As economists and policymakers debate the details of how and when the nation will recover from the recession, the topic of entrepreneurship and the role it will play in shaping the new economy continually arises. In the coming years, some analysts predict a rise in entrepreneurship both as a result of massive layoffs and an aging workforce not yet ready or able to retire.
As the U.S. has experienced rising unemployment rates during the recent economic downturn, larger numbers of individuals with technology-based skills are finding themselves out of work. One policy option to seize the moment is to engage the unemployed, assisting them on a path to starting their own business. But what are the characteristics and family backgrounds of the general population who have become successful tech-based entrepreneurs?
Entrepreneurship education courses continue to appear across the country. A large-scale commitment was announced recently, as eight Arkansas two-year colleges will offer degrees and certificates in entrepreneurship this fall. The broad availability is expected to help create a culture of entrepreneurship that extends from regions capitalizing in the emerging fields of bioscience and nanotechnology research to the rural pockets of the state in need of high-paying jobs.
Last month, Gov. Jennifer Granholm announced legislative approval of two TBED priorities unveiled during her State of the State Address, a program supporting in-state entrepreneurs and continued investment in an initiative to train displaced workers.
A consortium of Michigan’s 15 public universities recently announced a decade-long initiative to launch 200 new businesses in the state. The Michigan Initiative for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (MIIE) plans to raise and distribute $75 million over the next seven years through grants for commercialization projects, university-industry partnerships and entrepreneurship education.
The under-30 crowd may be the early adopters of many of the new gadgets in our lives - and the young techies who quickly became billionaires producing those toys may grab all the headlines - but a new study reveals most U.S.-born technology and engineering company founders are actually middle-aged, well educated and hold degrees from a wide assortment of universities.
Using data from the Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances, the authors examine characteristics of entrepreneurs and the businesses they run. Their analysis confirms that business owners are important sources of saving and wealth creation in the U.S. and that they are less risk averse than other wealthy households. This discounts the notion that the wealth of entrepreneurs disproportionately reflects a buildup of precautionary balances to guard against financial risk.
The authors investigate the relationship between firms entry characteristics and their subsequent performance contingent on environmental turbulence and stage of industry life cycle by simulating industry as an NKC landscape. Diversifying entrants differ from entrepreneurial startups in terms of the complexity of their routines. They posit that diversifying entrants outperform the entrepreneurial start-ups when the turbulence is high. Further, learning - possible in the later industry stages - disproportionately favors the entrepreneurial start-ups.
Questioning the underlying assumptions of the process of creative destruction, the authors conceptualize an alternative process of creative construction that may characterize the dynamics between entrants and incumbents. They discuss the underlying mechanism of knowledge spillover strategic entrepreneurship whereby knowledge investments by existing organizations, when coupled with entrepreneurial action by individuals embedded in their context, results in new venture creation, heterogeneity in performance and subsequent growth in industries, regions and economies.