European Theater Entrepreneurship is finally getting the rave reviews it deserves across the pond.
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In the United States, there's that little notion of TheAmerican Dream. But Europeans have been slow to seek a piece of theentrepreneurial pie. "New money"--not to mention quickmoney--was distrusted in the United Kingdom, and failure was like ascarlet F. In Sweden, corporate security was the aspiration.
All that's changed, thanks to the Internet gold rush. Whilethe dotcom bubble burst in Europe as it did here, the boom brokethe mold, and now being an entrepreneur is all the rage.
While the shift of values that's occurred since the word"entrepreneur" seeped into the global consciousness mayhave sparked the rise in European small businesses, evolvinginfrastructures are what really allow for change. "Countriesin Europe [used to be] very protected against foreign goods andtrade," says Mauro Guillén, associate professor ofmanagement at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School."[As foreign trade and investment open up,] people realize younot only have to start running faster, because competitors can comein, but also that new opportunities were created. So there'sbeen a total revolution in the number of start-ups."
Last year, one in 33 adults in the UK started a business, as didone in 50 in Finland and Sweden, according to the GlobalEntrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) study conducted by Babson College,The London Business school, the Kauffman Center for EntrepreneurialLeadership and Ernst & Young UK.
Hans Schöllhammer, professor of management at UCLA'sAnderson School of Management, says increased support for smallbusinesses has fueled the trend. "There was a time whenventure capital markets were not as easily developed [inEurope]," he says. Last year, according to the GEM study,nearly $1.9 billion in VC funding went to UK start-ups, while morethan $2 billion went to German start-ups.
It'll take a lot to match America's entrepreneurialdrive, but between fear of economic stagnation and a new generationof European risk-takers, expect to hear much more from across thepond.
