Austria

This chapter consists of sections on Introduction, Historical Overview, The Environment for Entrepreneurship and Toward the Future. Introduction, as follows:The Republic of Austria covers 83,879 square kilometres, bordering the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Liechtenstein, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Switzerland. Formerly imperial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Vienna (Exhibit 3.1) is capital of the federal republic.According to McMillan, Salzburg-born “Mozart earned his living as an entrepreneur in the marketplace” (2002, p. 26). Bolton and Thompson described Mozart as “both a genius and an entrepreneur” (2004, p. 229). Among notable Austrian industrialists was textile magnate Josef Marx Alois Luger; Exhibit 3.2 shows his residence in Dornbirn — for centuries, an important textile centre. Weitensfelder (2001) provided a rich history of the industrialisation of this province during Luger’s lifetime. Luger needed no factory because weavers used their respective homes to make textiles. Also Austrian, economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter (1883–1950), Austrian Minister of Finance, banker and Harvard professor, was a precursor of entrepreneurship research (Schumpeter, 1912); yet, Haberfellner (2003) argued Austria was a highly regulated corporatist country with limited entrepreneurship. Comparing Austria with France, Ulijn and Fayolle wrote that in contrast to French people who tend to value self-employment over employment, Austrians “prefer the employment and not the self-employment status” (2004, p. 211)…