The evolution of corporate entrepreneurship in Swedish industry—was Schumpeter wrong?

This paper analyzes the evolution and role of corporate entrepreneurship in Swedish industry, particularly for the 1945–1980 period, based on data on the 100 economically most important innovations during this period. Privately owned large corporations (Schumpeter Mark II) dominated in launching innovations in almost all industrial sectors and in all subperiods but decreasingly so. 20% of the innovations were launched by new firms (Schumpeter Mark I) but most of these new firms were spun-off and/or acquired by large corporations. State entrepreneurship was marginal. Universities played an important role, although sector-specific. New firms and existing firms had similar growth rates and almost identical and short gestation times to international markets for their innovations. 80% of the corporate innovations were product renewals rather than product diversifications or process innovations. No evidence of an evolution from autonomous over corporate to state entrepreneurship, as hypothesized by Schumpeter, was found. Evolution of a dynamic coexistence of. these forms of entrepreneurship is hypothesized in this paper. The paper finally presents a model, synthesizing Schumpeter Mark I and II, for analyzing technological change and entrepreneurship.     

员工企业家精神对绩效的影响机制研究——调节焦点视角

在现有企业家精神与绩效之间的关系研究中，个体层面上，员工企业家精神对企业绩效的影响机制，尤其关于工作中员工通过如何自我调节达成这一目标的研究方兴未艾。基于调节焦点的观点，将防御焦点、促进焦点视为员工企业家精神对任务绩效和创新绩效影响的两条中介作用路径，通过对一家中国500强企业521名员工的两阶段配对数据进行统计分析，结果表明：员工企业家精神对任务绩效和创新绩效的积极影响并非是二元对立的；员工企业家精神是防御焦点和促进焦点的积极前因变量。此外，防御焦点和促进焦点分别中介员工企业家精神与任务绩效及创新绩效间的关系。     

Swedish tribalism and Tanzanian entrepreneurship: preconditions for trust formation

The aim of this paper is to explore the relationship between entrepreneurship and the structure of the periphery. The objective is to reach an understanding of the entrepreneurial process within the context of the periphery, which is traditionally seen as a poor environment. The paper considers the concept of peripherality and identifies a process of gravitation that drains higher order services towards the core. However, this deterministic model does not correspond with the realities of the Scottish Highlands. The paradox is that new businesses are being created that appear to use old redundant peripheral values such as tradition. It is argued that it is the social construction of the periphery that produces this post-modern change. The qualitative methodology indicates the emergence of a new spatial paradigm of aesthetic consumption. Two indicative case studies are presented which show that entrepreneurship is the creation and extraction of value from the environment. Their businesses are the commodification of non-material and aesthetic values. Further analysis of these data demonstrates that entrepreneurs interpret their own version of the environment, rather than merely reacting to it. In turn, they enact this interpretation which forms the basis of their businesses.     

Can Institutional Change Impact High-technology Firm Growth?: Evidence from Germany’s Neuer Markt

To facilitate the transformation of the German economy from the traditional manufacturing industries towards emerging new technologies, a new segment of the Frankfurt exchange was introduced in 1997 — the Neuer Markt. To examine whether the Neuer Markt was successful, we compare the relationship between firm size and growth for firms listed on the Neuer Markt and contrast the results with two benchmarks: (1) for German firms prior to the 1990s (to reflect the older traditional manufacturing sector) and (2) for the stylized results for the US. This study provides evidence that not only did many new firms obtain funding from the Neuer Markt; but that for the first time in recent history, Germany succeeded in enabling smaller firms to grow faster than larger firms. This suggests that the new policies were not only successful in promoting a new type of firm that otherwise might not exist, but in transforming the sources of growth and innovation within the German economy.     

Human capital determinants of the survival of entrepreneurial service firms in Spain

The claim of this paper is that an entrepreneur’s human capital constitutes a key determinant of the survival time of new service industry companies created in Spain. To confirm this claim, a series of survival models has been specified and estimated for a sample of 237 Spanish service industry companies founded by one or more entrepreneurs between the years 2000 and 2004. We found that (1) both general and specific human capital have a positive impact on the survival time of a new firm and (2) human capital is accumulative, in the sense that the larger the number of entrepreneurs founding the company, the longer its survival time. We find that the specific aspects of human capital that are determinants of a company’s survival time are gender, previous work experience in the same activity or as the owner of a firm, and the number of partners. However, educational and training characteristics do not play a relevant role as regards a firm’s survival time. These facts suggest the presence of a gap between the objectives and results of current entrepreneurial-oriented training in Spain.     

EDUCATION AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP SELECTION AND PERFORMANCE: A REVIEW OF THE EMPIRICAL LITERATURE

Abstract This paper provides a review of empirical studies into the impact of formal schooling on entrepreneurship selection and performance in industrial countries. We describe the main effects found in the literature, we explain the variance in results across almost a hundred studies, and we put the empirical results in the context of related economic theory and the much further developed literature in labor economics (studying the rate of return to education among wage employees). Five main conclusions result from this meta‐analysis. First, the impact of education on selection into entrepreneurship is insignificant. Second, the effect of education on performance is positive and significant. Third, the return to a marginal year of schooling is 6.1% for an entrepreneur. Fourth, the effect of education on earnings is smaller for entrepreneurs than for employees in Europe, but larger in the USA. Fifth, the returns to schooling in entrepreneurship are higher in the USA than in Europe, higher for females than for males, and lower for non‐whites or immigrants. In conclusion, we offer a number of suggestions to move the research frontier in this area of inquiry. The entrepreneurship literature on education can benefit from the technical sophistication used to estimate the returns to schooling for employees.     

Making a little go further: Capital and the New Zealand entrepreneur

Using case analysis, this article examines the sources of start-up and development capital for 133 entrepreneurs who began commercial enterprises in New Zealand between 1880 and 1910. Though capital markets were immature, entrepreneurs overcame this limitation by employing capital economizing techniques to start firms, and then continued to exert managerial control by reinvesting profits rather than borrowing. The results of this investigation offer a comment on the prevailing firm structure in New Zealand, as well as providing a partial explanation for the capacity building noted by other economic historians during this recessionary period in New Zealand economic history.     

Entrepreneurial actions and optimistic overconfidence: The role of motivated reasoning in new product introductions

Optimistic overconfidence (OO), that is, being certain of success only to end up disappointed, represents a potentially catastrophic error. However, few studies have identified which entrepreneurial actions are associated with it. To explore this issue, we examined 55 small companies and found that OO of product success was positively related to introducing products that required more resources and were more pioneering. Furthermore, satisfaction with company performance had a curvilinear (U-shaped) relationship with overconfidence. Both high and low levels of satisfaction were associated with greater OO in product introductions. In addition, the bias was positively correlated with entering hostile environments; that is, environments that are characterized by intense competition that threatens a firm and its introductions. Contrary to expectations, however, OO was negatively associated with environmental dynamism; defined as environments that embody frequent and large changes. The research also compared general knowledge overconfidence to OO, concluding that each represents a distinct bias with distinct effects.     

Sustaining entrepreneurial business: A complexity perspective on processes that produce emergent practice

This article examines the management practices in an entrepreneurial small firm which sustain the business. Using a longitudinal qualitative case study, four general processes are identified (experimentation, reflexivity, organising and sensing), that together provide a mechanism to sustain the enterprise. The analysis draws on concepts from entrepreneurship and complexity science. We suggest that an entrepreneur’s awareness of the role of these parallel processes will facilitate their approaches to sustaining and developing enterprises. We also suggest that these processes operate in parallel at multiple levels, including the self, the business and inter-firm networks. This finding contributes to a general theory of entrepreneurship. A number of areas for further research are discussed arising from this result.     

Knowledge spillovers in biotechnology: sources and incentives

This paper sheds light on the questions, Why does knowledge spill over? and How does knowledge spill over? The answer to these questions we suggest lies in the incentives confronting scientists to appropriate the expected value of their knowledge considered in the context of their path-dependent career trajectories. In particular, we focus on the ability of scientists to appropriate the value of knowledge embedded in their human capital along with the incentive structure influencing if and how scientists choose to commercialize their knowledge. We conclude that the spillover of knowledge from the source creating it, such as a university, research institute, or industrial corporation, to a new-firm startup facilitates the appropriation of knowledge for the individual scientist(s) but not necessarily for the organization creating that new knowledge in the first place.