employment & working conditions

Synopsis: Employment & working conditions:

2012 Flanders DC Open Innovation in SMEs.pdf

The last Community Innovation Survey in Belgium shows that large firms(>250 employees) are collaborating on average with more external partners than small firms.

when the number of collaborative deals is divided by the number of employees thus measuring the open innovation intensity.

Their limited financial and human resources and the lack of technological capabilities force them to look for different types of innovation partners.

Accordingly, they may have to work in several consecutive steps, which in some cases look like a bootstrapping strategy.

Some of them we found through publications, others by contacting a large European network of open innovation experts.

or size class (taking into account that small companies should have less than 500 employees). The companies are active in a wide range of industries.

and have 500 employees; other companies are just a few years old and have less than five employees.

The reader should thus not be surprised by the heterogeneity 13 of the cases. The diversity of the themes we will discuss illustrates how open innovation can take different shapes within each specific firm or industry.

cross-industry learning process led by sleep experts. The QOD case illustrates that developing a successful business model that ultimately changes the industry starts with nothing more than the conviction of a well-informed entrepreneur.

Curana is a micro-company (less than 20 employees) that is active in the bicycle accessory market.

and were thus more expensive when manufactured in countries with high-labour costs. A designer working at one of the bicycle manufacturers became a critical link.

It is a consortium of architects, manufacturers, professional organizations, user groups, social representatives, and teaching institutions that created a totally new concept for the patient hospital room:

his experience during the hospitalisation is the central concept around which the consortium works. The Patient Room of the Future is the result of intensive research into the needs of the medical world and the patients themselves.

Medical staff must care for more patients; patients stay for shorter hospitalisation periods; and the drive is strong to increase the medical staff's productivity.

PROF is an all-inclusive concept that tries to provide answers to these questions by focussing on the patient and his environment, with durability, functionality, usability,

and largely untapped approach to increasing value for the customer and enabling medical staff to deliver value by making their jobs more convenient using, for instance, smart and integrated information systems.

Furthermore, retailers can adapt their promotions to each customer's personal style. This approach not only provides extensive capabilities for the buying process,

In 1990, Paul Dingens started a glass works company that produced its own line of glass instruments.

and material experts. The third step is promotion. In this step Curana organized information sessions to promote its new ideas among potential customers.

In this way, the company received valuable feedback from potential customers. Realization is the fourth step.

and material experts. Using the so-called Original Strategic Management (OSM) model, Curana and its innovation partners started from a vision based on new opportunities derived from global trends,

After consulting with an examination board of sleep experts, QOD decided to produce a functional quilt that would reduce the temperature variation under the quilt to provide a healthy sleep.

Innovation in SMES is hampered by lack of financial resources, scant opportunities to recruit specialized workers

It combined valuable insights from sleep experts with the PCM technology which has required the characteristics to improve sleep.

and tested with the help of medical experts. QOD's first functional quilt branded as Temprakon was the result of linking PCM technology with insights about sleep comfort from the medical world.

Jaga also explored initiatives to spur the creativity of employees and external partners by setting up Jaga Product Days in 2007 (see p 47).

who complained that they only could do real nursing work during 50%of their working time.

If your partner leaves the company or secures another position, the joint project may stop

Adriaan Debruyne (now director of Saflot Creative Consultants) added: Our antennas are open to society and technologies,

Disciplining disloyal partners only works under certain circumstances. First, a strong leader must operate in the network,

Second, disciplining or excluding partners only works if the innovation network is instrumental in creating a competitive advantage for the companies involved.

Because partners in such an innovation network work in a mutually exclusive way, innovation networks can work only when there is a network-wide understanding among partners that upstream partners cannot misuse this exclusivity to earn monopoly rents

Some of the networks work with open books to ensure that all partners involved use fair overhead costs

Some of Curana's employees, for instance, did not understand why management was preoccupied with managing the network of partners

Intellectual property rights are owned usually contractually by the innovating firm in the case inventors are companies doing contract research, external designers, or employees.

Innovation in SMES is hampered by lack of financial resources, scant opportunities to recruit specialized workers, poor understanding of advanced technology, and so on.

Universities, research labs, crowds of experts, lead users, and knowledge brokers are just a few examples of potential external sources of knowledge.

and are eager to work with the venture. Finally, Toine also had to license the technology from DSM.

He detected that the existing turbo-fryers on the market did not work and his simple adaptation to the air-flow made air frying quite effective.

Therefore, the Airfryer is packaged with an inspiring recipe booklet, written by a culinary expert, which contains 30 easy-to-prepare recipes,

'o Licensing to small firms implies significant work in return for small licensing revenues. The venture manager,

and the work toward a win-win outcome. Let your partner pursue business opportunities in areas that do not fit your business model.

What works is a vision, not a dream. In most cases, the vision can be considered as a new value proposition,

or consultants develop. In contrast, they are spurred to take action when they are confronted with the testimonials of entrepreneurs who are using open innovation successfully to develop new businesses.

SMES are companies with less than 250 employees (N=792; lager companies(=250 employees; N=175.

The calculation covers the period 2002-2004. Open innovation can be measured in different ways. Developing a search strategy is one of the most important aspects of open innovation.

market sources (suppliers of equipment (i), customers (ii), competitors and other firms with similar activities (iii), commercial labs, private R&d organizations, and consultants (iv;

The search intensity is calculated by dividing the search strategy score by the employment of the firm.

The external R&d intensity reflects external R&d per employee. Collaborative innovation indicates whether innovating firms engage in collaborative innovation activities with six potential partners:

consultants and private R&d organizations (iv; universities (v; and public research organizations (vi. Collaborative innovation is captured by calculating the average score of the six questionnaire items registering the firm's use of cooperative agreements with innovation partners.

and the collaboration intensity measures the collaboration per employee. Variable Small and medium-sized enterprises (N-SME=792) Large firms (N-large=175) Mean Standard deviation Mean Standard deviation Difference Search intensity

Moreover, small contests can be held among employees, suppliers, and local communities of designers, engineers, and so on. 33 These value networks have been described by different authors.

2012 InterTrade Ireland Innovation Ecosystem Report.pdf

Aidan Gough Intertradeireland (chair) Aidan Sweeney Irish Business and Employers'confederation Andrew Gavin Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Bernadette Mcgahon Intertradeireland Brendan Cremen

Further work on the report was undertaken by Intertradeireland staff Bernadette Mcgahon and Eoin Magennis. Disclaimer Intertradeireland is confident that the information

On the contrary, the report confirms that the vast majority of these innovative firms are micro-enterprises with less than 10 employees;

that innovation activity is not dependent upon the presence of R&d staff and that firms are engaging in many different types of innovation.

knowledge workers become more mobile and innovation becomes riskier and more costly, more businesses have turned to open innovation as a way of increasing the speed and effectiveness of their innovation approaches.

Serial innovators may draw on higher education institutions for intellectual property and talent, on the financial resources of venture capitalists and angel investors and on the capacities and facilities of other companies, consultants,

their research suggesting"a sequence in the adoption of open innovation, starting with customer involvement, following with employee involvement,

Hence, exporting and innovation are complementary strategies that result in higher export shares, turnover and employment growth at the firm level.

with partnering and long-term relationships being central to their business models as well as a focus on high calibre staff.

What Governments Can Do to Make a Difference (2010). 7 12 The entire community works within a wider set of framework conditions defined by policy makers

demand conditions and the degree of competition in the domestic market (including public procurement) and the availability of high quality human resources and infrastructure. 10 As in nature's ecosystems, no single actor in an innovation system functions

%GVA Per capita (index=100) 136.2 86.4 100%micro firms<10 employees 90.8%89.0%92.1%%small firms 11-50 employees 7. 7%9

. 2%7. 7%%medium firms 50-250 employees 1. 2%1. 5%0. 2%%persons employed by SMES 69%65%66.9%%of GVA accounted for by SMES

The business community in Ireland in 2011 was above the EU-27 average in areas such as employment in knowledge intensive activities,

SMES innovating in-house, Employment in both medium and high tech manufacturing and knowledge intensive activities.

Patent applications Venture capital Public R&d Expenditure International Scientific Co-Publications Business R&d Expenditure Sales of new to Market and new to Firm Innovations Employment in Knowledge

or Process Innovations Higher education R&d Expenditure Innovative SMES Collaborating with others Employment in Knowledge-Intensive Activities SMES Innovating In-House Employment Medium-High tech Manufacturing Population Completed

the vast majority are micro-enterprises with less than 10 employees. Source: Intertradeireland Business Monitor (2011.

2) increased employment in previous quarter;(3) expected sales increase in next year;(4) expected employment increase in next year;(

5) company sells cross-border or exports internationally; and (6) current trading position described as expanding/growing.

Finally, firms were asked to comment on their human resources, particularly if they had dedicated staff carrying out R&d and sales and marketing.

They were asked also about financial resources and whether dedicated budgets were set aside for business development activities.

The data on human resources help form a view on firms'absorptive capacity. A significant majority of past innovators (68%)said they possessed ambition to grow.

and a quarter (25%)have dedicated R&d staff. There were no significant differences found in leadership for innovation, culture and capabilities between past innovators in Ireland and in Northern ireland.

effective 22 A separate analysis (Figure 15) of firms with more than 50 employees (described as large firms in the report) indicates a more positive view in relation to the importance of intermediary bodies and higher education institutes.

Within this general picture large firms(>50 employees) were more likely than small firms(<50 employees) to be more active across all types of innovation covered by the survey.

While this approach may be suitable for idea generation it does not offer a stepby-step approach to actually engaging employees generating

2013-competitiveness-innovation-productivity-clearing-up-confusion.pdf

or a new organizational method in business practices, workplace organization, or external relations. 4 Innovations can arise at many different points in the development process,

growth in workers, growth in productivity across-the-board and growth in the share of activity in high-productivity industries.

The first, growth in the number of workers, is a non-sustainable strategy and more importantly does nothing to increase productivity or per capita-income income growth.

America would clearly enjoy a larger GDP if the number of workers increased ten percent, but the average income of workers would not necessarily increase.

THE THREE SOURCES OF ECONOMIC GROWTH 2. PRODUCTIVITY IN ALL INDUSTRIES 3. GROWTH OF HIGH PRODUCTIVITY INDUSTRIES 1. GROWTH IN WORKERS The second the across-the-board growth effect occurs

when a region's productivity increases not by higher productivity industry sectors becoming a larger share of the economy,

or if the factory is able to employ more workers. In general, even though most nations, especially developing nations like Brazil, China and India, have focused their industrial policies on boosting productivity by changing their industrial mix,

2014 Irish Entrepreneurship Forum Report.pdf

Strengthening the Startup Community Report of the Entrepreneurship Forum January 2014 Entrepreneurship in Ireland-1-Foreword Executive Summary 1. Introduction 2. Innovative‘Can-do'Culture 2

based remuneration to employees 5. 2. Skills development programmes 5. 3. Immigration reform 6. Access to Finance 6. 1 Encouraging investment

and a responsibility to each of us to create work and to support each other. No one should get a free ride

Adjustments such as implementing a flat tax would have an immediate positive impact on nearly every productive worker in the nation,

which will support business startups, sustainable growth and long term job creation. The purpose of the Forum's Report is to support the Government's development of a National Entrepreneurship Policy Statement.

1. Strengthen the startup community in Ireland 2. Increase the pipeline of entrepreneurs 3. Energise job creation 4. Continue growth of the indigenous export sector 5. Capitalise on Ireland's strengths in growth industries

Learning Innovative Can-do Culture Executive Summary-6-Pillar 1, Innovative‘Can-do'Culture A central recommendation of this report is that Ireland should leverage our existing talent base:

A working group should be established to develop a policy for the promotion of the coworking model with a view to using unoccupied public buildings and NAMA buildings,

Currently, unemployed workers in Ireland are a vast, underused resource, and we must collectively find ways to engage our unemployed

and reduce the rate of unemployment. Underskilled youth do not have sufficient options to gain experience.

and regulations to improve Employee Stock option Programmes. Reforms should make it easier and less expensive for companies to run employee share programmes,

while making participation in these programmes more tax efficient for employees. Allow youth to participate in a new work experience programme,

to be called an‘Apprenticeship Programme, 'to be funded directly by the companies. Enlarge the Jobbridge programme by a factor of up to 20 times to help more people escape from the trap of being unemployed perpetually.

Implement visa reforms to attract more of the world's best talent to Ireland. recommendations recommendations-8-Pillar 5,

Access to Finance The Forum has identified a number of improvements which could be made to encourage investment,

which will support business startups, sustainable growth and long term job creation. The Forum met six times over the summer of 2013.

but in light of the scale of the unemployment challenge that Ireland is currently facing,

Is entrepreneurship self employment? No, that's not it. The self-employed typically sell their labour to perform a set of tasks,

and if they don't please the customer, fail to work long enough hours, or produce enough output, they are out of business quickly.

Entrepreneurs create functioning organisations that continue to generate value even if the entrepreneur themself leaves the business.

In noncommunist societies, private industry generates employment and creates the products that our society needs to thrive.

We present the ideas in this document as a starting point for further work, and hope that it will lead to enhanced economic activity, increased numbers of startups and increased engagement by all groups in the entrepreneurial arena.

so that a multitude of entrepreneurial people will emerge in future years and build strong Irish businesses that offer exciting employment opportunities for local communities.

'We encourage our children to work in‘guaranteed secure'jobs in high-paying areas like the public sector, in multinational corporations or in the professional services fields (eg. accountants, lawyers, doctors.

that's what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work--Vince Lombardi concepts that are covered in the book are highlighted also in this report.

If Ireland is going to‘up its game'in entrepreneurship, then this ecosystem needs to be far more robust and active.

as well as their success in the job market, their tendencies to innovate and their likelihood to start their own companies. 4 Much progress has been made in Ireland with initiatives such as the County & City Enterprise Boards‘Student Enterprise Awards'5, RTÉ's Junior Dragons'Den

Indeed there is now a growing acceptance in Ireland of the need to build work-related skills at an early age.

Innovative enterprises require a pool of work-aware school leavers. There is an immediate need to introduce modules

and works with educators and teachers to introduce entrepreneurial concepts to students. Bizworld currently partners with schools in Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, Galway, Cork and Limerick.

In an ever-changing technological world, children should be exposed to a broad range of ICT skills to understand their application in the workplace.

--Paul Tournier recommendations recommendations 2. 3. 1 Unemployed The Back to Work Enterprise Allowance, administered by the Department of Social Protection,

Firstly, the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance is only attainable if you have been on the‘Live Register'for 12 months.

and the applicant must not take up self employment until they have received written approval from the Local Development Company or the Department of Social Protection.

The Forum believes that addressing these issues would do much to enhance the entrepreneurial contribution of this section of society. 6. Reduce the time required to be on the Live Register before being eligible for the Back to Work Enterprise allowance. 7. Cut the waiting

time for appointments for unemployed people seeking approval for access to the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance. 8. Improve the payments system for entrepreneurs'grants for unemployed people trying to start a business.

indicating a need for further targeted work. Championing woman business leaders as role models will play a key role in increasing the numbers of female entrepreneurs.

Female entrepreneurs have difficulty taking full maternity leave, given the demanding nature of entrepreneurial business.

Greater flexibility in which a parent avails of the maternity leave scheme will allow parents to share in a manner that best suits the needs of the female entrepreneur.

Lastly, Government should ensure that a female employer is entitled to the same welfare benefits as a female employee.

Currently a female employer must have 52 weeks of PRSI contributions as opposed to a minimum of 39 for an employee.

The Department of Social Protection also requires female employers to give 12 weeks of advanced notice for maternity leave,

as compared to just 6 weeks by female employees. The Forum believes that changes to these current Government approaches would enhance a supportive culture for female entrepreneurship. 9. Continue the programme of targeted and tailored supports for female entrepreneurs. 10.

The maternity leave scheme should be amended to enable a woman to transfer a portion of her maternity leave

The qualifying weeks in terms of PRSI payments to qualify for maternity leave should be the same for female entrepreneurs as for female employees

Our recommendations complement existing work being done to address this critical situation. The Forum recognises that countries such as Germany with low rates of youth unemployment have excellent apprenticeship systems

and that these are currently being examined by a Review Group from the Department of education and Skills.

Any new apprenticeship system adopted in Ireland should recognise and foster entrepreneurship as a valid career option.

These initiatives may be particularly suitable to Early School Leavers who are the most vulnerable to long-term unemployment.

The Dublinbic manages the Guinness Enterprise Centre, the single largest entrepreneurship facility in the country with 60,000 sq ft. of space, over 80 startup companies and 320+employees in one building.

and more established startup and growth companies to offer internship opportunities to‘youth unemployed'persons who are interested in entrepreneurship/startups as a career path.

Programmes such as these will not solve the youth unemployment problem, but they will contribute to the solution

Entrepreneurship should be recognised as a career option within any newly designed apprenticeship system. 13. An entrepreneurship internship programme should be established based on the EU funded Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs programme.

As a pilot initiative, 50 of the larger more established startup and growth companies based in the Guinness Enterprise Centre could be engaged to take one‘youth unemployed'person each to undertake an internship. 14.

The successful programme offers tailored support for an age group that could suffer from long-term unemployment

-19-11 Figures from the UK highlight that only 1-in-10 people aged over 50 will find employment

For startups, paying consultants to do executive coaching is unaffordable for the long term. Consequently, successful entrepreneurs draw other successful entrepreneurs into their network through boards

which can connect experienced executives with each other as well as with startup founders. Much of this already happens both informally

How does‘Office hours'work?‘‘Office hours'can be arranged in multiple ways. One Forum member has Saturday Skype calls of 15 minutes length between 11am

LEOS could seek volunteer entrepreneurs through the Chambers of Commerce or other networks to work as mentors to startup founders.

whereby staff are given time off to do volunteer work in local communities. An initiative for large companies could also be facilitated to provide advice to startups.

through once-off, expensive executive-MBA-style programmes. These programmes through Stanford, Cambridge, Harvard, etc.

or others to work as buddy mentors to startup promoters. b. Agencies to facilitate an initiative among large companies to allow staff to volunteer to go into star tups,

Availability of Skilled Staff. Multinational companies incubated a pool of skilled staff keen to apply their experience to new challenges.

Many of these returned from working overseas or from the domestic branches of multinational companies.

or technology niche that wasn't being exploited by their existing employer and built a business around it.

and willing to work in exciting new startups. The irish Trade Board. Córas Tráchtála, with its worldwide network, provided market access especially in North america and Asia

and their staff, are the heart of any entrepreneurial ecosystem. Ireland already has that heart.

and aspiring entrepreneurs to network with each other with the option of attending seminars from guest speakers and obtaining mentoring from experts in their field.

of work already done in this space, the Forum proposes that further private sector involvement in accelerators would be a huge support for the startup ecosystem. 26.

Some people parallel the growing popularity of co-working spaces to the popularisation of coffee spots with free Internet such as Starbucks. These locations led to a‘lightbulb'moment for many who recognised that highly productive work can be accomplished in a shared

but an organised national level promotion of a coworking initiative has potential for using larger unused buildings.

a. develop a co-working model that will work in Ireland, to include leveraging unused public buildings and NAMA buildings;

-33-25 http://www. easyaccessip. org. uk/recommendations In 2012, The irish Research Council launched a pilot Employment Based Postgraduate programme (including Phd and Masters) for 30 places.

and academia to work more closely together to build strong working relationships and simultaneously increase direct commercialisation of research work.

Triple the size of the‘Employment Based Postgraduate programme'to 100 Phds per annum (10%of The irish output.

Introduce a Framework for companies to provide contracts to university graduate students for thesis work without clouding IP ownership. 34.

having industry partners ensures that the work will have commercial impact. 36. Engagement without IP licensing requirements.

and cut red tape. 4. 5. 2 Increase Capacity for Commercialisation by Academic Researchers and Postgraduates Formal recognition through the academic promotion criteria-should be given to researchers for time spent in collaboration with industry.

Currently, the promotion criteria in Ireland can inhibit industry collaboration because this activity does not add to researchers'CVS,

many of our most able and educated minds never gain understanding of how to commercialise their work.

Formal recognition should be given to researcher time spent on collaboration with industry in the academic promotion criteria of their institution. 38.

-34-recommendations recommendations-35-Modern successful entrepreneurs readily acknowledge that an engaged and talented staff is critical to their success. No single person can build thriving international businesses without having a high-quality team

Currently unemployed workers in Ireland are a vast resource that is significantly underused, and we must collectively find ways to engage our people

and reduce the rate of unemployment. Specifically with regard to entrepreneurial activity, we offer the following recommendations to help startups attract

and reward talent. 5. 1 Share-based remuneration to employees According to statistics from The irish Proshare Organisation in the first quarter of 2013,

companies that operate Employee Share Ownership Plans (ESOP) in the United kingdom have grown by 50%more than the average growth rate of FTSE 100 companies (the UK's largest companies.

Indeed there is growing evidence that share ownership in companies significantly improves employee commitment, and in turn drives stability while significantly increasing productivity.

Currently, employee share based remuneration is not attractive to entrepreneurs. Employees must pay tax immediately (via the company payroll system) at typically 52%of the market value of shares received. 27 The employee would then have to sell the majority of his shares

in order to cover the expense of owning them, defeating the purpose of share ownership. We propose a deferral of triggering of the tax liability

in order to make employee share ownership a viable option for entrepreneurs and their staff. In Ireland, legal requirements make it impossible for companies to repurchase their own shares

ESOPS generally require repurchase of shares from departing employees. Therefore, Irish law has unintended the consequence of making it cumbersome and expensive to have ESOP programmes.

and a significant barrier for entrepreneurs looking to provide share options to their staff. We recommend that the rules of share repurchase are amended to allow ESOPS to flourish in Ireland.

This will allow employees who stay with startup companies to participate more fully in their success. We also recommend allowing stock

This will create incentives for an employee to own long-term shares in a company rather than encouraging employees to flip ownership of any granted shares immediately,

as is the current common practice in Ireland. It would also enable entrepreneurs to compete more effectively for highly skilled employees with both multinationals and other countries,

since startup companies can offer more attractive terms on share ownership versus the relatively minor share holdings proffered by multinationals. 41.

Enable Employee stock ownership without creating taxable events until the time of sale of the stock.

Enable companies to repurchase share options for the benefit of their employees (from departing employees,

etc) without requiring positive retained earnings. 5. 2 Skills development programmes Ireland currently has an unbearably high rate of unemployment.

Skills development is vital for employment. As an example, throughout the general population of all ages, second level graduates have an unemployment rate of 23%and third level graduates have an unemployment rate of 13%29.

a programme that allows those who are receiving benefits on the Live Register to work for companies in Ireland for up to a period of 9 months while receiving their job seeker's allowance plus €50 per week in additional payments.

and large numbers of these workers are then graduating to full-time employment within the companies where they gain their skills,

Unfortunately, many small companies find it extremely difficult to justify employing unskilled workers, one reason being the high minimum wage requirements.

Furthermore, graduates seeking work experience are excluded from participating in the Jobbridge Programme if they already have part-time evening or weekend employment.

As the Jobbridge Programme runs in tandem with jobseekers allowance, the applicant must be unemployed and be actively seeking work

or be in receipt of a social welfare allowance. Many companies, from multinationals to local companies, already provide internship opportunities

giving them the real work experience that is generally sought by employers. We believe that formalising a programme to enable youth to develop work skills would benefit youth, employers and the economy as a whole.

Therefore the Forum recommends that companies should be allowed to offer work placements to youth (those without work experience,

either out of 2nd level or 3rd level) for up to 9 months for training level pay (same rate as Jobbridge,

-37-28 http://www. oecd. org/science/inno/2754426. pdf 28 CSO (2013) Live Register September 2013.29 OECD (2013) Employment

including jobs offered by public sector agencies that have no intent to hire staff at the conclusion of the programme.

and thousands of careers are getting jumpstarted through this programme every week. 31 OECD (2013) Employment Outlook James had been in the construction industry as a junior technician with an architect's firm until the recession hit.

Allow youth to participate in a new work experience programme, based on the rate of pay of the Jobbridge Programme, perhaps called Jobbridge Corporate,

The Open Ireland33 campaign was initiated to highlight the need for high-tech foreign workers and graduates to have easier access to visas.

The growth of companies in Ireland becomes more possible by reducing the constraint on specific technical workers.

Opening our doors to talented workers is an essential part of a dynamic startup ecosystem. In April 2013, the Department of Jobs, Enter p r i se and Innova t i o n,

More work was envisaged in automating this process further34 to provide certainty to the employer and to the employee that the visa could be issued in a matter of two weeks

or so, establishing Ireland as the most competitive country in the world for technical talent.

or IDA approved companies would be trusted parties to ensure that the qualifications of the employee are advanced sufficiently to qualify for the visa,

As mentioned above, immigrant workers have added consistently value to the entrepreneurial and academic bases of their destination country.

or industry or volunteer association to promote Ireland as a destination country for entrepreneurs, high-tech worker s and acceler a tor-rela ted act ivi ty.

businesses. 6. 1. 2 Employment and Investment Incentive (EIIS) The Forum welcomes the announcement in the 2014 Budget to remove the high earners restriction for EIIS to increase the pool of investors.

a. Enable medium-sized enterprises (50-250 employees) in the non-assisted areas35 to avail of the EIIS. b. The EIIS should be amended to increase the period of investment from three to five years. c. Under the EIIS,

and the government needs to do far more if it wants to reward growing businesses and employment in Ireland.

employment generating businesses. Real estate or other asset holding companies should be excluded. Such an incentive would energise smart money putting capital in new growth opportunities.

and their executives would be subjected to fines. 6. 3. 1. 1 Attracting International Banks Ireland currently has a duopoly of banks that control and dictate the culture of banking in Ireland:

and bank executives who violate the Code of conduct. 57. One or more reputable international banks should be recruited (not subsidised,

We acknowledge the great work of the thousands of public sector staff who have only the best intentions to help business succeed in Ireland.

000 staff currently employed in agencies related to enterprise supports. There are 5 agencies under the Department of Jobs,

and agreeing upon work plans and outcomes, Connector ensures that departments and agencies within government are informed

Basic measurements of the number of companies who employ-48-7. Public Policy recommendations workers is not just useful for startups.

Numbers of individuals starting a self employment project. Numbers of newly incorporated companies. Industry NACE code.

Startup size classification number of employees(<5,<10,20,<50, etc..The Startup Monitor should also have capabilities to produce up-to-date information on:

How many startups<2 years established have over 5 employees?.Business survival rates. Trends in new enterprise creation-self employment/companies. 61.

A‘Startup Monitor'should be produced and made publicly available, on a monthly or quarterly basis, by the Department of Jobs,

Furthermore, even if they are employees of their own companies, they do not enjoy the same level of tax credits as other PAYE workers.

Improving social insurance supports for the self-employed is an important way for Government to demonstrate that entrepreneurship is a priority.

Many workers are discouraged from starting companies because of the knowledge that the self-employed don't receive Jobseeker's benefit.

Those who have established their entitlement benefit by working for an employer for a number of years should get a longer period to retain their Jobseeker's benefit.

Where an entrepreneurially inclined employee leaves employment, the current structure of the Jobseeker's Benefit system encourages them to remain on Jobseeker's Benefit for the full six/nine month Jobseeker's Benefit entitlement period before setting up a new business

it is recommended that such entrepreneurs would be provided with a five-year period to claim the remainder of their former Jobseeker's Benefit entitlement as an employee.

3. Enable a lower capital gains rate (20%vs. 33%)for money immediately reinvested in Irish businesses. 4. Enable Employee stock ownership without creating taxable events until the time of sale of the stock,

just as it is for employees (the top effective rate dropping from 55%to 52%).6. To support cashflow,

extend the scope of the cashreceipts basis of accounting for VAT to the maximum turnover threshold of €2. 5 million permissible under EU rules. 7. Enable those who set up corporations that employ staff to recommence claiming of their jobseeker

just as it is for employees (the top rate dropping from 55%to 52%).66. New entrepreneurs should be provided with a fiveyear period to claim the remainder of their former Jobseeker's Benefit entitlement as an employee. 7. 4. 1 Long-term tax policy From a long-term perspective,

structural changes are necessary to make sure that the primary burden of taxes do not fall too heavily on the shoulders of the indigenous companies and the private taxpayer,

High taxes discourage work, savings, investment, risktaking and enterprise and therefore are neither efficient nor conducive to increasing strong economic growth.

A progressive policy with respect to entrepreneurship sets tax rates on invested capital at a more favorable rate (Capital gains tax) than income from PAYE employment, interest, dividends and other sources.

and forcing businesses to import products from abroad or outsource their work to other countries.

or more entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial volunteers for meritorious service to Ireland. 2. 3. 1 Unemployed 6. Reduce the time required to be on the Live Register before being eligible for the Back to Work Enterprise allowance. 7

. Cut the waiting time for appointments for unemployed people seeking approval for access to the Back to Work Enterprise Allowance. 8. Improve the payments system for entrepreneurs'grants for unemployed people