Entrepreneurship Development in Ireland and Singapore

Ireland and Singapore have many striking similarities despite varying political ethos and culture. Both economies are striving toward a knowledge-based economy based on information communication technology in a highly globalized context. Both have been ranked as the top globalizer – Ireland in 2001 and Singapore in 2000 by AT Kearney in Foreign Policy Magazine. In terms of sustainability for economic growth and development, both economies recognize the critical role of their local enterprises and indigenous industry in general and entrepreneurship in innovative and creative activities, in particular. Both Ireland and Singapore, as developmental states, have favourable government intervention including the all-important aspect in human resources development and entrepreneurship education and training at the university level in pursuit of sustainable growth. Faced with a more competitive and highly volatile global economy, the two may learn lessons from each other and share experiences with other economies in their respective regions on enterpreneurship or enterprise development. In attempting some model comparison, this paper looks into the prospect of some generic entrepreneurship developmental model as a template in the first instance, subject to idiosyncratic socio-political features of individual countries.