INTEGRATED ECOSYSTEM OF INCLUSIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP FOR THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC REINTEGRATION OF VETERANS

Abstract

The article substantiates the concept of an integrated ecosystem of inclusive entrepreneurship for the socio-economic reintegration of veterans in Ukraine at the national and local levels. The study combines the logic of inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystems with a security-oriented interpretation of reintegration. In this framework, security has a dual meaning. At the micro level, it concerns personal economic stability, access to services, reduction of bureaucratic and psychosocial barriers, and the veteran’s capacity to sustain a viable business trajectory. At the macro level, it concerns social cohesion, trust in institutions, local resilience, and the prevention of exclusion, poverty, and repeated marginalization in communities affected by war. The paper is based on a systemic, structural-functional, comparative, and content-analysis approach. It synthesizes recent scholarship on inclusive entrepreneurship, international analytical reports on veteran reintegration, and current Ukrainian legal and policy documents in the fields of veteran policy and SME development. The research demonstrates that entrepreneurial reintegration cannot be reduced to one-off grants or isolated business training. Instead, it requires an integrated architecture that links legal regulation, public institutions, local governments, financial instruments, rehabilitation and counselling services, educational programs, mentoring networks, market access mechanisms, and community-based support. The study identifies several interconnected groups of veterans’ needs in entrepreneurial reintegration: institutional navigation and service access, physical and psychosocial stabilization, entrepreneurial skills and mentoring, access to finance and markets, and social recognition through community and professional networks. If at least one of these blocks remains unsupported, the risks of failed business start, dependency on short-term aid, interrupted reintegration, and loss of trust increase significantly. On this basis, the article proposes a stage-based mechanism for ecosystem formation, covering diagnostics and routing, capability recovery, business launch, stabilization and market integration, and impact monitoring. The findings show that the most productive model is the coordinated interaction of national and local levels. The national level should provide a strategic framework, legal certainty, standards, financing logic, and interoperability of services, while the local level should ensure accessibility, personalization, trust, stakeholder cooperation, and continuous support for veterans and their families. The practical value of the article lies in the possibility of using the proposed framework in state and municipal programs aimed at strengthening veteran entrepreneurship, inclusive economic recovery, and the long-term resilience of Ukrainian communities.