entrepreneurial Mindsets and skills in the EU’, Guidebook
series from How to support SME Policy from Structural Funds, Luxembourg, pg.49
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educational structure. Closely related to this, an important area is given by the school
– to enterprise transition. Indeed, a range of policies are available in order to promote
coordination between schools and SMEs or start-ups in the market and mostly of
them are available to provide a job carrier to students at the ending of their education.
A specific mention should be given to the Oslo Agenda for entrepreneurship
education in Europe. The main aim of the agenda is monitoring progresses in the
entrepreneurial framework, systematically and with effective actions in order to
provide information to stakeholders interested in this topic. The document is divided
into 6 main topics. Those concerning businesses/entrepreneurs are supporting
educational establishment (supporting pedagogical tools), support to teachers and
education (adopt innovative methods in training teachers in entrepreneurship),
obviously entrepreneurships activities in school and higher education (increasing the
awareness of in young children of the social role of entrepreneurs and enterprises in
society, disseminate within schools a book with success stories of young
entrepreneurs, test the entrepreneurial competences of students and offer them a
certificate, traineeships, allow and support initiative of students associations as
creating links with businesses, engage students in alumni or encourage them in
pursue their viable business idea), building links (encouraging the creation of
learning communities in order to foster entrepreneurial mind-set, increase the
involvement of private partners in education, mentoring and coaching from
businessman, support research on how employers can be better engaged in school,
developing pedagogical entrepreneurial abilities, develop a label for entrepreneurial
schools and universities, cooperation between private and public institutions in order
to promote summer jobs from young students, build entrepreneurships centres in
order to assist schools and teachers), opening education to the outside world and
communication activities (Launching awareness campaigns at European and national
level, Establish awards at European and/or at national level).
Concerning training courses inside single SMEs, studies have shown that general
training lead to positive effects. Many of these training procedures are focused on
language training or increasing management and leadership skills. Despite that, data
from EU-15 Continuing Vocational Training Survey show that SMEs with less than
50
50 employees perceive fewer results than bigger enterprises and at the same time,
they spend the half in time of large firms with 1000 employees.
Inequalities are also displayed concerning age, sex, education and the type of work.
Indeed, younger and highly educated workers have higher opportunities in access
highly-skilled training opportunities than less-educated and older workers
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. Cost is
the main reason behind this gap and the result is that some small and medium size
employees are missing out any type of training. However, acquire entrepreneurial
skills might be done through in-house team work. This provides an opportunity for
employees to learn from others in different companies.
b. A strong and organized entrepreneurial background and the widespread of
entrepreneurial culture have been one of the most important policies objectives for
EU’s bodies and Member States since late ’90 because they lead to society and
individuals’ benefits.
In the Entrepreneurship Action Plan, the European Union highlights six key areas of
intervention in order to create a flourish framework for entrepreneurship and SMEs:
b.1 access to finance
b.2 support in the crucial phase of the business lifecycle
b.3 unleashing new business opportunities in the digital area
b.4 Transfers of businesses
b.5 Bankruptcy procedures and second chance for honest entrepreneurs
b.6 Regulatory burden reduction
b.1 Access to finance represents the biggest constrain for SMEs’ growth during the
early stages of their business because of framework difficulties (information
asymmetry, lingual barriers, and different national markets). The Commission, as
pointed out in the EAP 2020, together with EIB and EIF is facing these barriers
developing a parallel single market for microfinance available at national level
through different programmes. For instance, JASMINE programme is one of the
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OECD (2008), ‘Enhancing the role of SMEs in Global Value Chains’, Paris, OECD publishing
51
tools that involves Member States directly and makes resources for micro-financing
available through national intermediaries (banks, guarantee institutions, private
equity, venture capital funds and so on) guaranteeing loans or micro – loans and
equity. Furthermore, JASMINE politics are supported by the reviewed MiFID that is
focusing in fostering the SMEs’ growing markets.
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Supports for these areas are given by the Competitiveness of enterprises and SMEs
(COSME), Program for social change and innovation (PSCI) and Horizon 20/20
project from the European Structural Funds. Furtherly, in 2008 the European
Commission created the Enterprise Europe Network, a partnership with 600
hosting organizations and stakeholders that is also providing advices and support to
access information to EU funding and finance. However, it’s important to point out
that the way in which SMEs are capitalized depends on their specific parameters
(number of employees, turnovers).
b.2 Support in the crucial phase of the business lifecycle means reduce tax
compliance costs, VAT registration procedures and create one-stop electronic
registration to facilitate over national SMEs’ digital commerce. Removing obstacles
to the single market and thereby creating a single playing field will help small
businesses to develop cross-border activities. SMEs are also supported in their
specific needs by customized expertise that can help them develop competitive
advantages and benefits from the global value chains and shared HRM’s practices.
Clusters, business networks and associations (association for financial markets in
Europe, EYIF) can provide such supportive environment as they create partnerships
and bring together new actors. In fact, grouping SMEs may lead to an increase in
competitiveness
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. Furtherly, since the 3
rd
of October 2012, the European
Commission has been reduced the current barriers through the single market act II
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50
The European Commission (2013): “COM(2012) 795 final (2013) - Entrepreneurship 2020 Action Plan,
Reigniting the entrepreneurial spirit in Europe”, Brussels
51
Christian Ketels and Sergiy Protsiv (2016): “European Cluster Panorama”, Stockholm, European Cluster
Observatory
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European Commission (2012): Single Market Act II (IP/12/1054) - Single Market Act II: twelve priority
actions for new growth”, Brussels
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that operates in 12 areas. The most relevant act is the creation of a transport and
energy networks that should represent the backbone of the European single market,
citizen and business mobility (free movement across borders is one of the EU pillar)
through reduction of legal burdens, improving the European digital economy in terms
of productivity, broad band’s speed connection, facilitating e-commerce in the EU
and create cohesion between social entrepreneurship and consumers’ confidence
improving product safety rules, measures to bank accounts’ access and transparent
fees. Effective implementation of these measures could promote exchanges with
entrepreneurial – friendly fiscal environment and society.
b.3 Unleashing new opportunities in the digital age is part of the European Digital
Agenda and the Industrial policy initiatives that widespread information and
communication technology (ICT)
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especially for the so called web entrepreneurs, a
particular category that create highly innovative digital products and services. This
segment requires a tailored framework and business model that is seen as an
opportunity and challenge for the European Commission because highly innovative
SMEs (also called digital enablers) tend to grow and fail faster than other
businesses
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but they’re also fundamental for the European competitiveness in digital
world. Actions from the commission includes foster the knowledge base on
innovative market trends, raise awareness for the new digital evolution through
European success stories and sensitize old entrepreneurs on the changing business
landscape and new opportunities, facilitate networking trough mentoring, launch
specific actions for web entrepreneurs and strength competences and skills by
intensifying e-skills actions and scientific or creative disciplines for technological
markets
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.
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European Commission (2012): “COM(2012)582 - A Stronger European Industry for Growth and
Economic Recovery”, Brussels
54
Eurostat (2013): “High-technology and medium-high technology industries main drivers of EU-27's
industrial growth” in “Statistics in Focus”, Luxembourg
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European Commission (2012): “COM(2011)942 - A coherent framework for building trust in the Digital
Single”, Brussels
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