CLUSTER ANALYSIS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN POLAND AT NUTS 3 LEVEL

Globalisation process has significantly changed the importance of the main determinants of long-term growth. Currently growth process is not only dependent on "traditional" factors such as supply of labour force, availability of financial capital and level of technology, but intangible factors such as quality of human capital or level of entrepreneurship are becoming important drivers of international competitiveness. The current paper concentrates on this last factor in regard to Polish economy. The article is based on the assumption that the level of entrepreneurship is especially important for growth at regional level. Therefore, the main aim of the research is to analyse similarities between Polish NUTS 3 regions in this regard. In the research, data available in Statistic Poland (Local data bank) were applied. The research was done for the years 2010 and 2015. The period was restricted with the availability of data. In the analysis five diagnostic variables were applied, therefore the subject of the research was considered as a multiple-criteria problem. In the study, the Ward's clustering method was applied, which enabled to group the NUTS 3 regions into homogeneous classes. The research confirms significant disparities in the case of level of entrepreneurship at NUTS 3 level. It can be seen that these disparities are also stable in time, which can confirm relatively low effectiveness of regional policy that is aimed at reducing differences in regional growth potential.