Ireland is Europe’s most entrepreneurial country, a new survey by Oracle Capital Group has found.
According to its research, Ireland currently ranks seventh in the world in terms of factors driving entrepreneurism, putting it top of the list of European economies in the study. Despite ongoing austerity measures and economic difficulties, the survey scored the country well for the image of entrepreneurs, prior experience and early stage business activity.
India tops the global list, lifted by its willingness to self-fund, low failure rates and high early stage business activity, followed by Turkey and the US. The UK was ranked 28th in the list, due to lower scores for its attitude to risk and willingness to self-fund. Coming bottom of the list was Japan.
The study measures the opinions, attitudes, experiences and activity that contribute to entrepreneurism, along with governmental support for entrepreneurship, and the attitudes of entrepreneurs to emigrating or remaining in their country of origin.It looked at 33 major industrial economies and emerging countries to compile the list.
It found developing countries were ranked higher for entrepreneurism, and there was a higher proportion of entrepreneurial activity in emerging economies despite being more difficult to do business there. However, one of the main drags on the sector continues to be legislation and red tape.
For those countries that do perform well though, there was a bonus. More than half of richest 1,000 individuals in the world come from the top 10 entrepreneurial countries, and the study found wealthy individuals from the most entrepreneurial countries were more likely to remain in their homelands.
"The report is a valuable insight into the significance of entrepreneurial contribution to the growth of national economies and underscores the importance of businesses receiving support at government level," said Martin Graham, chairman of Oracle Capital Group. "The striking results for emerging economies are a positive indicator of ongoing market development and growth in these regions."
