Political leaders and their advisers tend to assume that by taking top-down policy initia¬tives, frequently copied from measures which have appeared to work in a different situation such as the United States, they can achieve comparable results in their own country. This assumes that individuals will choose to play the economic-role determined by the state, for example in starting new businesses. If short-term financial incentives are offered these may well be taken up, but longer-term cultural and economic change is much more difficult to achieve.*Government initiatives to increase entrepreneurial activity often do not seem to be informed or welcomed by entrepreneurs themselves, and there is an absence of dialogue in the top-down relationship between government and entrepreneurs, for example in the ways in which small business support programmes are constantly changed by governments.