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Individual and contextual variables affecting entrepreneurship, innovation and application of new technologies in Greece. Case study from the Greek tourism and transport sector

Vicky Katsoni, Alexandros G. Sahinidis

Abstract

One of the remaining gaps in the extant entrepreneurship literature relates to the insufficient understanding of the role of culture, and the need for elucidating its effects on the entrepreneurial process dynamics. Despite the crisis, Greece experiences a vibrant start-up scene and the entire capital city of Athens is buzzing with activity. Despite cultural differences between the North and South of Europe, it seems that there is a lot of cooperation between young people wanting to create their own businesses, since young Greeks are well-educated, speak English very well and like to get into business. Game-changing innovators drawn from many disciplines such as technology, tourism and entertainment, design, the sciences, the humanities, the arts, NGOs, business and more, coming from around the country, seem to join internationally renowned speakers and research centers from Universities from all of Europe by creating incubators and positively affecting interpersonal trust and the allocation of entrepreneurial action over newly emerging independent businesses and established organizations in society. This paper will address the issue of the making of an entrepreneur in Greece and the role of ICTs using case studies and the Greek tourism and transport sector. Characteristics of the people engaging in starting up a business will be discussed and the implications for policy makers will be analyzed, so as to help create more start-ups and improve the chances of survival of existing ones.

Keywords

Start-ups, Entrepreneurial Characteristics, Culture, Tourism, ICTs

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DOI: 10.18780/jiim.v2i2.3064

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