TRANSFORMATION OF ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTIVITY IN REGIONAL CAPITAL CITIES OF UKRAINE UNDER WARTIME CONDITIONS

Анотація

The article examines the transformation of entrepreneurial activity in regional capital cities of Ukraine under wartime conditions, with a particular focus on changes in the spatial concentration of business, the dynamics of the distribution of business entities, and the absorption capacity of large cities. The full-scale war has triggered a profound reconfiguration of entrepreneurial fl ows in favor of relatively safer, infrastructure-intensive, and institutionally more capable urban locations, resulting in the strengthening of the role of regional capitals as key nodes for the integration and scaling of economic activity. The methodological framework of the study is based on the calculation of business concentration indicators, the assessment of changes in the number of active business entities over time, and the use of a multidimensional analytical approach to evaluate the absorption capacity of regional capital cities. This approach makes it possible to jointly consider the scale of the entrepreneurial base, the dynamics of business growth or decline, and the relative national importance of cities in the overall structure of business registration. The empirical results reveal a differentiated pattern of entrepreneurial transformation. A group of large cities (including Kharkiv, Dnipro, Odesa, and Lviv) demonstrates a high level of economic capacity and a systemic role in absorbing and scaling new business initiatives, despite significant wartime risks and spatial constraints. At the same time, a number of regional capitals show moderate business scale combined with relatively higher growth rates, indicating the gradual strengthening of their role as regional centers of business integration. In contrast, several cities are characterized by a localized absorption model, in which the integration of new firms remains largely intra-regional and does not translate into a broader nationallevel function. The study also finds that, in some regions, the increase in business concentration in regional capitals has a crisis-compensatory nature and refl ects the contraction of the entrepreneurial base in peripheral territories. This trend contributes to the intensification of spatial asymmetries in economic development and underscores the selective rather than universal character of the transformation of regional capital cities. The practical significance of the results lies in substantiating differentiated policy approaches to regional economic development and post-war recovery. The findings support the need to combine policies aimed at strengthening regional capitals as centers of business attraction and integration with targeted instruments to support entrepreneurial activity in peripheral communities. Such a balanced approach is essential to mitigate excessive spatial polarization, promote the diffusion of economic activity beyond major cities, and enhance the overall resilience of Ukraine’s regional economic system under wartime and post-war transformation. Keywords: regional capital city; large city; entrepreneurial activity; spatial concentration; business relocation; spatial asymmetries; economic transformation.

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