In its latest report on Global Entrepreneurship Index for 2016, the Global Entrepreneurship and Development Institute has ranked Iran among the top 10 countries with biggest gains in the GEI score.
GEDI is a research organization that advances knowledge on links among entrepreneurship, economic development and prosperity. The institute was founded by leading entrepreneurship scholars from George Mason University (USA), University of Pécs (Hungary) and Imperial College London (Britain).
The flagship project of the institute is the Global Entrepreneurship Index, a breakthrough advance in measuring the quality and dynamics of entrepreneurship ecosystems at the national and regional level.
The GEI methodology, on which the data in the aforementioned report is based, has been validated by rigorous academic peer review and has been widely reported in the media, including in The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Forbes, according to the opening of the report.
The Global Entrepreneurship Index provides a detailed look at the health of nations’ entrepreneurial ecosystems. The index methodology links countries’ entrepreneurial framework conditions with individual-level entrepreneurial attitudes, abilities and aspirations.
The composite index gives policymakers a tool for understanding the entrepreneurial strengths and weaknesses of their countries, thereby enabling them to implement policies that foster productive entrepreneurship.
Designed to help governments harness the power of entrepreneurship for sustainable economic development, GEI measures the quality and the scale of the entrepreneurial process in 132 countries. It provides a rich understanding of entrepreneurship in these countries and a precise view of the strengths and bottlenecks of their respective entrepreneurial ecosystems.
The GEI data are supported by three decades of research into entrepreneurship.
Domestic Status
Iran's GEI score in 2016 has been put at 28.8, while for 2015, the country scored 27.7, which indicates a 1.13 difference in score. This puts Iran at the 10th position in terms of the biggest gains in GEI score after Peru with 1.18 differences in score, the United States with 1.28, Thailand with 1.28, Barbados with 1.41, Indonesia with 1.72, Poland with 1.97, Hungary with 2.42, Sweden with 4.08, and Denmark with 4.58 in an ascending order.
Iran's ranking among the 132 countries surveyed for 2016 is 80, down 14 notches compared to 2015 estimate.
Top 10 countries with regard to GEI for 2016 include:
The United States with 86.2–up 1.2 points compared to 2015 when it ranked first;
Canada with 79.5–down 2 points compared to 2015 when it ranked second;
Australia with 78.0–up 0.4 points compared to 2015 when it ranked third;
Britain with 67.7–down 5 points compared o 2015 when it ranked fourth;
Sweden with 75.9–up 4.1 points compared to 2015 when it ranked fifth;
Denmark with 76.0–up 4.6 points compared to 2015 when it ranked sixth;
Iceland with 68.9–down 1.5 points compared to 2015 when it ranked seventh;
Taiwan with 69.7–up 0.6 compared to 2015 when it ranked eighth; Switzerland with 67.8–down 0.8 compared to 2015 when it ranked ninth;
and
France with 66.4–down 0.9 compared to 2015 when it ranked 10th.
Pillars of Entrepreneurship
The pillars of entrepreneurship are many and complex. While a widely accepted definition of entrepreneurship is lacking, there is general agreement that the concept has numerous dimensions.
Some businesses have a larger impact on markets, create more new jobs and grow faster and become larger than others. It is also to be taken into account that entrepreneurship plays a different role at different stages of development.
Considering all of these possibilities and limitations, GEDI defines entrepreneurship as “the dynamic, institutionally embedded interaction between entrepreneurial attitudes, entrepreneurial abilities and entrepreneurial aspirations by individuals, which drives the allocation of resources through the creation and operation of new ventures.”
The GEI is composed of three building blocks or sub-indices—the 3As: entrepreneurial attitudes, entrepreneurial abilities and entrepreneurial aspirations. These three sub-indices stand on 14 pillars, each of which contains an individual and an institutional variable that corresponds to the micro- and the macro-level aspects of entrepreneurship.
Unlike other indexes that incorporate only institutional or individual variables, the pillars of GEI include both. These pillars are an attempt to capture the open-ended nature of entrepreneurship; analyzing them can provide an in-depth view of the strengths and weaknesses of those listed in the Index.
The 14 pillars of entrepreneurship are as follows:
* Entrepreneurial Attitudes Pillars: Opportunity Perception, Startup Skills, Risk Acceptance, Networking and Cultural Support.
* Entrepreneurial Abilities Pillars: Opportunity Startup, Technology Absorption, Human Capital and Competition.
* Entrepreneurial Aspirations Pillars: Product Innovation, Process Innovation, High Growth, Internationalization and Risk Capital.
Furthermore, Iran's Global Entrepreneurship Index for 2016 (80) is the 14th best in the Middle East and North Africa region.
