The fundamental characteristics of such theories are that both are founded on resources – human and physical – of the territory and that they privilege small scale interventions by promoters that may (or may not) be in the territory. In this context, “the fundamental question for regional development is no longer the region’s capacity to attract new projects, to become the region’s capacity to generate the conditions for the transformation of their productive structures”.
Published in Chapter:
The Promotion of Entrepreneurship in Low Density Regions: The Case of the Agency for the Regional Development of Alentejo (ADRAL)
Maria da Conceição Rego (Universidade de Évora, Portugal), Maria Raquel Lucas (Universidade de Évora, Portugal), Isabel Vieira (Universidade de Évora, Portugal), and Carlos Vieira (Universidade de Évora, Portugal)
Copyright: © 2016
|Pages: 23
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-9567-2.ch011
Abstract
In the 1980s, the renewal of academic interest in entrepreneurship as a factor of development highlighted the role of entrepreneurs in creating jobs and driving innovation. In the new century, fostering entrepreneurship became a public policy priority. In Portugal, the practice of creating business incubators has been gaining momentum and various institutions have developed business incubation activities. This study focuses on ADRAL – Agência de Desenvolvimento Regional do Alentejo, an agency for the regional development of Alentejo – and analyzes one of its instruments for the promotion of entrepreneurship – the creation of business incubators (also designated as enterprises' nests) located in Marvão and Montemor-o-Novo. These chapter focus on these two cases and assess the distinctive aspects of the partnerships between the development agency and the municipalities, and also the characteristics of the entrepreneurial projects and respective entrepreneurs, aiming at identifying the specificities of this approach and its success determinants.