Author: Andrea Szalavetz

In: Post-Communist Economies, 11 Mar 2025

DOI: 10.1080/14631377.2025.2470007

Abstract

Analysing qualitative data obtained from experts and technology startups in Central and Eastern Europe, we evaluate Meyer and Peng’s proposition about the fading distinctiveness of the CEE region. Assessing founders’ entrepreneurial journeys, practices, and problems encountered, we find that rather than being CEE- specific, tech entrepreneurs’ contextual constraints and coping strategies resemble those of emerging-economy entrepreneurs. Learning and adaptation throughout CEE founders’ entrepreneurial journey involves convergence to the mainstream practices asso- ciated with Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. The only undisputably CEE-specific features that we identified are related to certain per- sonality traits and capability deficits of the founders. This suggests that the behavioural patterns that entrepreneurs developed in the institutional and cultural environment of the command economy have been transmitted to the subsequent generation: they con- tinue to influence today’s tech entrepreneurs’ ambitions and abil- ities. Scholars’ widely shared hypothesis that generational change in CEE would create discontinuity in entrepreneurial quality is rejected.

A Szalavetz, A.: Technology startups in Central and Eastern Europe: are they CEE-specific? bejegyzés először VGI-én jelent meg.

Authors: Andrea Szalavetz, Agnieszka Skala

In: Geoforum, 154, 104074

Abstract

Some of the best technology startups born in CEE moved their headquarters to a foreign jurisdiction before scaling. These ventures became ‘foreign’ companies but kept the principal business functions in the countries of origin. We theorize about this phenomenon, referred to as virtual relocation, and consider what it conveys for the asserted reduced relevance of location-bound advantages and constraints in the digital era. We take a process approach and investigate the cases of 34 technology startups from Poland, Hungary, and Romania. We find that CEE startups’ choice of a ‘virtual’ type of relocation can be traced back to the tension between the retention factors and the push/pull factors influencing their locational decision. We show that the factors that push CEE startups away from their home countries, pull them to the destination country, and make them retain specific business functions in their home countries are equally location bound. If virtually relocated startups manage to seize the assumed opportunities in the destination country and scale, the virtualness of the HQ office will gradually fade: employment starts growing also at the HQ location.

A Szalavetz, A., Skala, A.: An empty shell? Relocation of central and eastern European startups, virtual headquarters and beyond bejegyzés először VGI-én jelent meg.