Entrepreneurial activities of local governments in their investment attractiveness context – evidence from Poland

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the phenomena of entrepreneurial activities of local governments such as the availability of local zoning plans, entrepreneurship support programmes or promotion of investments’ benefits in specific locations. The investigation is based on a research sample of 329 local regions from Poland selected in stratified random sampling. However, only 114 local governments (formal authorities of local regions) who responded to the mystery stakeholder communication are subject to a more detailed analysis. The findings show the differences in the potential investment attractiveness of local regions with different levels of entrepreneurial activities of local government. Moreover, local governments with higher potential investment attractiveness engage more in entrepreneurial activities.

KEYWORDS:

• investment attractiveness
• entrepreneurial activities
• local governments
• local regions
• entrepreneurship
• potential investment attractiveness

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary Material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. Central and Eastern European Countries (CEECs) is an OECD term for the group of countries comprising Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

2. The local regions potential investment attractiveness (PIA) was considered the dependent variable. The independent variables of local governments entrepreneurial activities were the following: i) the availability of an attractive zoning plan which allows the support of new investments (ZP); ii) available investment plots (LAND); iii) the availability of skilled human capital necessary for investments (HC); iv) the availability of the official investment offer (OIO); v) the availability of organised support for would-be investors, including credit guarantee funds or loan funds, or investor service centres (OSI); vi) the availability of promotion of investment benefits in specific locations (PIB); vii) the availability of an entrepreneurship support programme (ESP); viii) the availability of an individual investment offer (IIO) and ix) the proposal of direct contact with potential investors (PDC).

3. The lack of significant statistical correlation between available investments plot (LAND) and the PIA may be connected with the high intensity of local governments entrepreneurial activities in the past (that is why there may be now lack of available ‘free’ space for new investments) or local governments may do not engage properly in this type of entrepreneurial activities.

4. The human resources microclimate is one of the sub-indices of PIA indicator so the relationship between PIA and the availability of the skilled human capital necessary for investments could be mechanical but there is no significant statistical correlation.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Warsaw School of Economics under a grant for statutory research, ‘Demographic and institutional conditions for the development of entrepreneurship – local, regional, national and international dimension’, directed by Professor Hanna Godlewska-Majkowska; SGH Warsaw School of Economics [grant for statutory research].

Notes on contributors

Małgorzata Godlewska

Malgorzata Godlewska is an assistant professor in the Department of Administrative and Corporate Law at the Collegium of Business Administration of SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Poland. She is a researcher in law and economics and has recently published, with S. Morawska, (2020), ‘Development of local and regional entrepreneurship–which institutions matter? Evidence from Poland,’ Economic Research-Ekonomska Istrazivanja 33(1): 1017–1035, doi:10.1080/1331677X.2018.1553680.

Tomasz Pilewicz

Tomasz Pilewicz is an assistant professor in the Institute of Enterprise at the Collegium of Business Administration at SGH Warsaw School of Economics, Poland. He is a researcher in economics and finance and management and quality sciences and has recently published, with A. Mempel-Sniezyk, N. Derlukiewicz, M. Zdon-Korzenowska (2020), 'Can local government impact transaction costs of enterprises?', Entrepreneurship and Sustainability Issues 7(3):1612-1631, DOI: 10.9770/jesi.2020.7.3(13).