Exploring the relationship between media coverage and participation in entrepreneurship: Initial global evidence and research implications |
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Authors: | Kevin Hindle Kim Klyver |
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Institution: | (1) Australian Graduate School of Entrepreneurship, Swinburne University of Technology, 50 Wakefield Street, Hawthorn, Victoria, 3122, Australia |
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Abstract: | Using a set of variables measured in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) study, our empirical investigation explored
the influence of mass media through national culture on national entrepreneurial participation rates in 37 countries over
4 years (2000 to 2003). We found that stories about successful entrepreneurs, conveyed in mass media, were not significantly
associated with the rate of nascent (opportunity searching) or the rate of actual (business activities commenced up to 3 months
old) start-up activity, but that there was a significant positive association between the volume of entrepreneurship media stories and
a nation’s volume of people running a young business (that is in GEM terminology, a business aged greater than 3 but less than 42 months old). More particularly, such
stories had strong positive association with opportunity oriented operators of young businesses. Together, these findings are compatible with what in the mass communications theory literature
may be called the ‘reinforcement model’. This argues that mass media are only capable of reinforcing their audience’s existing
values and choice propensities but are not capable of shaping or changing those values and choices. In the area covered by
this paper, policy-makers are committing public resources to media campaigns of doubtful utility in the absence of an evidence
base. A main implication drawn from this study is the need for further and more sophisticated investigation into the relationship
between media coverage of entrepreneurship, national culture and the rates and nature of people’s participation in the various
stages of the entrepreneurial process.
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Keywords: | Mass media Reinforcement theory Entrepreneurship Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) |
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