Entrepreneurial potential in Argentina: a SWOT analysis

The purpose of this paper is to examine the external macro‐environmental forces along with the internal country‐specific attributes of Argentina as they influence entrepreneurship. The experiences with Argentina's financial crisis of 2001‐2002 have highlighted concerns as to whether the past prosperity can ever be regained. Entrepreneurial ability has received much attention in public discussions as a means to revitalize the lagging economy.

The popular strategic management tool of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT) analysis is used to group a number of current and emerging issues for the country. Their impact on entrepreneurship is then evaluated.

Argentina has numerous natural resources that can be developed into new businesses. The slow growth of new venture creation in Argentina can be attributed to the difficulties in obtaining capital financing as well as the new business start‐up licenses and procedures. Further limiting entrepreneurship is corruption, the lack of copyright protection, and difficulty hiring employees. However, the government of Argentina has implemented monetary changes to provide funds and other services for supporting new start‐up companies and a key strength of Argentina for entrepreneurship is the country's resources and products. Major opportunities exist in tourism and investments in the growing wine production industry. The major threat to new venture creation, however, is the current worldwide recession.

Research implications for applying SWOT analysis to a country are discussed. While this tool is largely focused on companies and their issues for strategy development, this paper discusses ways to use the methodology to include ranking or weighting variables in their importance to entrepreneurship. A larger sample of experts is suggested for future research along with surveys of industry leaders to refine the ordering of variables.

Implications for practitioners and policy makers within the country and areas for future research are discussed.

The paper adds value to the existing research about new venture creation and start‐ups in Argentina. In addition, the use of SWOT as a country‐analysis methodology is also extended.