The CIS GEM report finds that Canada's strong entrepreneurial culture strong can be improved

Canada appears to have a healthy entrepreneurship culture but the all-important area of entrepreneurship within corporations is weak, according to a new report by The Centre for Innovation Studies (The CIS), based in Calgary. The finding is consistent with other studies that suggest larger Canadian firms do not adopt innovation-oriented business strategies.

According to the main indicator used in the study — Total Early-Stage Entrepreneurial Activity or TEA — Canada has a strong entrepreneurial culture although most of the growth experienced by start-ups is limited to a small number of firms, prompting the report to recommend focusing support on those that are scalable.

"Canada is now very much at the top among innovation driven economies ... With Canada's return to the GEM survey last year, we now find Australia and Canada in a virtual tie as close second to the US," states the report. "Transformative innovation requires public sector acceptance of leading risks, as has been done in Canada for oil sands technology and aerospace ... Major government initiatives for the growing Canadian green technology sector are an opportunity at federal and provincial levels."

The CIS report was written by Cooper Langford (Univ of Calgary) and Peter Josty (executive director, The CIS) as part of a global survey of trends in 70 countries by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), global study started in 1999 by the Global Entrepreneurship Research Association. It's the second annual report on Canadian entrepreneurship since Canada rejoined GEM last year (R$, April 15/14).

For Canada, participation in GEM affords policy makers a unique focus on attitudes, aspirations and activities of individual entrepreneurs with 15 years' worth of adult population surveys providing rich data sets.

The study also includes the results of a national expert survey that gauges responses in the areas of:

• financing and governmental policies;
• Governmental programs;
• Education and training;
• Research and development transfer;
• Commercial infrastructure;
• Internal market openness;
• Physical infrastructure; and,
• Cultural and social norms.

In addition to calling for greater entrepreneurial activity within firms, the report recommends measures to support women entrepreneurs to close a gender gap, particularly in non-social areas of innovation.

It also recommends that more attention be paid to entrepreneurship in education. It says that although survey results show a "high level of confidence in having the knowledge to start a firm", that confidence may stem from a lack of education on the topic. By province, the report found the highest TEA levels in Alberta, followed by British Columbia (which has near gender parity), Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia.

The 2014 GEM Canada National Report can be found at www.thecis.ca.

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