Kyriaki I. Kafka

By Panagiotis E. Petrakis and Kyriaki I. Kafka

The concept of creativity is multidimensional, helping to take advantage of entrepreneurial opportunities and favoring in this way economic growth. Next to this basic argument of neoclassical theory, which ignores the role of entrepreneurship in growth, the present chapter states that entrepreneurship should be included as a contributing factor of growth. Through this key argument, this chapter attempts to clarify the importance of creativity to entrepreneurial activity, concentrating on the factors that influence entrepreneurial creativity that in turn lead to economic growth, as well as to capture the way in which entrepreneurial creativity is affected by this procedure. These factors are knowledge and education, the management of disrupting technologies, spill-over creativity, the role of cultural background and personal characteristics of individuals, the motives and incentives of individuals, the existence of—and access to—resources, and the institutions that delineate the environment of action of the entrepreneur.

Part of the book: Entrepreneurship

By Kyriaki I. Kafka, Pantelis C. Kostis and Panagiotis E. Petrakis

Theoretical considerations that choose to make reference to the institutional and cultural considerations presuppose that these are in an optimal form. However, this is not the case in the real world. This chapter argues that the coevolution requirements of institutional and culture change are critical for economic outcomes. When institutions and culture coevolve in an optimal pattern, economic development and growth are facilitated. In contrast, when institutions and culture deviate from the optimal pace of coevolution, incompatible alterations of institutions and culture may end up causing an inability of the policy designers to implement the required changes in institutions and/or cultural behaviors. The result can be a series of failing attempts to implement a modernized progrowth framework of institutional settings and cultural behaviors. Using a dataset of 80 countries for the period 1981–2019, the analysis concludes that institutions and culture are complements—and not substitutes—in terms of their role in economic development, as when both sizes are strong it leads to higher levels of GDP per capita. When either or both of them are at a weak level, economic development is much lower.

Part of the book: Perspectives on Economic Development