Privatization and economic liberalization: the role of the entrepreneur as a catalyst for economic development in transition economies

Many nations with transition economies are attempting to develop their national competitiveness through such processes as privatisation of state owned enterprises (SOEs) and/or the use of economic liberalisation (e.g. lessening of tariffs, industry regulations, etc.) to spur economic growth and development as a complement to privatisation. The impact of the intermediary factor markets of production and the entrepreneur has largely been underestimated and unexplored in the context of transition economies. Drawing upon economic market transition and entrepreneurship theories, a theoretical framework of the transition process from a command to a market economy is proposed of the interdependent relationships of transition policies, intermediary factors of production, and entrepreneurship. We base our categorization of factor markets of production from Porter’s (1990) perspective of basic and advanced factors of production. A key premise of our article concerns a nation’s ability and capability of generating basic and advanced factors of production that enable the nation’s economy to move from a command to a market oriented. In the interim period