Risk, Balanced Skills and Entrepreneurship

This paper proposes that risk aversion encourages individuals to invest in balanced skill profiles, making them more likely to become entrepreneurs. By not having taken this possible linkage into account, previous research has underestimated the impacts both of risk aversion and balanced skills on the likelihood individuals choose entrepreneurship. Data on Dutch university graduates provides evidence which supports this contention. It thereby raises the possibility that even risk-averse people might be suited to entrepreneurship; and it may also help explain why prior research has generated mixed evidence about the effects of risk aversion on selection into entrepreneurship.entrepreneurship, jack-of-all-trades, risk, human capital, occupational choice

Risk, balanced skills and entrepreneurship

This paper proposes that risk aversion encourages individuals to invest in balanced skill profiles, making them more likely to become entrepreneurs. By not taking this possible linkage into account, previous research has underestimated the impacts of both risk aversion and balanced skills on the likelihood individuals choose entrepreneurship. Data on Dutch university graduates provide an illustration supporting our contention. We raise the possibility that even risk-averse people might be suited to entrepreneurship; and it may also help explain why prior research has generated somewhat mixed evidence about the effects of risk aversion on selection into entrepreneurship

Explicitly searching for useful inventions: dynamic relatedness and the costs of connecting versus synthesizing

Inventions combine technological features. When features are barely related, burdensomely broad knowledge is required to identify the situations that they share. When features are overly related, burdensomely broad knowledge is required to identify the situations that distinguish them. Thus, according to my first hypothesis, when features are moderately related, the costs of connecting and costs of synthesizing are cumulatively minimized, and the most useful inventions emerge. I also hypothesize that continued experimentation with a specific set of features is likely to lead to the discovery of decreasingly useful inventions; the earlier-identified connections reflect the more common consumer situations. Covering data from all industries, the empirical analysis provides broad support for the first hypothesis. Regressions to test the second hypothesis are inconclusive when examining industry types individually. Yet, this study represents an exploratory investigation, and future research should test refined hypotheses with more sophisticated data, such as that found in literature-based discovery research

Does Ownership affect the Variability of the Production Process? Evidence from International Courier Services

While transaction-cost economics has considered the effect of make-or-buy decisions on expected product performance, research has not explored the effect of make-or-buy decisions on variability of product performance (i.e., reliability). We argue that firms that differentiate their products by pursuing low variability face exchange attributes for which outsourcing the corresponding performs worse than vertical integration. Nonparametric density estimation and parametric tests of variance from Japanese International Courier and Small Packages services industry data provide general support for our hypothesis

Risk, Balanced Skills and Entrepreneurship

This paper proposes that risk aversion encourages individuals to invest in balancedskill profiles, making them more likely to become entrepreneurs. By not havingtaken this possible linkage into account, previous research has underestimated the impactsboth of risk aversion and balanced skills on the likelihood individuals chooseentrepreneurship. Data on Dutch university graduates provides evidence which supportsthis contention. It thereby raises the possibility that even risk-averse peoplemight be suited to entrepreneurship; and it may also help explain why prior researchhas generated mixed evidence about the effects of risk aversion on selection into entrepreneurship.entrepreneurship; jack-of-all-trades; risk; human capital; occupational choice