nep-ent New Economics Papers
on Entrepreneurship
Issue of 2005‒04‒09
seven papers chosen by
Marcus Dejardin
Facultés Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix

  1. Entrepreneurial roles along a cycle of discovery By Nooteboom,Bart
  2. Le programme SBIC : analyse et enseignements By Cécile Carpentier; Jean-Marc Suret
  3. Recent Developments in Self-Employment in Canada By Nadja Kamhi; Danny Leung
  4. Innovation, learning and cluster dynamics By Nooteboom,Bart
  5. The social and industrial dynamics of retailing an evolutionary reconstruction By Nooteboom,Bart
  6. Public-Private Partnerships and the Promotion of Collective Entrepreneurship By Mário Rui Silva; Hermano Rodrigues
  7. MODELLI DI SVILUPPO LOCALE. I DISTRETTI INDUSTRIALI E LA PICCOLA E MEDIA IMPRESA: L’ESPERIENZA SPAGNOLA By Nicola Boccella

  1. By: Nooteboom,Bart (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research)
    Abstract: The literature on entrepreneurship recognizes a variety of entrepreneurial roles, and the question arises what roles are played when and by whom. In this article, roles are attributed to different stages of innovation and organizational development. A central theme is the relation between discontinuity, in radical innovation (exploration), and continuity, in application, diffusion and adaptation (exploitation). Use is made of a concept of a 'cycle of discovery', which seeks to explain how exploration leads on to exploitation, and how exploitation may yield exploration, in a step-by-step development towards radical innovation. Parallel to this there are processes of organisational development.
    JEL: D83 M13
    Date: 2005
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:200543&r=ent
  2. By: Cécile Carpentier; Jean-Marc Suret
    Abstract: We analyse the American Small Business Investment Companies (SBIC) program designed to help small and medium sized businesses find venture capital. SBICs are private entities that may be financed by the Small Business Administration under favourable conditions. The success of this program should inspire public policy makers in other countries. Indeed, SBICs have financed numerous traditional and high tech SMEs at a low or zero cost for the government. The rules of government intervention are very similar to those of private financing. The program rests on strong governance, clear rules and stakeholder accountability. The SBA is powerful and the SBICs are stringently governed. The private status of SBICs, their sizeable initial funding, the third party certifying the quality of the project and officers with proven management capacity may explain the success of the program. <P>Nous analysons le programme américain des Small Business Investment Companies (SBIC), destiné à aider les PME à trouver du capital de risque. Les SBICs sont des entités entièrement privées ayant la possibilité de se refinancer dans des conditions favorables auprès de la Small Business Administration (SBA). Ce programme peut être considéré comme un succès et devrait inspirer les décideurs d’autres pays. Les SBICs ont en effet permis des financements nombreux de petites et moyennes entreprises traditionnelles et de haute technologie, à un coût faible ou nul pour le Gouvernement. L’intervention se fait suivant des règles qui sont proches de celles qui prévalent sur le marché privé. Le programme repose sur un système de gouvernance solide, des règles claires et la responsabilisation des acteurs. Le pouvoir de la SBA est important, et la régie interne des SBICs est forte. Le caractère largement privé des SBICs associé à une capitalisation initiale relativement importante, à la présence d’une tierce partie certifiant la qualité du projet, et à la qualité de gestion des dirigeants contribuent également au succès de ce programme.
    Keywords: public policy, small business, financing, SBIC, governance, : politique publique, petites entreprises, financement, SBIC, gouvernance
    Date: 2005–03–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cir:cirwor:2005s-15&r=ent
  3. By: Nadja Kamhi; Danny Leung
    Abstract: The authors document the recent evolution of the self-employment rate in Canada. Between 1987 and 1998, the self-employment rate rose 3.5 percentage points from 13.8 per cent to 17.3 per cent. In contrast, over the 1999 to 2002 period, the self-employment rate fell by 1.9 percentage points, returning the self-employment rate in 2002 to a level only 0.2 percentage points higher than in 1992. The authors explore the possible explanations for this reversal. They describe trends in self-employment by age, gender, and types of self-employment, and then decompose the changes in the self-employment rate into the fraction due to shifts in the industrial structure and the proportion due to changes within each industry. The authors also examine the role of the business cycle and other macroeconomic factors, such as tax rates.
    Keywords: Labour markets
    JEL: J23 J24
    Date: 2005
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:05-8&r=ent
  4. By: Nooteboom,Bart (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research)
    Abstract: This chapter offers a theory and an analytical framework for the analysis of cluster dynamics, i.e. the innovative performance and evolution of clusters. It develops three types of embedding: institutional embedding, structural embedding (network structure), and relational embedding (type and strength of ties). The analysis is conducted from a perspective of both competence (learning) arising from relations and governance of relational risk, which includes risk of lock-in and risk of spillover. A basic proposition is that innovative clusters face the challenge of combining exploration and exploitation. Hypotheses are specified concerning differences between networks for exploration and exploitation, and concerning combinations and transitions between them. Arguments are presented that in some important respects go against the thesis of the strength of weak ties . Some empirical evidence is presented from recent studies.
    JEL: L14
    Date: 2005
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:200544&r=ent
  5. By: Nooteboom,Bart (Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research)
    Abstract: This paper reconstructs the long-term development of retailing, including industrial, economic and social antecedents and consequences. Among other things, it includes innovation in the form of the emergence and diffusion of successive novel types of shop (including self-service), relations between large and small firms in innovation and diffusion, change of demand conditions, institutional change concerning the opening time of shops, increase of scale and concentration, and social effects. For the analysis of the process and costs of retailing, use is made of queuing theory rather than customary production functions. The reconstruction is conducted in evolutionary terms of selection, variety generation and transmission. Scripts with nodes for component activities are used in analogy to chromosomes composed of genes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the usefulness of evolutionary economics, and offers suggestions for its development.
    JEL: B52 L22 L81 M13 O31 O33
    Date: 2005
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:dgr:kubcen:200548&r=ent
  6. By: Mário Rui Silva (CEDRES, Faculdade de Economia do Porto); Hermano Rodrigues (Faculdade de Economia do Porto)
    Abstract: Public-private partnerships (PPP) are a recent instrument for social and economic development policies. Within the framework of competitiveness policy, PPP are an adequate instrument to promote collective entrepreneurship. Through this instrument, some market failures can be overcome and a better provision of strategic services can be afforded to firms. Also, PPP can be able to promote co-ordination between public and private partners and lead to specific innovative networks. PPP correspond to a more decentralised policy and they are supposed to increase focus and effectiveness and to involve agencies that are closer to firms and that have a more narrow range of objectives. In this contribution, we analyse the pattern of the so-called partnerships projects, approved between 2000 and the 30th june of 2003 in the framework of the Portuguese Operational Program for the Economy. By using HOMALS and K-means cluster analysis, we were able to characterise PPP and to identify typical clusters for the PPP projects. On one hand, the results show that policy decentralization brought by partnerships has promoted or reinforced a more specialized institutional framework (mainly national, sectoral or regional entrepreneurial associations). But, on the other hand, PPP had a small impact in the promotion of specific networks and/or in innovation. Collective entrepreneurship induced by PPP instrument has presented a clear bias toward the provision of services that have a public or semi-public nature, by the fact that firms that can use these services are in a large number (all the firms of a sub sector or even larger universes). But technological projects and/or projects addressed to specific networks of firms were very few. In particular, the impact of PPP on structural change seems to have been short.
    Keywords: Public-private partnerships; Competitiveness policy; Entrepreneurship; Collective entrepreneurship
    JEL: M13 H50 O20 C14
    Date: 2005–04
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:fepwps:172&r=ent
  7. By: Nicola Boccella
    Date: 2005–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ufg:qdsems:08-2005&r=ent

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