Today, the University of S\u00e3o Paulo (USP) alone has more than 100 disciplines across different schools that are devoted to entrepreneurship, according to the Entrepreneurship disciplines<\/em> guide published this year by the USP Center for Entrepreneurship (NEU). Artur Vilas Boas, an entrepreneur who received his PhD in business administration from USP and is currently coordinator at NEU, notes that the dot-com crisis in 2000 gave an important boost to the field. \u201cWhen the dot-com bubble burst, researchers started to look deeper at the different models used to start companies. They soon began to form a body of knowledge, as these new companies grew successful,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n A classical field of entrepreneurship research is the business environment, or how easy it is to start, manage, and wind up companies. There are different methods of measuring this.<\/p>\n The report \u201cSubnational Doing Business in Brazil 2021,\u201d published last year by economists at the World Bank on commission from the Federal Government and with support from the Brazilian Support Service for Micro and Small Businesses (SEBRAE), the National Trade Confederation (CNC), and the Brazilian Banking Federation (Febraban), assesses the business environment in major Brazilian cities, including how easy it is to start a business, obtain building permits, register properties, pay taxes, and execute contracts. The survey used interviews and simulations to compare the business environment that entrepreneurs navigate in different countries, states, and cities. Several findings stand out from the survey. The most significant finding relates to bureaucratic processes. Tax disputes amount to approximately 70% of all pending judicial enforcements in the country. And formalities such as obtaining permits take longer than on average in Latin America and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n \u201cBrazil has complex legislation, with four different sales taxes instead of a single value-added tax as in most countries,\u201d wrote Laura Diniz and Erick Tjong, two Brazilian economists at the World Bank who coauthored the study, in an email interview. \u201cProposed tax reforms currently being discussed in Congress aim to reduce complexity in meeting tax obligations by unifying taxes on sales of goods and services.\u201d<\/p>\n Another methodology is the Entrepreneurial Cities Index (ICE), published by the National School of Public Administration (ENAP) in a partnership with the entrepreneur network Endeavor. The report ranks Brazil\u2019s 100 largest cities on ease of starting a business. Among the primary items it evaluates are the regulatory environment, infrastructure, access to credit, and human capital. The city of S\u00e3o Paulo ranks first, with its large population and proximity to other major centers, which makes it easier for entrepreneurs to network.<\/p>\n One of the purposes of the ranking is to help city managers improve tools to support new entrepreneurs. \u201cThere are many different things that city managers can work on to improve their cities\u2019 rank. An entrepreneurial culture is less dependent on governments, but can change as people realize the role that entrepreneurship plays in a country\u2019s prosperity,\u201d notes Claudio Shikida, general research coordinator at ENAP.<\/p>\n Surveys appear to confirm the long-held perception that Brazil is a difficult country to do business in as an entrepreneur<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A survey titled \u201cEmpreendedorismo no Brasil\u201d (Entrepreneurship in Brazil), published last year by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), an initiative launched in 1999 as a joint venture of Babson College and the London Business School, and which since 2000 has been run by the Brazilian Institute for Quality and Productivity, in a partnership with SEBRAE, uses a conceptual model designed to provide an understanding of the social, cultural, and political context surrounding individuals\u2019 relationship with entrepreneurship. It also provides insights into the \u201cstructural conditions underlying the development of entrepreneurship and the possibilities it provides to create value, jobs, and economic development,\u201d says the report.<\/p>\n All surveys appear to confirm the long-held perception that Brazil is a difficult country to do business in, especially as an entrepreneur. Each report bewails the length of time it takes to start a business and the complexity of Brazil\u2019s tax code, which creates an unnecessary cost burden and time wastage.<\/p>\n In the last two decades, however, the country has introduced a number of legislative changes to make the business environment more welcoming. A sole proprietorship framework created in 2008 has reduced the time it takes to start a company, and has allowed small merchants to formalize their business and gain access to credit. In 2019 a new law, called the Economic Freedom Act, was passed to simplify the business environment, and the following year the Bankruptcy Act was reformulated to streamline the court-supervised reorganization process for troubled companies. Last year, Congress approved a Startup Framework to stimulate the business model that has come to define the digital economy.<\/p>\n \u201cBrazil has made good progress, but the changes are likely to only have an impact in the medium term,\u201d says Shikida.\u00a0 \u201cThe Economic Freedom Act has been replicated in some cities and states, but not all. In 2008 the federal government also launched Redesim, an information system network for registering and legalizing companies and businesses in different states. The network is designed to simplify the process of starting a business in Brazil.\u201d<\/p>\n Diniz and Tjong, from the World Bank, see the Redesim network as an improvement, but note that implementation has been slow and irregular. \u201cAlthough it was originally launched in 2007, the corresponding regulatory framework was only approved in 2011. Implementation by state and municipal agencies is optional and requires them to harmonize the different software systems used by trade boards, the Federal Revenue Service, state and municipal tax offices, and other agencies. In 2020 there were still agencies in all major cities that had not yet been integrated,\u201d they report.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the last 15 years Brazil has made some progress in improving the business environment and encouraging entrepreneurship. Starting a company is now a faster process. In S\u00e3o Paulo, it went from more than 100 days to just two weeks. In 2020 the process was even faster in many major Brazilian cities. People can now also start sole proprietorships online and for free, in a matter of days,\u201d say Diniz and Tjong.<\/p>\n The proportion of necessity entrepreneurship rose to 50.4% in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Barki believes the reforms have had an impact; they\u2019ve made it easier for entrepreneurs to start businesses and have led to Brazil\u2019s first \u201cunicorns\u201d (startups that reach a market capitalization of US$1 billion or higher) in Brazil. \u201cBut further progress is needed. The business environment has improved, red tape is being removed, but the environment still creates more restrictions than it does incentives,\u201d he says, adding that there is a difference between simply staying out of the way and actually implementing public policies that support entrepreneurship. \u201cThere are aggressive policies, such as tax incentives, that can effectively drive innovation. One country that has been particularly successful in creating an entrepreneurship ecosystem is Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n During the two years of the pandemic, despite the lockdowns and the migration to an online environment, net new business creation was positive in Brazil. According to the Brazilian Ministry of Finance\u2019s Business Map<\/em>, 2.6 million more companies were opened than were wound down in 2020. Last year the net balance was 2.3 million. The economic downturn in the period provides part of the explanation: with higher unemployment, many people saw opening a business as their only way out of the crisis. \u201cThe pandemic has highlighted the need for more agile and pro-entrepreneurship regulations. Between having no money to pay the bills and starting a business, many decided to start a new venture,\u201d says Shikida.<\/p>\n This is often referred to as \u201cnecessity entrepreneurship,\u201d as opposed to \u201copportunity entrepreneurship.\u201d A person decides to start a company not because they\u2019ve identified a demand in the market, but because they\u2019re experiencing financial distress. According to GEM, the proportion of necessity entrepreneurship rose from 37.5% to 50.4% in 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n \u201cStatistically, when the economy improves, necessity entrepreneurship declines. In general, a good balance exists with approximately 70% opportunity entrepreneurship. Of course there are businesses created out of necessity that will go on to become success stories. But this is rarely the case,\u201d notes Vilas Boas.<\/p>\n Barki is critical of the distinction between opportunity and necessity. \u201cA better understanding is needed of the concept of entrepreneurship. It\u2019s about risk-taking and having a certain kind of mentality. Not everyone wants to own a business; many just want a job. If they become unemployed, however, people will often resort to gigs that can sometimes morph into a business. Can this properly be called entrepreneurship?\u201d<\/p>\n Barki\u2019s question denotes the ambiguity there is about definitions, as the term \u201centrepreneur\u201d is often used to mean different things. In its broadest sense, it is used in business research to mean any individual who starts a company to make a living without answering to a boss. But there is also a narrower definition: a person who makes entrepreneurship their career path.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are businesses where people have an entrepreneurial mindset, but they just want to build something small for themselves. Others are looking to scale up and achieve exponential growth,\u201d says Vilas Boas. \u201cThe processes are different. In academia, specific theories have been developed for each type of venture. Opening a franchise or a bar, which grows little by little, is not the same as creating a whole new industry or an app, with a view to selling it to investors,\u201d he concludes.<\/p>\n “Exponential\u201d entrepreneurship happens within an ecosystem of supporting organizations, such as accelerators, venture capitalists, and platforms offering specialized services. This has come to be known as the \u201cstartup culture,\u201d referring to a term originally used to mean any newly created business, but now mostly applied to tech firms. Meanwhile, says Vilas Boas, there has been a change in the relationship between academia and industry.<\/p>\n It began in the classroom over the last three decades, according to Vilas Boas, who has researched the subject as part of his master\u2019s and doctoral studies. \u201cProfessors began to realize that entrepreneurship required new approaches to teaching. They began to introduce project-based activities, such as starting a mock business,\u201d he recalls. In his doctoral thesis, which he defended last year, Vilas Boas argues that training in entrepreneurship now takes place in multiple environments. \u201cOutside the classroom there are now business incubators, startup development programs, and programs where students receive mentoring from professors. Junior companies managed by students are a great starting point,\u201d he claims.<\/p>\n As research centers, universities are well-positioned to build startup incubation hubs. \u201cColleges have come to understand that innovation is driven by entrepreneurship. So today, developing an entrepreneurial culture has become important in academia,\u201d says Vilas Boas. Now referred to as \u201cacademic entrepreneurship,\u201d university involvement in creating and developing new businesses has been a growing trend since the 1980s in the US, as described in a paper titled \u201cTipologias de empreendedores acad\u00eamicos e limites e possibilidades da integra\u00e7\u00e3o com empresas e o Estado\u201d (Types of academic entrepreneurs and boundaries and possibilities of integration with industry and government), published last year in the journal Revista Administra\u00e7\u00e3o em Di\u00e1logo<\/em>. The Bayh-Dole Act (1980), which regulated technology transfer between universities and companies in the US, encouraged integration between academia and industry. In Brazil, the Science, Technology, & Innovation Framework (Law no. 13.243\/2016) was created to provide similar incentives.<\/p>\n Strengthening the entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem is among the goals of FAPESP\u2019s Research for Innovation in Small Businesses (RISB, or PIPE in the Portuguese acronym) program, and in particular the RISB-KT (knowledge transfer) mechanism, launched this year. RISB-KT supports partnerships between universities or science institutes and companies, ranging from startups to mid-market companies. \u201cUniversities have always needed funding for prototypes, for example. If researchers have developed a new technology and a company has shown interest in it, we fund this part of the research,\u201d says food engineer Luciana Hashiba, deputy coordinator of Innovation Research on the Science Board at FAPESP.<\/p>\n Hashiba also highlights the RISB-Entrepreneur mechanism, which provides capacity building to companies already served by the program. \u201cOur approach is to find value-creating applications for the technology that companies develop. We conduct surveys with stakeholders, potential customers, and market agents. Some companies end up finding avenues they had not yet thought of, and can better develop their business proposition,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n In March, FAPESP introduced changes to its intellectual property policy and now waives its stake in the earnings of successful ventures. Previously, companies that were successful in their projects owned the intellectual property rights in their products but were required to share their revenue up to the limit of the grant funding they received. \u201cWe realized that this created insecurity for companies. The changes are retroactive. Companies with grant agreements predating the changes can amend them to reflect the new provisions,\u201d explains Hashiba.<\/div>\n Scientific articles![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/080-085_empreender_316-4-1140.jpg\")
Adriana Alves<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/080-085_empreender_316-6-1140.jpg\")
Adriana Alves<\/span><\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Silva Moreira Ferreira, A. da et al.<\/em> Produ\u00e7\u00e3o cient\u00edfica em empreendedorismo no Brasil: Uma revis\u00e3o de literatura de 2004 a 2020<\/a>. Revista Gest\u00e3o & Planejamento<\/strong>. vol. 21. 2020.
\nFraga da Silva, C. et al.<\/em> Tipologias de empreendedores acad\u00eamicos e limites e possibilidades da integra\u00e7\u00e3o com empresas e o Estado<\/a>. Revista Administra\u00e7\u00e3o em Di\u00e1logo<\/strong>. vol. 23, no. 2. 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Studies confirm the perception that it is difficult to do business in Brazil","protected":false},"author":613,"featured_media":448896,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[165,1560],"tags":[225,243],"coauthors":[1619],"class_list":["post-448883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-humanities","category-innovative-research-in-small-business-pipe-en","tag-economy","tag-innovation"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/613"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=448883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":448905,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/448883\/revisions\/448905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/448896"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=448883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=448883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=448883"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revistapesquisa.fapesp.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=448883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}