entrepreneurship

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.

This article suggests that entrepreneurs who have been involved in start-ups that have gone bankrupt generally do not become more capable managers because of that experience. Instead, they tend to be intimidated when embarking on their next venture, which often leads that firm to generate fewer new jobs.

This paper documents discussions at an entrepreneurial forum held by the Max Plank Institute, and introduces a collection of articles on the subject of entrepreneurial opportunity.

While U.S. entrepreneurial performance continues to lead the world by almost any measure, this report shows that other nations are catching up to the United States. The report also highlights that the U.S. environment for entrepreneurial activity faces its own challenges and opportunities in the 21st century.