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Research on entrepreneurship is mainly focused on the individual, and research on innovation has been mainly focused on institutions even though we know that both agency and context matter. To better integrate the two approaches, Acs et al. (Research Policy 43: 476-494, 2014. doi:10.1016/j.respol.2013.08.016) introduced the national systems of entrepreneurship (NSE) as a framework for a resource allocation system driven by individual-level opportunity pursuit through the creation of new ventures and its outcomes regulated by country-specific institutional characteristics. This paper draws on the NSE framework, sets it in a larger context, examines the logic of the approach and introduces the special issue by summarizing the papers.

Economic growth requires innovation that can only occur through entrepreneurial action. Attempts to stimulate such action through central direction and explicit planning such as embodied in a National Systems of Innovation approach are inherently limiting because of an inability to anticipate future actions and consequences. A more fruitful approach is the one embodied in a National Systems of Entrepreneurship (NSE) approach, one that recognizes the uncertainty of the entrepreneurial process and focuses instead on the promulgation of policies through public-sector entrepreneurship to create a more nurturing environment within which entrepreneurial action can spontaneously arise in both the private and the public sectors. This paper develops an NSE-based theoretical model of the entrepreneurial environment that integrates into a functional whole the various subsets of that environment that others have studied and explores the role that NSE-guided public policy can play in improving the entrepreneurial environment for both private-sector and public-sector entrepreneurs. In the private sector, such public policies would focus on enhancing the creative environment, the exchange environment, the incentive and feedback structures, and the access to resources. It is also possible to enhance the entrepreneurial environment in the public sector, though the competing demands of democratic norms make that enhancement more difficult.

This study contributes to the emerging stream of literature on national systems of entrepreneurship by investigating the importance of systemic contingencies between individual-level and country-level variables. Specifically, we develop the concept of entrepreneurial readiness as a factor consisting of four items relating to individuals' skills, fear of failure, social connectedness, and opportunity perception. The results indicate that this entrepreneurial readiness construct is a more parsimonious and cogent representation of individual-level characteristics than several loosely connected individual traits. Moreover, we demonstrate that entrepreneurial readiness has substantial explanatory power with regard to individuals' entrepreneurial intention. Individuals' entrepreneurial intentions are also influenced by several dimensions of the national environment such that entrepreneurial readiness and these national environmental conditions are mutually reinforcing. These findings lend support to the importance of viewing entrepreneurship from a systems perspective and underscore the importance of institutional conditions in fostering entrepreneurship.

The proposition that entrepreneurs' innovation is embedded in networking is refined. We distinguish between networking in the public sphere and networking in the private sphere, and hypothesize that innovation benefits from public sphere networking but suffers from private sphere networking. These hypotheses are tested with a representative sample of 56,611 entrepreneurs in 61 countries surveyed in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. Hierarchical linear modeling shows that, while overall networking benefits innovation, innovation is decreased by private sphere networking and increased by networking in the public sphere, especially in the professions and internationally. A further refinement is to consider entrepreneurs' endeavors as embedded in society with its system of education for entrepreneurship. We hypothesize that the quality of a national system moderates the impacts of networks on innovation by adding value to networks. Analyses show that quality of national educational system adds innovation benefits to both public sphere networking and private sphere networking.

The literature on the National Systems of Innovation (NSI) is a relatively new field of research that has spread remarkably in the past 20 years. This article offers a complementary, quantitative description of the state-of-the-art of the literature based on bibliometric methods, by explicitly addressing the roots, evolution and influence of NSI literature. The exercise shows that over time the rate of published articles was quite irregular and that contributions on NSI have not (yet) converged to an integrated analytical framework. Although historically detailed descriptions on NSI showed a noticeable increase in the more recent period (2006—2010) analyses using more formal and diversified quantitative methodologies for assessing the performance of NSI remained lacking, reflecting its persisting methodological weaknesses. The roots of the NSI literature can be found at the core of innovation studies by certain well-known scholars in the area of economics of innovation and science policy research. Even though publications on NSI are falling in relative importance and are highly concentrated on a small set of countries (United Kingdom, Denmark, and the United States), their influence is global. They are cited by authors affiliated in organisations around the world, notably in Latin America and Asia. Such an influence goes far beyond the area of innovation studies and has resonated in fields such as economic geography, environmental studies, international business and managerial sciences. This demonstrates that the NSI literature is not self-referential.

Globalization and digitalization have been presented as ineluctable forces which signal the 'death of geography'. The paper takes issue with this fashionable narrative. The argument that 'geography matters' is pursued in three ways: first, by questioning the 'distance-destroying' capacity of information and communication technologies where social depth is conflated with spatial reach; second, by arguing that physical proximity may be essential for some forms of knowledge exchange; and third, by charting the growth of territorial innovation systems.

This paper maps the global dimension of higher education and associated research, including the differentiation of national systems and institutions, while reflecting critically on theoretical tools for working this terrain. Arguably the most sustained theorisation of higher education is by Bourdieu: the paper explores the relevance and limits of Bourdieu's notions of field of power, agency, positioned and position-taking; drawing on Gramsci's notion of hegemony in explaining the dominant role played by universities from the United States. Noting there is greater ontological openness in global than national educational settings, and that Bourdieu's reading of structure/agency becomes trapped on the structure side, the paper discusses Sen on self-determining identity and Appadurai on global imagining, flows and 'scapes'. The dynamics of Bourdieu's competitive field of higher education continue to play out globally, but located within a larger and more disjunctive relational setting, and a setting that is less closed, than he suggests.

The difference between a British & US style of International Political Economics (IPE) investigates the deep divide to propose that each has distinct origins in which historical contingency & human agency played critical roles, interacting to create separate styles of inquiry. Discussion of the transatlantic divide identifies the basic questions of ontology in which the British treat the state as one agent among many verses the American school shareing of the IR discipline's central occupation with public policy. Epistemology in the American school remains wedded to the principles of positivism & empiricism, whereas the British school embraces approaches that are more institutional & historical, & interpretive. The origins of the American school are traced to post WWII issues of economic interdependence & national security. The contributions of Keohane & Nye constructed modern IPE within the discipline of IR, & Gilpin brought in the concept of transnationalism. Although economists were present at the creation of IPE, once political scientists arrived on the scene, economists abdicated resulting in a deep irony in that the American school resembles the methodology of neoclassical economics. The origins of the British school are traced to the work of economist Susan Strange & historian Robert Cox. Their influence diverged from the American model due to their broad vision & the background of British international studies. Strange's goal to end the dialogue of the deaf won, but the Americans are hard of hearing. The two schools are concluded to complement each other by balancing positivism & empiricism with intellectual acumen & a critical attitude towards orthodoxy. A meeting of the minds though does need to happen, perhaps even synthesis. The two sides need to talk to each other more common to overcome the factionalism the currency divides the IPE community. References. J. Harwell

\"Internationalisation\", the growing border-crossing activities between national systems of higher education is losing ground to \"globalisation\", increasing border-crossing activities of blurred national systems which is often employed to depict world-wide trends and growing global competition. This article addresses recent issues of knowledge transfer. It points out tensions between increasing diversity in higher education and efforts to facilitate recognition of prior studies on student mobility. It shows the diversity of steering and management policies with respect to internationalisation and globalisation. Finally, it asks whether globalisation of higher education has to be viewed as a manifestation of \"turbo-capitalism\" or could be viewed instead as a move towards \"global understanding\". (HRK / Abstract übernommen).

This paper investigates historical and current developments regarding governmental policies aimed at enhancing spatial equity (access) or decentralisation of higher education provision in three countries—Australia, Canada and Norway. We then shed light on the links or interrelations between policy objectives and initiatives and institutional diversity and regional development more broadly. We found evidence of convergence trends in Norway and Canada resulting in the rise of hybrid organisational forms, as well as the critical importance of policy frameworks in either maintaining or eroding the traditional binary divide. The cross-country data suggest a rather mixed or nuanced picture when it comes to regional development. Finally, the paper identifies a number of key challenges facing the systems, suggests possible ways of tackling them and sheds light on avenues for future research.