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on Entrepreneurship |
| By: | Berfin Kardaslar; Alexander S. Kritikos; Lukas Menkhoff |
| Abstract: | In this study, we examine the relationship between personality traits, captured by risk tolerance and the Big Five traits, and firm size, as measured by the number of employees. We show that the personality of entrepreneurs matters for the size of their firm they operate. We use a novel add-on to the German Socio-Economic Panel that includes a sub-sample of owner-managers running larger firms. High levels of risk tolerance – associated with an increased likelihood of firm exit in existing research – is positively associated with firm size for entrepreneurs in the market. High scores in extraversion are also associated with larger firms. However, a high level of openness for experience, a main driver of founding ventures, is negatively related to firm size. Overall, we show that running larger firms is associated with traits that are partially different from those that increase the likelihood of entrepreneurial entry or survival. |
| Keywords: | Entrepreneurship, risk tolerance, Big Five personality traits, firm size |
| JEL: | L26 J24 |
| Date: | 2026 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:diw:diwsop:diw_sp1242 |
| By: | Pandit, Rajendra (University of Nepal); Stratton, Leslie (Virginia Commonwealth University) |
| Abstract: | Firm failures have far-reaching consequences for employees, investors, communities, and the broader economy. Less productive firms are generally more likely to fail. However, high productivity may come at a cost that hampers survival, especially during sudden, unforeseen crises such as COVID-19. Using data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in 20 European countries, this study tests whether there was a nonlinear association between productivity and survival during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings suggest that SMEs with below-average productivity relative to their industry were more likely to shut down, whereas firms with exceptionally high productivity do not experience additional survival advantages. These results, while not causal, also hold across alternative SME definitions, underscoring the robustness of the results. |
| Keywords: | firm closure, COVID-19, relative productivity |
| JEL: | D24 L25 G33 O30 |
| Date: | 2026–08 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18869 |
| By: | Leogrande, Angelo; di Molfetta, Mauro; Nortarnicola, Valeria; Trotta, Maria Giovanna; Magaletti, Nicola |
| Abstract: | Italy's special legal status for "innovative" small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) grants fiscal, financial and administrative benefits intended to strengthen competitiveness, yet whether the status marks a distinctive profile of realised firm performance remains empirically underexplored. Using ten years of balance-sheet data assembled within the LUCE (LUtech Campus Ecosystem) research project on 4, 043 firms (2, 873 innovative and 1, 170 ordinary), we compare the two populations across six performance dimensions—performance persistence, revenue growth, labour productivity, operating profitability, earnings volatility and financial stability. Because the populations differ systematically in size, sector and location, we use propensity-score matching (1, 031 balanced pairs) and interpret the resulting differential as a conditional innovative-status premium rather than as a causal effect. Innovative SMEs display a large and robust revenue-growth premium—a median growth rate roughly three-and-a-half times that of matched ordinary peers (+17.3 percentage points per year; rank-biserial 0.53)—coexisting with a fragility penalty of higher earnings volatility and lower financial stability; operating profitability is higher but does not survive our robustness battery, and labour productivity is marginally lower. A within-firm event study around the registration date shows that the growth advantage largely predates registration, indicating that the status certifies and renders visible already-dynamic firms rather than causally upgrading them. The premium is strongly and significantly heterogeneous across space—broadest in the South, where local institutions are weakest—consistent with an institutional-substitution boundary condition that a formal region-by-status interaction confirms. The results are robust to nine alternative estimators, multiple-testing correction and hidden-bias diagnostics. We read the innovative-firm register as an informative screening and monitoring device rather than as a policy whose causal returns we measure. |
| Date: | 2026–07–29 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:h5d7r_v1 |
| By: | Fang, Tony (Memorial University of Newfoundland); Harrison, Jennifer (EM Normandie Business School) |
| Abstract: | This practitioner insights paper draws on employer perspectives to examine the challenges and opportunities of AI adoption in SMEs and to develop policy insights to enhance productivity and support sustainable careers. Policy insights are derived from a survey of 1, 700 business owners, executives, and senior managers, with particular attention to SMEs operating in Atlantic Canada. We find that employers associated AI with productivity and efficiency gains, although adoption remained patchy across firms and regions. Many reported uncertainties regarding future skill needs, emphasized compliance training, and viewed AI primarily as a productivity tool. This paper offers rare employer perspectives on the intersection of AI, productivity, and sustainable careers to inform policy. Policymakers and multiple actors across the sustainable career ecosystem can support SME productivity by strengthening digital capabilities, workforce planning systems, and regional skills ecosystems. Such efforts may help ensure that AI adoption contributes to both productivity and sustainable career outcomes. |
| Keywords: | AI, productivity, sustainable careers, SMEs, workforce development |
| JEL: | J21 J23 J24 J28 |
| Date: | 2026–07 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18837 |
| By: | Abushama, Hala; Jovanovic, Nina; Abay, Kibrom A.; Siddig, Khalid; Simbeko, Guy; Sekabira, Haruna |
| Abstract: | Sudan’s ongoing conflict has severely disrupted agricultural systems, markets, and rural livelihoods. In this context, resilience-oriented agricultural support remains critical for sustaining food production, protecting livelihoods, and supporting local economic recovery. The Sudan Enhancing Community Resilience Project (THABAT) provides resilience-oriented agricultural support that is critical for sustaining food production, protecting livelihoods, and supporting local economic recovery (‘thabat’ in Arabic means ‘stability’ or ‘firmness’). The project is a USD 130 million initiative financed through the Sudan Transition and Recovery Support Trust Fund (STARS) Multi-Donor Trust Fund. This report focuses on the small -and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) sub-component of Component 2 of the project, which aims to improve food security through supporting farmers, SMEs, and consumer cooperatives to enhance value addition in agricultural value chains. This component of the THABAT project is being implemented by the World Food Programme (WFP) through Mercy Corps. Specifically, this report presents the initial findings from interviews with 100 small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) active in the agrifood sector that have been shortlisted to receive support through a matching grant element of the THABAT project. The surveyed SMEs are quite diverse in the nature of their enterprises—crop production, agricultural input supply, agrifood processing and packaging, storage, transport, and a range of postharvest services. WFP and Mercy Corps identified the SMEs that were included in the survey sample, which comprises both selected and unselected SMEs for the THABAT matching grant. Baseline data from the sample SMEs were collected using computer-assisted telephone interviews (CATI). This baseline report serves as a description of the status quo for SMEs in the THABAT project zone at the start of the project. The findings indicate that SMEs there have relatively good access to basic infrastructure and digital technologies. More than 90 percent report access to electricity, water, and internet services, although electricity reliability remains limited. The operators of the SMEs generally demonstrate strong growth ambitions, with most expecting increases in capital investment, workforce size, and market expansion in the coming year. This baseline report serves as a description of the status quo for SMEs in the THABAT project zone at the start of the project. The findings indicate that SMEs there have relatively good access to basic infrastructure and digital technologies. More than 90 percent report access to electricity, water, and internet services, although electricity reliability remains limited. The operators of the SMEs generally demonstrate strong growth ambitions, with most expecting increases in capital investment, workforce size, and market expansion in the coming year. The SMEs operate in a challenging business environment characterized by inflation, market disruptions, supply chain constraints, and recurring shocks. More than 90 percent reported experiencing at least one shock during the previous year, while concerns regarding corruption, governance, and limited access to finance remain widespread. At the same time, these SMEs maintain strong linkages with other actors in the agricultural value chains in which they operate and demonstrate considerable resilience and willingness to invest and grow despite many challenges. Overall, these initial SME baseline results show the critical roles SMEs are playing in creating value addition in agricultural value chains despite the challenging business environment and inefficiencies in markets in Sudan. These data, along with those to be collected through a planned endline survey of the same SMEs, will enable assessments to be made of the type of impacts the matching grants and associated business development support offered by the THABAT project had on SME performance and resilience. |
| Keywords: | capacity building; resilience; value chains; agricultural value chains; small and medium enterprises; Sudan; Africa; Northern Africa |
| Date: | 2026–07–28 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fpr:ssspwp:184053 |
| By: | Wasti, Hiba Syeda Asad |
| Abstract: | Women’s entrepreneurship in Pakistan is shaped by intersecting social, institutional, and economic constraints, including gender norms, household bargaining structures, mobility restrictions, limited access to finance, unequal digital access, and low participation in formal labor markets. As digital platforms, mobile payments, social commerce, and online marketplaces expand across emerging economies, they create new opportunities for women’s enterprise participation while also reproducing existing inequalities in skills, visibility, trust, and institutional support. This paper reviews social-science literature on women’s economic agency, entrepreneurship, digital inclusion, and gendered labor-market barriers, using Pakistan as a country case. Rather than treating digital market access only as a business-growth opportunity, the paper examines how digital access interacts with social norms, family expectations, market institutions, and women’s ability to exercise economic choice. The paper proposes a conceptual framework linking five dimensions of women’s enterprise participation: digital capability, financial inclusion, market access, social legitimacy, and institutional trust. It argues that women-led enterprise development in Pakistan requires attention not only to platforms and markets but also to the social conditions that shape women’s agency, mobility, and legitimacy as economic actors. |
| Date: | 2026–07–13 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osf:socarx:5azn2_v2 |
| By: | Dolado, Juan (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid); Puch, Luis (Universidad Complutense de Madrid); Wellschmied, Felix (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid) |
| Abstract: | Using Social Security (SocS) records covering the universe of Spanish employees and firms, we compare firms' employment dynamics between 2013-2024 to those obtained from the Bank of Spain's microdata drawn from firms' balance sheets (CBI) as well as those of U.S. firms. Compared with CBI, SocS reveals less volatile aggregate employment growth and higher job reallocation rates driven by firms' large employment adjustments. Worker reallocation in Spain remains below U.S. levels and did not decline after the 2022 labor reform. SocS also highlights the central role of small firms in Spanish job creation and documents a left-shifted firm-size distribution relative to the U.S. Start-ups entering smaller, having lower survival probabilities, and weaker employment growth among survivors all contribute to a smaller Spanish firm size. |
| Keywords: | job flows, worker flows, firm dynamics |
| JEL: | J21 J40 J60 |
| Date: | 2026–06 |
| URL: | https://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp18755 |