This article provides new insight into the local institutional embeddedness of entrepreneurial behaviour. By introducing a sociological institutional framework for place-based entrepreneurship, it adds to the knowledge of the role of regulative, normative and cognitive institutions in local entrepreneurial practices in rural Central Europe. Based on extensive case studies in regions located across five countries, the analysis suggests that the influence of regulative institutions on local entrepreneurship is tempered, if not superseded, by specific place-dependent normative and cognitive institutions, and that the fit between the different institutions is decisive for the emergence of entrepreneurial practices in a specific location. The article provides explanations of why and under which conditions entrepreneurs show different change practices in rural transition and non-transition contexts. The study concludes that institutional mechanisms are place-bound, and that a place-sensitive institutional approach can serve as a fruitful way forward for developing our contextualised knowledge of entrepreneurial behaviour.