Organizational Mortality of Small Firms: The Effects of Entrepreneurial Age and Human Capital

This paper addresses the issue of internal determination of organizational outcomes. It is argued that in small and simply structured organizations a considerable proportion of the variance in organizational activities and outcomes is associated with individuals. In particular, the paper uses human capital theory to derive hypotheses about individual determinants of organizational mortality. These hypotheses are tested with event-history data of firm registrations and de-registrations in a West German region. The hypotheses are corroborated by the data, but the effects may nonetheless be due to processes linking individual characteristics with organizational performance other than those suggested by the human capital approach

Do service sector trends stimulate entrepreneurship? A socio-economic labour market perspective

The aim of this paper is to discuss the service sector trends in relation to the issue of entrepreneurship. Talking about entrepreneurship in service industries means talking about a variety of items and related academic fields. The paper tries to concentrate on one specific thematic area by taking a labour market perspective and by combining changes in the division of work and occupations with the division of firms and related dynamics in the firm population. The results of discussion can be summarised: very much of the revival of entrepreneurship goes hand in hand with the broader service sector trend and within the new service sector domain, not always spectacular new firms with dynamics towards growth and job creation exist but also those which are small and remain small as micro firms. Finally, the emerging service sector trend coincides with the trend towards a so-called knowledge economy and a revival of new self-employed independent knowledge-workers.new service development; self-employment; micro-firms; entrepreneurship; services; socioeconomics; labour market; service sector trends; knowledge economy; knowledge workers.