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The paper presents the processes of entrepreneurial human capital accumulation and its impact on rural business growth. Data are derived from four surveys on rural businesses in mountainous and less favoured areas in Southern Europe. Formal pathways of entrepreneurial human capital accumulation refer to education and training, while informal pathways include the cognitive processes of work and managerial experience acquisition and the non-cognitive processes of being raised within an entrepreneurial family environment and/or being raised in the area within which the business is later set-up. The studies reveal that there is a variety of processes of entrepreneurial human capital and knowledge accumulation that are case study specific. Human capital accumulation processes related to education and training or to work and managerial experience still plays the prime role in predicting successful businesses. Results indicate the need for decentralised, flexible and selective entrepreneurial human capital accumulation support programmes that take into account local idiosyncrasies and needs.

The resurgence of many lagging, mountainous or peripheral areas of the European Union may be attributed to the significant regional exports by firms located there. A survey in four mountainous areas of Southern Europe revealed that nearly one-third of surveyed businesses spanning the whole range of economic activities and industries sell more than 50 percent of their value of production outside the geographical boundaries of the local area. Strategic entrepreneurship creates two broad sets of 'windows of entrepreneurial-locational opportunity' and firms from different industries of the manufacturing sector together with firms from the services or the hospitality industries may utilize the same common stock of resources and develop the same conventions irrespective of the industry they operate in. As such, local clusters should not be defined in terms of industries and/or sectors but in terms of common strategic entrepreneurial actions that can mix industries under common opportunities (entrepreneurship) and advantages (strategies). These firms are the mountain gazelles as they present very high growth rates and serve as paradigms and a source for innovative thought by other local entrepreneurs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]