INCLUSIVITY AS A MANAGEMENT CRITERION FOR THE EFFECTIVENESS OF REGIONAL AND LOCAL VETERAN BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT POLICY

Abstract

The article investigates inclusivity as a management criterion for evaluating the effectiveness of regional and local veteran business development policy in Ukraine. The paper argues that, under wartime and post-war transformation, policy effectiveness should not be reduced to the number of supported projects, the volume of grants distributed, or the formal growth of entrepreneurial registrations. A genuinely effective policy is the one that creates accessible, safe, and sustainable pathways to entrepreneurship for veterans and servicewomen, persons with war-related disabilities, and family members of defenders, while also strengthening the resilience of local communities. This perspective directly links entrepreneurship support with community security, social cohesion, and inclusive recovery. The study systematizes international and Ukrainian approaches to inclusive entrepreneurship and veterans’ socio-economic reintegration, and reinterprets them through a security-oriented lens. A preserved three-table analytical framework is partially reoriented toward veteran business: the first table combines general entrepreneurial ecosystem indicators with targeted support measures for veterans; the second applies a regional clustering approach to identify territories with high, medium, and low potential for veteran business development; the third outlines institutional mechanisms for embedding inclusivity into regional and local policies. The article demonstrates that inclusivity should be operationalized through strategic planning, coordination bodies, community-level participation, donor cooperation, accessible support infrastructure, local incentives, and systematic monitoring. It is concluded that inclusivity can serve as a practical managerial benchmark because it captures not only economic outputs, but also the quality of access, continuity of support, adaptation to risk, and contribution to social stability. In this sense, veteran business development becomes a component of an inclusive ecosystem of veterans’ socio-economic reintegration rather than a narrow sectoral policy field.