Internationalisation and Entrepreneurial Response on the European Periphery: The Experience of North-Eastern Greece

Abstract

Expansion of trade and intensification of global competition have transformed the structure and pattern of the industrial sector in many developing and industrialising countries. Facilitated amply by the advances in communications and information technologies, and under the pervasive influence of large corporations, many regions have become integrated into the international production networks. Drawing upon the experience of the clothing industry in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace, one of the poorest regions of the European Union, the authors argue that industrial growth in this region was initiated by the decision of large scale enterprises catering to the international markets to move into the area. This relocation was induced by the incentives preferred in the regional development policy and the prevalence of under-employment. The paper takes a close look at the process of internationalisation in the region during the late 1980s, the decade which witnessed gradual relaxation of the restrictions governing the world clothing trade and changes in Central and Eastern Europe, and examines the strategic entrepreneurial responses to it.