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on Entrepreneurship |
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Issue of 2013‒07‒20
seven papers chosen by Marcus Dejardin University of Namur and Universite' Catholique de Louvain |
| By: | Vera Rocha (Universidade do Porto, cef.up and CIPES); Anabela Carneiro (Universidade do Porto and cef.up); Celeste Amorim Varum (Universidade de Aveiro, DEGEI and GOVCOPP) |
| Abstract: | It remains a question whether serial entrepreneurs typically perform better than their novice counterparts owing to learning by doing e¤ects or mostly because they are a selected sample of higher-than-average ability entrepreneurs. This paper tries to unravel these two effects by exploring a novel empirical strategy based on continuous time duration models with selection. We use a large longitudinal matched employer-employee dataset that allows us to track almost 220,000 individuals who have left their first entrepreneurial experience. Over 35,000 serial entrepreneurs are identified and followed in their second business, in order to evaluate how entrepreneurial experience acquired in the previous business improves persistence by reducing their exit rates. Our results show that serial entrepreneurs are not a random selection of ex-business-owners. The positive association found between prior experience and serial entrepreneurs' survival is mainly due to selection on ability, rather than the result of learning by doing. |
| Keywords: | Serial Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurial Experience, Learning, Selection |
| JEL: | D83 J24 L26 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:por:cetedp:1312&r=ent |
| By: | Stuetzer, Michael; Obschonka, Martin; Davidsson, Per; Schmitt-Rodermund, Eva |
| Abstract: | Applying Lazear’s jack-of-all-trades theory we investigate the formation of entrepreneurial skills in two datasets on innovative new firms. Our results suggest that traditional human capital indicators individually have little or no influence on entrepreneurial skills. However, consistent with Lazaer’s theory those entrepreneurs who exhibit a varied set of work experience have higher entrepreneurial skills relevant for starting and growing a firm. This supports the notion that a varied set of work experiences rather than depth of any particular type of experience or education is important for the development of entrepreneurial skills. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurial skills; jack-of-all trades; new venture creation; human capital |
| JEL: | J24 L26 M13 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48274&r=ent |
| By: | Matthew Lee (Harvard Business School); Julie Battilana (Harvard Business School, Organizational Behavior Unit) |
| Abstract: | Hybrid organizations that combine multiple, existing organizational forms are frequently proposed as a source of organizational innovation, yet little is known about the origins of such organizations. We propose that individual founders of hybrid organizations acquire imprints from past exposure to work environments, thus predisposing them to incorporate the associated logics in their subsequent ventures, even when doing so requires deviation from established organizational templates. We test our theory on a novel dataset of over 700 founders of social ventures, all guided by a social welfare logic. Some of them also incorporate a commercial logic along with the social welfare logic, thereby creating a hybrid social venture. We find evidence of three sources of commercial imprints: the founder's own, direct work experience, as well as the indirect influence of parental work experiences and professional education. Our findings further suggest that the effects of direct imprinting are strongest from the early tenure of for-profit experience, but diminish with longer tenure. In supplementary analyses, we parse out differences between the sources of imprints and discuss implications for how imprinting functions as an antecedent to the creation of new, hybrid forms. |
| Keywords: | hybrid organizations, imprinting, institutional theory, social entrepreneurship |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hbs:wpaper:14-005&r=ent |
| By: | Florian Scheuer |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes Pareto optimal non-linear taxation of profits and labor income in a private information economy with endogenous firm formation. Individuals differ in both their skill and their cost of setting up a firm, and choose between becoming workers and entrepreneurs. I show that a tax system in which entrepreneurial profits and labor income must be subject to the same non-linear tax schedule makes use of general equilibrium (or "trickle down'') effects through wages to indirectly achieve redistribution between entrepreneurs and workers. As a result, constrained Pareto optimal policies can involve low marginal tax rates at the top and, if available, input taxes that distort the firms' input choices. However, these properties disappear when a differential tax treatment of profits and labor income is possible. In this case, redistribution is achieved directly through the tax system rather than "trickle down'' effects, and production efficiency is always optimal. |
| JEL: | D5 D8 E2 E6 H2 J2 J3 J6 |
| Date: | 2013–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:19235&r=ent |
| By: | Dutz, Mark A. |
| Abstract: | This paper argues that the increased flow and management of knowledge permitted by knowledge-based capital, supported by appropriate policies, can be an important factor in reducing the decision risk facing enterprises due to uncertainty and imperfect information, helping improve the resilience of development outcomes. Enterprises are conceptualized as information platforms that manage risk through investments in knowledge-based capital and complementary assets, providing them with the knowledge, protection/enabling, insurance, and coping/leveraging abilities to make better decisions in response to shocks. Investments in knowledge-based capital allow enterprises to better convert voluntary but risky reallocation and innovation decisions into productivity and wealth-enhancing opportunities. They can help the enterprise sector as a whole and most people to self-protect and realize better jobs, earnings, and consumption outcomes by adapting to shocks. However, absent appropriate policies, knowledge-based capital can have adverse distributional effects -- including a skewed industrial concentration of productivity gains and more unequal consumption and income-earning outcomes between rich and poor people. The paper discusses the role of policy in facilitating risk management by enterprises, ultimately to reduce poverty and boost shared prosperity. Insufficient enterprise risk-taking is costly for the enterprise sector and the economy as it results in too little experimentation and learning. The paper argues that governments should create business environments that stimulate entrepreneurial risk-taking to invest in market and social opportunities that combine new technologies with appropriately-skilled workers. Policies allowing people to better confront and manage their risks include: (1) spurring entrepreneurial experimentation; (2) supporting skills upgrading; and (3) promoting mechanisms for joint learning through global collaboration. |
| Keywords: | Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,E-Business,Debt Markets |
| Date: | 2013–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6534&r=ent |
| By: | Stuetzer, Michael; Obschonka, Martin; Brixy, Udo; Sternberg, Rolf; Cantner, Uwe |
| Abstract: | This paper seeks to better understand the link between regional characteristics and individual entrepreneurship. We combine individual-level GEM data for Western Germany with regional-level data, using multi-level analysis to test our hypotheses. We find no direct link between regional knowledge creation, the economic context and an entrepreneurial culture on the one side and individual business start-up intentions and start-up activity on the other side. However our findings point to the importance of an indirect effect of regional characteristics as knowledge creation, the economic context and an entrepreneurial culture have an effect on the individual perception of founding opportunities which in turn predicted start-up intentions and activity. |
| Keywords: | Regional entrepreneurship; nascent entrepreneurship; opportunity perception; creative class; Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) |
| JEL: | J24 L26 M13 |
| Date: | 2013 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:48277&r=ent |
| By: | Oberhofer, Harald; Vincelette, Gallina A |
| Abstract: | This paper builds on the analysis of job creation developed in World Bank (2013) to provide an empirical investigation of the industry and firm-specific determinants of the job creation process in eleven new European Union (EU11) economies. It relies on the Amadeus dataset of firms during 2002-2009. The main results indicate that during the years prior to the global financial crisis, traditional industries were crucial for the net creation of jobs in EU11. However, traditional industries were the ones most severely affected by the financial crisis. By contrast, services firms were less vulnerable to the economic downturn. At the firm level, small and young firms registered the highest employment growth rates. The empirical results also indicate that more productive firms tended to be less vulnerable to economic downturns. Moreover, the results demonstrate that the perceived quality of the business climate by the EU11 enterprises is correlated with not only the firms'employment growth, but also their productivity. In the post-crisis period, poor business restrictions were negatively associated with the creation of jobs. All these findings hold for the group of high-growth firms that disproportionately accounted for the creation of new jobs in the EU11 economies. |
| Keywords: | Labor Markets,Microfinance,Small Scale Enterprise,Environmental Economics&Policies,Labor Policies |
| Date: | 2013–07–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:6533&r=ent |