Il legame biunivoco tra imprenditorialità e contesto ambientale: origini, evoluzioni e scelte di policy

Over the last few decades the debate on regional economic development centered primarily on the role of smaller companies has often intersected with the identification of measures of policy capable of overcoming the logic of undifferentiated interventions (the so-called rain interventions). As reported by many, even these measures, in some territories, as well as presenting a low efficiency in the medium to long term generate distortions in the competitive mechanisms and pockets of inefficiency that does not maximize the utility of the resources invested. So, often, the efforts of policy aimed at facilitating the emergence and survival of firms just translate into an increasing business turnover. In so doing they are not able to change the economic destiny of the area. One of the reasons is that these measures usually don’t play a careful evaluation of the success factors and conditions for the development of small enterprises, including the entrepreneurial factor; which plays a decisive role when the firm is small. In light of these premises, in consideration of the most recent guidelines proposed by nationally and internationally litterature and the findings of an empirical investigation, the volume, that is the result of a four years research, discusses about the inherent entrepreneurial skills to start or management companies can make a tangible and lasting contribution to local economic development. We refer, specifically to those types of firms, albeit small, in the category defined high potential impact. The question is discussed with reference to Southern Italy, an area characterized by a persistent gap with other national macro area even if characterized by various forms of incentives that are turning mainly to the direct support of smaller companies, rather than to a substantial improvement the contextual conditions of business operations, including those to increase the attraction of inward investment. Local small firms receiving public subsidies are only minimally successful in bridging the aforementioned gap, both in terms of increased employment and stable international consequences for the dissemination of corporate culture. That is because it results limited the number of entrepreneurial subjects with a background suitable to undertake successfully the path of entrepreneurship. A crucial reason for the low effectiveness of the proposed benefit is that they were mostly companies that basically reflect those kinds of entrepreneurs who create and manage a company with the sole purpose of achieving personal goals such as profit, or who perceive it as a ' extension of the family, or who regard the company as an individual response to the lack of professional alternatives. These types are usually subtended a low level of entrepreneurship, low propensity to expand, change and innovation