The Role of Institutional Context in the Development of the SME Biotech Sector in Poland

Whilst Poland is argued to represent one of the largest and most entrepreneurial economies in CE with huge potential for development of the SME biotech industry, this sector remains relatively underdeveloped. In this paper, we explore reasons for this apparent anomaly, focusing on the interrelationships between institutional context and entrepreneurial behaviour. We adopt Smallbone and Welter’s (2009a, b) typology (Welter, Smallbone, 2011) of entrepreneurial behaviour in constructing a case study of the biotech SME industry in Poland, concluding that the sector faces particular institutional challenges which entrepreneurs react to in a variety of ways. We conclude that Poland presents serious obstacles to a knowledge-intensive sector such as biotech.