Open Workshop: Entrepreneurship and Regional Economic Resilience
The aim of the Open Workshop Series in Business and Management Studies is to promote top-quality academic and applied research in various fields of the social sciences. This is a unique opportunity for sharing knowledge and networking with local and international community members.
Regional resilience has emerged as a central concern for scholars and policymakers seeking to understand why some places recover more successfully than others from major economic shocks. While entrepreneurship can be considered as a potential source, its contribution to resilience and the mechanisms through which it operates remain insufficiently understood. We argue that entrepreneurship strengthens regional resilience by fostering economic adaptation, renewal, and structural transformation. Through the creation of new opportunities and activities, entrepreneurship can facilitate the reconfiguration of local economies in response to changing conditions. We examine these propositions using evidence from French labour market areas between 2007 and 2015. Our findings point to entrepreneurship as a key ingredient in the capacity of regions to respond to disruption and shape their development trajectories.
[Joint work with Abdoulaye Kané and Nadine Levratto]
Marcus Dejardin is a Full Professor of Economics at the University of Namur and UCLouvain, Belgium, and an Editor of Small Business Economics. He currently heads the Centre for Research in Regional Economics and Economic Policy (DeFiPP-CERPE, UNamur) and is an academic member of the Interdisciplinary Research Centre on Work, State, and Society (LIDAM-CIRTES, UCLouvain). He also leads the Chair of Excellence for Research and Expertise in Entrepreneurship (CHEREE, UNamur) and is a Research Associate of Mines Paris – PSL, France.
Marcus was an assistant professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam and a visiting researcher at the Institute for Development Strategies, SPEA, Indiana University Bloomington, and the Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena. He has developed expertise in the economics of entrepreneurship and innovation, regional economics, and public policy analysis.
He recently engaged in multidisciplinary research, particularly linking economics to social psychology. He has published over 50 scientific articles, chapters, and books, and has raised more than 4 million euros in research funding as a promoter or co-promoter.
Discussion moderated by Prof. Arnis Sauka.
Attendance is free of charge.
Please sign up for the seminar, by writing to arnis.sauka@sseriga.edu by December 7, 2026.
The aim of the SSE Riga Open Workshop Series is to:
- Foster cooperation between business and management researchers, practitioners and policymakers, as well as
- Promote academic and applied research in various fields of the social sciences, focusing on but not limited to entrepreneurship, marketing, management, public administration, and strategy.
Organised by Professor Arnis Sauka, the Centre for Sustainable Business at SSE Riga