The entrepreneurial value system in Armenia is much more favorable than the average perceptions in the world, the population survey, carried out in the GEM 2019 report framework has revealed.
To assess the peculiarities of values towards entrepreneurship the interviewees within Adult Population Survey are being imposed some statements with which they may agree or disagree.
As is apparent from Table 1, with 4 out of 5 indicators regarding the value system, Armenia is among top-20 countries in 50 GEM, but the picture is different when it comes to comparison with Yerevan, other urban and rural areas separately. Not surprisingly, responses from Yerevan are more close to average indicators of GEM 50 countries, which may be explained by the distinctions in the poverty and income level within the country. The only statement, which shows similar level of indicators among Armenian regions is “business is a desirable career choice”, which may mean that this statement in Armenia is accepted regardless of income level.
From the Тable 2 representing the correlation between the Value Statements and the socio-economic indices, three numbers worth attention: the correlation between the level of poverty (share of population with less than $5.5 per day income at 2011 prices) and Value Statements such as
- 0.54 – “business as a desirable choice”
- 0.42 – “businesses primarily aim to solve social problems”
- 0.41 – “everyone should have a similar standard of living”
All of these reflect the well-known reality that the citizens in low-income countries, where people without higher education have less opportunities for a decent job, rely predominantly on entrepreneurship.
Coming to the social-cultural framework regarding the entrepreneurship, Armenia is on the average positions among the 50 surveyed countries:
With the score on “whether individuals know someone that have started a business or became a self-employee in the last two years (Knowing),” which indicates the awareness of entrepreneurship in a country, Armenia is almost at the same level with Iran and Russia (55.1% and 57.1% respectively), and a bit higher than in Belarus (50.3%).
The score on “whether there will be a good opportunity to start a business in the area where they live for the next six months (Opportunity)” is quite higher compared to Russia and Belarus (both 29.0%), likewise to Iran (45.5%), which translates the optimism about the future as a consequence of so-called “velvet revolution” in 2018.
The highest from those of Iran (30.1%), Russia (31.4%) and Belarus (35.8%) is the score on “whether the starting a business in the country is easy doing procedure (Ease).”
Moderate positive correlations between value system and social perception statements imply that the higher is the income in a country, the higher is the perception on how easy it is to start a business. While seeing opportunities somehow depends on value system environment towards entrepreneurship in a country.
About GEM 2019/2020 report
Over the last 20 years, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) systematically and consistently measures entrepreneurship rate and its characteristics in different countries. During these years GEM surveyed over 2.9 million adults in 112 countries worldwide. First time in GEM history, Armenia is included in the study as one of the 50 countries in 2019 GEM. Ameria CJSC is a national partner of GEM Consortium in Armenia responsible for implementing all activities under the study. The national report was prepared based on implementation of Adult population survey (APS) and National Expert Survey (NES) according to the GEM methodology.
