Entrepreneurship Developments in Ukraine: Is There Any Space for Knowledge-Based Firms

Entrepreneurship in Ukraine was rather new in 2008. After seventy years of severe restrictions on self-employment it was awakening. Discussing the recent entrepreneurship developments in Ukraine the distinction was made between small businesses - which often were and stood very limited in size and ambitions, and the entrepreneurially driven growth firms - which were emerging in knowledge-intensive sectors (IT and software development, strategic business services, nanotechnologies, new composite materials, medical research).

In the transition economy with dominating resource-based industries and highly unpredictable environment the future of knowledge-based firms would depend not only on the energy of entrepreneurs but on the consistency of public policy. The up-to-date perspective on the approaches that were being taken by the Ukrainian government would be provided.

Nataliya Galan is Associate Professor at the Faculty of International Economics, Dnipropetrovsk National University named by Oles Honchar (Ukraine). She received her Ph.D. from Kyiv National Economic University named by Vadym Hetman (Ukraine) and her dissertation was devoted to government support policies towards small and medium size enterprises (SMEs) in the advanced economies. Nataliya cooperated with State Committee of Ukraine for Regulatory Policy and Entrepreneurship, Ukrainian Foundation for Entrepreneurial Support and Dnipropetrovsk Region State Administration on the issues of designing and implementing SME supporting policies in Ukraine.