Measuring the Potential for Technology Entrepreneurship Development: Serbian Case

Abstract

Research Question: This paper explores the potential for technology entrepreneurship development at the country level through the creation of a new composite index. Motivation: Motivation for this paper arises from the fact there is a lack of the composite indices used exclusively for technology management as identified by Jovanovic et al. (2017). Technology indices are mostly used as important components of other composite indices used for tracking a country performance from the perspective of other global phenomena (e.g. competitiveness and innovativeness). The novelty of this paper reflects in the proposed Technology Entrepreneurship Development Potential (TED-pot) index which has multiple significances. It could serve as a help for policy makers in creating national policies; other companies and countries looking for the adequate environment to invest in technology entrepreneurship projects; academics who benefit from a new country-level view on technology entrepreneurship, especially ICT entrepreneurship. Idea: The idea of the paper was to create the TED-pot index to enable the cross-countries comparisons and examine whether the potential of Serbia lies in its entrepreneurial ICT sector. Data: Four indicators included in the created index are measured by the World Bank. The index is applied on six ex-Yugoslav countries and the EU for the period 2009-2014. All the data is collected from the World Bank database. Tools: The final index value is obtained by using the simple weighted function with equal weights. The overall TED-pot has been built upon the equal weighting of the two created pillars: ICT potential (ICT-pot) and Entrepreneurial potential (E-pot). The values for each pillar are calculated by the same procedure, through the simple mean of certain indicators. Findings: According to the calculated TED-pot values, Serbia stands out as a country with the greatest potential for technology entrepreneurship development in the region. Analysing individual pillars, ICT-pot indicates Serbia has very strong ICT sector, far ahead of other countries in the region, while the E-pot values show there is a space for administration to ease and speed up the process of starting new businesses in Serbia. This is a pilot research and the first presentation of the created index, which calls for further investigation. Contribution: This paper expands exiting research related to the country-level measurement in the field of technology management and entrepreneurship, especially focusing on ICT entrepreneurship development.