Proceedings of the 7th European Conference on Innovation and Entrepreneurship : ECIE 2012

These proceedings represent the work of contributors to the 7th European Conference on Entrepreneurship and Inno-vation (ECIE 2012), hosted this year by Escola Superior de Gestao e Tecnologia, Instituto Politecnico de Santarem, Por-tugal. The Conference Chair is Professor Ilidio Tomas Lopes and the Programme Co-Chairs are Dr. Carla Vivas and Dr. Fernando Lucas, all from the School of Management and Technology, Polytechnic Institute of Santarem, Portugal

The opening keynote is given by Professor Dr Soumodip Sarkar from the University of Évora, Portugal on the topic “In-novation and its Dynamics- An Integrated Model”. The second day will be opened with a keynote from Dr Heather Fulford from the Robert Gordon University, Scotland. Heather will address “The Entrepreneurship Classroom: A meet-ing of minds and hearts?”

ECIE continues to develop and evolve. Now in its 7th year the key aim remains the opportunity for participants to share ideas and meet the people who hold them. The scope of papers will ensure an interesting two days. The subjects covered by the papers illustrate the wide range of topics that fall into this important and growing area of research.

With an initial submission of 221 abstracts, after the double blind, peer review process there are 85 academic papers, 16 PhD papers and 3 work-in-progress papers published in these Conference Proceedings. These papers represent research from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Tunisia, Turkey and the UK.

I hope that you enjoy reading these Proceedings.

Dr. Carla Vivas and Dr. Fernando Lucas

Co-Programme Chairs

Professor Ilídio Tomás Lopes

Conference Chair

September 2012