Dr. Yael Shmaryahu-Yeshurun (p)

This paper investigates the reciprocal relationship between entrepreneurial small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and their territorial contexts through the lens of commercial gentrification. While traditional literature on commercial gentrification emphasizes how economic transformation and urban renewal facilitate the entry of external corporations and "boutique" businesses—often leading to the displacement of local, minority-owned small firms—this study complicates the discourse by focusing on the phenomenon of commercial "Gentefication."
Derived from la gente ("the people" in Spanish), commercial gentefication describes a process where ethnic minority (Latino) entrepreneurs spearhead redevelopment within their own marginalized neighborhoods. This raises a critical question: does this phenomenon challenge the exclusionary nature of commercial gentrification, or does it merely replicate and reproduce its displacement dynamics?
Drawing on qualitative case studies from three distinct territorial contexts in the United States—Boyle Heights (Los Angeles), Barrio Logan (San Diego), and Pilsen (Chicago)—the research explores how the geographical, cultural, and political characteristics of these territories shape the strategic behaviors of Latino SMEs. I argue that these entrepreneurs do not merely operate within a market; they actively politicize their businesses as a strategic response to the threat of cultural displacement. The study identifies seven main strategies employed by these firms—ranging from the establishment of "political businesses" and the politicization of cultural products to engaging in independent spatial policing. Through these actions, SMEs attempt to foster community resilience and ethnic empowerment. However, the findings reveal a profound territorial tension. While entrepreneurs frame their strategies as acts of solidarity, local residents and activists often contest these narratives, characterizing them as "community-washing" intended to legitimize the entrepreneurs' presence and profits. In their view, these SME strategies lead to internal fragmentation, cultural commodification, and the further displacement of lower-income groups. By analyzing these conflicting discourses, the paper contributes to the session’s goal of understanding how local institutional and social contexts influence SME trajectories. It demonstrates that while SMEs can drive the structural transformation of their territories and serve as anchors of territorial identity, the process remains highly contentious.
Keywords: Commercial Gentrification, Gentrification, SME Strategic Behavior, Territorial Politics, Latino Entrepreneurship, Community-washing, Place-based Identity, Social Polarization

Dr. Cilem Selin Hazir (p)

Almost every country in the world is experiencing sustained growth in both the number and share of older persons in its population. As age structures shift, aggregate consumption patterns change, increasing the relative importance of goods and services tailored to older consumers, including assistive technologies, housing adaptations, teleassistance, digital connectivity, care services, financial products, and tourism. The expansion of entrepreneurial activity targeting these needs has given rise to the “silver economy,” a heterogeneous set of activities that cuts across traditional sectoral boundaries.
Economic geography has traditionally emphasized supply-side explanations for the spatial distribution of entrepreneurship, focusing on agglomeration economies, knowledge spillovers, labor pooling, and industrial clustering. Entrepreneurship research similarly tends to treat demographic structure as a supply-side characteristic affecting the availability and quality of entrepreneurial human capital. However, demographic change may also operate through demand. Regions with different age compositions exhibit different market potentials for age-specific goods and services. In this sense, ageing can reshape opportunity structures by generating localized demand signals (Priem et al., 2012). Evidence from innovation economics shows that innovation responds to demographic shifts in market size (Acemoglu & Linn, 2004), suggesting that ageing may redirect entrepreneurial activity.
Yet the geography of ageing does not necessarily coincide with established innovation and economic hubs. Because silver economy is not a homogeneous market but a constellation of overlapping submarkets reflecting diverse needs, this creates a potential tension between demographic demand and supply-side agglomeration forces: while ageing regions may generate strong market signals, firms may still prefer urban regions offering complementary capabilities and entrepreneurial ecosystems.
This study examines this tension in France, which formally institutionalized the silver economy through a dedicated contrat de filière. Crunchbase and the French national business directory is used to compile data on silver-economy establishments. The resulting dataset includes 406 silver-economy establishments created between 2015 and 2025, merged with regional demographic and economic indicators at the NUTS-3 level.
Initial empirical results rely on Poisson count models. They show that regions with a higher share of older residents host more silver establishments per capita, consistent with a demand-pull effect. Industrial diversity matters in pooled models but loses significance under region fixed effects, suggesting it operates as a structural condition rather than a short-term driver. Overall startup activity remains strongly associated with silver entry. These findings indicate that the geography of the silver economy reflects the interaction between demographic demand, structural regional capabilities, and entrepreneurial dynamics.

Prof. Sulevi Juhani Riukulehto (p)

The presentation focuses on the interaction between a small village community (Tuuri in South Ostrobothnia, Finland) and a medium-size enterprise (Keskisen kyläkauppa), Finland’s largest department store that is located, not in Helsinki but in a rural area. The enterprise runs large-scale business in a South Ostrobothnian village with fewer than 800 inhabitants. Such business activity leaves both tangible and intangible traces in its environment and heavily shapes the landscape. The main interest lies in the physical manifestations of business activities that are changing the social and cultural environment and the whole experience of home for both people and enterprise. The villagers do not always appreciate the pace and direction that these changes have taken; but still, they are able to feel themselves at home in the changed environment. Over the course of three generations, the company and its home have evolved into a functioning entity. This relationship may be a key factor explaining why Tuuri village has prospered and why the business activities have thus flourished. The analysis of the relationship between the village community and the large company operating in the village is based on relevant literature, ethnographic observation and five elicited discussions with the villagers. The data were collected in a research project (The Dynamics of Localities and Enterprises, DoLE) realized by the University of Helsinki Ruralia Institute in 2020–2024 and funded by the Research Council of Finland.

Dr. Éva Komlósi (p)

In the European Union, approximately 90% of deaths are attributable to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, and chronic respiratory conditions, largely driven by unhealthy lifestyle factors including smoking, poor diet, physical inactivity, harmful alcohol use, and sleep disorders. These risks display marked territorial disparities across Europe, with substantially higher obesity prevalence, cardiovascular mortality, and cancer in Central and Eastern Europe compared to Western and Northern regions. In ageing societies facing shrinking working-age populations, workforce health has become a strategic economic resource. For small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which rely heavily on locally available labour, lifestyle-related health risks can directly affect productivity, innovation capacity, and competitiveness.
This study addresses a gap at the intersection of entrepreneurship research, labour economics, and public health by analysing how employees’ lifestyle-related health risks influence employee well-being and firm-level financial performance. While individual health consequences are well documented, less attention has been paid to firm-level outcomes, as well as to the mediating and moderating contextual factors shaping these relationships. Furthermore, evidence on the financial effectiveness of workplace health promotion (WHP) programmes remains inconclusive.
Using a mixed-method design, the study combines a systematic literature review synthesising international empirical evidence with an in-depth case study of a Hungarian SME. Preliminary findings indicate consistent and economically significant negative associations between poor employee health and firm-level financial indicators. While comprehensive WHP programmes can reduce absenteeism and improve productivity, financial returns are highly context-dependent.
The findings suggest that lifestyle-related health risks are measurable determinants of firm performance and, when aggregated, influence regional competitiveness and resilience. By conceptualising workforce health as a territorially embedded dimension of human capital quality, the study contributes to entrepreneurship research and highlights population health improvement as a strategic economic development priority in demographically challenged regions.