Entrepreneurs in Croatia do not have a high social status, and the events surrounding Agrokor will further lower their social status, it was emphasized on Tuesday in Split during the presentation of the conclusions of the latest GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) research on entrepreneurship in Croatia.
The leader of the GEM research team for Croatia, Slavica Singer, pointed out that according to the research on “high social status of entrepreneurs,” which covered 66 countries, Croatia ranked last.
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The director of the Croatian Banking Association (HUB), Zdenko Adrović, emphasized that entrepreneurs in Croatia often make mistakes by deciding to invest in projects they do not know enough about, and he also pointed out as a mistake that they cover their costs with money from bank loans instead of developing the company.
“What is happening now in Agrokor will further lower the social status of entrepreneurs in Croatia because it will call into question the morality of entrepreneurs,” said Singer.
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In response to a journalist’s question about whether entrepreneur Ivica Todorić acted according to international standards regarding Agrokor, she replied that she would not even call that engagement entrepreneurial. “Any overly intense expansion and development is difficult to control. I would not call that particularly entrepreneurial because the definition of entrepreneurship is that you are proactive, and as for Agrokor, he was proactive, but whether he was innovative and responsible for his decision-making – I would find it hard to agree,” said Singer.
“Moral Lesson”
In her interpretation, the case of Agrokor will affect the Croatian economy in a moral sense because it raises the question of the morality of business behaviors and the responsibility of institutions that should have reacted earlier.
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Singer also emphasized that Croatia is still not an entrepreneurial country and that companies are often opened out of necessity, not from recognized opportunity.
Presenting the comprehensive latest results of the GEM research, she emphasized that in many countries, government policies are based on the results of that research, while Croatia defines very little of its policies and programs based on the results of these studies in which Croatia has been involved since 2002.
