engleski

ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION

We watched world-renowned athletes like Drazen Petrovic, Blanka Vlasic, Goran Ivanisevic, Petra Majdic, Primoz Kozmus, and the Kostelic family sprout up in small countries like Croatia and Slovenia. At first glance one may not see any connection between the said world class athletes and an academic book on entrepreneurship and innovations. Yet, they are profusely intertwined. Regardless of how great athletes’ enthusiasm and dedication may be, they all need a coach and institutional support. Only those that have it, or may not have it at the beginning but see the obstacles as a challenge on the road to success, do become national champions or even famous worldwide. The story about innovation and entrepreneurship is a story about belief in the future, about recognizing that failure, loneliness and lack of acceptance may be the 'reward' for being an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are an odd lot in that they appear to be equally happy in rough, times when they may hit the bottom, as when they are on the top. This is a story about a thousand entrepreneurs throughout our history whose legacy are products and services, tools and technologies which advanced mankind either on purpose or inadvertently. All of them were visionaries and entrepreneurs but despite their success it is still difficult to say why some people are successful and some are not, how to boost entrepreneurial spirit and creativity, how to preserve and further the legacy of our enterprising ancestors. We designed this project in an attempt to find some of the answers to the above questions. We put our best effort in researching the topic as it is of high importance to us, our partners and Europe. Highly motivated to pursue answers, we have sought cooperation and partners to jointly communicate our ideas. In the process of expanding networks and acquiring new knowledge we have invited collaborators who are not our project partners to take part. They share our goal of telling the story of entrepreneurship of today hoping it would be a fraction of someone's future.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP; INNOVATION; SME

ISBN 978-961-6802-09-3 (Faculty of Economics and Business Maribor) ISBN 978-953-6025-52-7 (Faculty of Economics and Business Zagreb) CIP - Kataložni zapis o publikaciji Univerzitetna knjižnica Maribor 658:001.895 COBISS.SI-ID 69007873