The reduction of out-migration and supporting new job creation are important goals for regional and rural development policies among post-communist EU member states, including Slovakia. Hence, policy makers and educators are interested in studies targeting factors that influence entrepreneurial intentions (EI) and activity in rural areas. This study reveals (i) some of the factors influencing EI among final-year students in a high school environment and (ii) the possible implementation of our results in educational policy. Data were collected in high schools located in three rural Slovakian regions: Banská Bystrica, Prešov, and Žilina. The main findings are that former policy discouraging entrepreneurship left a post-communist generation almost without an entrepreneurial background, and this was reflected in the lack of importance given to creativity and living in an entrepreneurial environment in relation to the EI of Slovakian youth. This could be caused by necessity-driven EI whereby financial motives for self-employment dominate individual interests and preferences. On the other hand, leadership and proactive personality as career anchors, and perceived support from family and friends, are prominent factors explaining EI among these young people. These factors, together with supporting and building a desire for autonomy and creativity, should be developed principally within entrepreneurship education for pupils at high schools in the Slovakian regions investigated.

In countries like Russia, where legal institutions providing political accountability and protection of property rights are weak, some elite actors accept the use of violence as a tool in political and economic competition. The intensity of this violent exposure may vary depending on the position the province had had in the Soviet administrative hierarchy. The higher the province’s position before 1991, the greater the intensity of business violence one is likely to observe there in post-communist times, because the Soviet collapse left a more gaping power vacuum and lack of working informal rules in regions with limited presence of traditional criminal organizations. Post-Soviet entrepreneurs also often find it worthwhile to run for office or financially back certain candidates in order to secure a privileged status and the ability to interpret the law in their favor. Businessmen-candidates themselves and their financial backers behind the scenes may become exposed to competitive pressures resulting in violence during election years, because their competitors may find it hard to secure their position in power through the existing legal or informal non-violent means. To test whether Soviet legacies and Provincial elections indeed cause spikes in commerce-motivated violence, this project relies on an original dataset of more than 6000 attacks involving business interests in 74 regions of Russia, in 1991e2010. The results show that only legislative elections cause increases in violence while there is no firm evidence that executive polls have a similar effect.

In Russia the growth of small business has been much slower compared with the leading transition countries (Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary). In Poland, and to a lesser degree in the Czech Republic and Hungary, this sector has been the engine of the economic recovery. A natural question is why Russia differs. Apart from the fact that in contrast to these countries Russia does not have an entrepreneurial tradition and has experienced communist rule longer what is especially distinctive about Russia has been the strong influence of interest groups during the transition process which favoured the allocation of entrepreneurship to largely unproductive activities.

The political and ideological concerns aside, the fundamental economic argument in favor of postsocialist transition to a market system has been a supposition that it will improve allocative efficiency and thus the competitiveness of the industries and standard of living of households. It is believed that the shift of property rights from the state to private sector must quickly facilitate such an improvement. Yet in the majority of cases, even after the first decade of transition, the economies have not returned to the path of sustainable growth. The countries tackling the issues of recovery and growth relatively better are these which were able to focus not only on de-nationalization of the state assets, but mainly on the development of venture entrepreneurship. The grass-rooted development of especially small and medium enterprises has contributed significantly to overcoming the transitional depression and then to recovery and fast growth. Yet to accomplish such a sequence specific systemic and policy conditions must be met. To facilitate such a path of development proper institutional arrangements must be executed by the governments, legal framework must be established and the government policies ought to support the rise and competitive performance of the small and medium enterprises (SME). Liberalization is a prerequisite of growth of this sector in transition economies, but is not a sufficient condition. The crucial factors involve the institutional arrangements.