Do social networks affect entrepreneurship? A test of the fundamental assumption using large sample, longitudinal data

This study empirically tests the assumptions that most research into entrepreneurial networks are based upon. Empirical data were drawn from Australia’s participation in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project (GEM) from 2000-2005 – an aggregate sample of 14,205 randomly selected Australians. The study demonstrated: (1) statistically significant differences in social networks when entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs are compared and (2) that the structural diversity of social networks changes during the entrepreneurial process. It was found that structural diversity was most important to entrepreneurs in the discovery stage, least important to entrepreneurs in the start-up stage and of medium importance to entrepreneurs in the young business stage

Exploring Human Capital and Hybrid Entrepreneurship

An individual’s human capital affects their choice to become and entrepreneur and also their likely success as a nascent entrepreneur. This paper explores how hybrid employment—entrepreneur opportunities impact these dynamics. Drawing on insights from decision theory, we argue that an individual’s human capital influences entrepreneurial pursuits as a two stage process, first shaping whether nascent entrepreneurship and/or employment enters an individual’s consideration set when they are facing a career transition and second influencing the outcomes of entrepreneurial pursuits. Using a novel longitudinal dataset of individuals facing career transition as nascent entrepreneurs, job seekers or both, we find that while hybrid nascent entrepreneurship (trying to start a business while being employed) has a positive influence on outcomes, hybrid search (concurrent job search while trying to start a business) has a strong negative influence

Who will be an entrepreneur? How cultural mechanisms and social network structure together influence entrepreneurial participation

Using data collected from 35 countries over five years, this study provides an investigation of the combined influence of cultural factors and social network structure on whether or not an individual, anywhere in the world, becomes an entrepreneur. Results show that knowing someone who has started a business recently, across the world, has a significant impact on entrepreneurship participation. Regarding the potential cultural influences, it seems that importance attached to personally knowing entrepreneurs differs significantly between individuals operating in different cultures. In cultures with high power distance, personally knowing a person who recently started a business is relatively less important as a driver of entrepreneurship participation compared to cultures with low power distance. On the other hand, in cultures where the Hofstede&rsquo;s &lsquo;masculinity&rsquo;construct predominates, it is more important than in cultures characterised by &lsquo;femininity&rsquo;.<br /

Udvikling i iværksætteres personlige netværk

I denne artikel undersøges, hvorledes iværksætteres personlige netværk udvikler sig, fra de er i færd med at starte virksomhed, til de driver en etableret virksomhed. På baggrund af tilfældige stikprøver af danske iværksættere i forskellige faser af virksomhedsdannelsesprocessen blev det fundet, at iværksætteres netværk i opstartsfasen er mere konvergente – det vil sige små, tætte netværk med mange stærke relationer. Denne type netværk understøtter aktiviteter og beslutninger kendetegnet ved konsolidering og forstærkning. Når iværksættere bevæger sig fremad i virksomhedsdannelsesprocessen ændrer deres netværk sig og bliver mere divergente – det vil sige mere omfattende og forskelligartede netværk, der understøtter aktiviteter og beslutninger, der er mere orienteret mod ekspansion og diversitet. For iværksættere understreger undersøgelsen vigtigheden af at være opmærksom på betydningen af netværket og af hele tiden aktivt at arbejde med opbygning og aktivering af de rette dele af det mere generelle netværk

Udvikling i iværksætteres personlige netværk

I denne artikel undersøges, hvorledes iværksætteres personlige netværk udvikler sig, fra de er i færd med at starte virksomhed, til de driver en etableret virksomhed. På baggrund af tilfældige stikprøver af danske iværksættere i forskellige faser af virksomhedsdannelsesprocessen blev det fundet, at iværksætteres netværk i opstartsfasen er mere konvergente – det vil sige små, tætte netværk med mange stærke relationer. Denne type netværk understøtter aktiviteter og beslutninger kendetegnet ved konsolidering og forstærkning. Når iværksættere bevæger sig fremad i virksomhedsdannelsesprocessen ændrer deres netværk sig og bliver mere divergente – det vil sige mere omfattende og forskelligartede netværk, der understøtter aktiviteter og beslutninger, der er mere orienteret mod ekspansion og diversitet. For iværksættere understreger undersøgelsen vigtigheden af at være opmærksom på betydningen af netværket og af hele tiden aktivt at arbejde med opbygning og aktivering af de rette dele af det mere generelle netværk

Farmers that engage in entrepreneurship for the “wrong” reason and the moderating role of cultural intolerance

In the agricultural sector, the Law of Jante—a Scandinavian form of cultural intolerance towards standing out, being different and overachieving (akin to the Tall Poppy Syndrome and The nail that sticks out gets hammered down culture found in other countries)—may play an important role by influencing when entrepreneurship is an acceptable strategic choice to adversity. Based on a three group, between-subjects experiment of 122 Swedish university students studying agricultural and rural management, we tested whether the advice our participants gave to a fictitious farmer to pursue entrepreneurial activity depended on information regarding the farmer's motivation to pursue entrepreneurship (experimental treatments included motivation scenarios based on necessity vs. opportunity driven vs. control). Moreover, we test whether entrepreneurial advice is moderated by the participants own “Jante-ness”. Unexpectedly, we found that our participants did not adapt the entrepreneurship advice they give to the situational context, nor does Jante play a moderating role; instead we found that Jante had a significant and negative main effect on the entrepreneurial advice given. This finding suggests that Jante is still very much alive and may play an important role in explaining relatively low rates of innovation and entrepreneurship in (Swedish) agriculture

Cognitive Abilities in the Wild: Population-scale game-based cognitive assessment

Psychology and the social sciences are undergoing a revolution: It has become increasingly clear that traditional lab-based experiments fail to capture the full range of differences in cognitive abilities and behaviours across the general population. Some progress has been made toward devising measures that can be applied at scale across individuals and populations. What has been missing is a broad battery of validated tasks that can be easily deployed, used across different age ranges and social backgrounds, and employed in practical, clinical, and research contexts. Here, we present Skill Lab, a game-based approach allowing the efficient assessment of a suite of cognitive abilities. Skill Lab has been validated outside the lab in a crowdsourced population-size sample recruited in collaboration with the Danish Broadcast Company (Danmarks Radio, DR). Our game-based measures are five times faster to complete than the equivalent traditional measures and replicate previous findings on the decline of cognitive abilities with age in a large population sample. Furthermore, by combining the game data with an in-game survey, we demonstrate that this unique dataset has implication for key questions in social science, challenging the Jack-of-all-Trades theory of entrepreneurship and provide evidence for risk preference being independent of executive functioning.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures, and 2 table

Exploring the relationship between media coverage and participation in entrepreneurship : initial global evidence and research implications

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&rsquo;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 &lsquo;reinforcement model&rsquo;. This argues that mass media are only capable of reinforcing their audience&rsquo;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&rsquo;s participation in the various stages of the entrepreneurial process.<br /

Effect of sitagliptin on cardiovascular outcomes in type 2 diabetes

BACKGROUND: Data are lacking on the long-term effect on cardiovascular events of adding sitagliptin, a dipeptidyl peptidase 4 inhibitor, to usual care in patients with type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. METHODS: In this randomized, double-blind study, we assigned 14,671 patients to add either sitagliptin or placebo to their existing therapy. Open-label use of antihyperglycemic therapy was encouraged as required, aimed at reaching individually appropriate glycemic targets in all patients. To determine whether sitagliptin was noninferior to placebo, we used a relative risk of 1.3 as the marginal upper boundary. The primary cardiovascular outcome was a composite of cardiovascular death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for unstable angina. RESULTS: During a median follow-up of 3.0 years, there was a small difference in glycated hemoglobin levels (least-squares mean difference for sitagliptin vs. placebo, -0.29 percentage points; 95% confidence interval [CI], -0.32 to -0.27). Overall, the primary outcome occurred in 839 patients in the sitagliptin group (11.4%; 4.06 per 100 person-years) and 851 patients in the placebo group (11.6%; 4.17 per 100 person-years). Sitagliptin was noninferior to placebo for the primary composite cardiovascular outcome (hazard ratio, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.88 to 1.09; P<0.001). Rates of hospitalization for heart failure did not differ between the two groups (hazard ratio, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.83 to 1.20; P = 0.98). There were no significant between-group differences in rates of acute pancreatitis (P = 0.07) or pancreatic cancer (P = 0.32). CONCLUSIONS: Among patients with type 2 diabetes and established cardiovascular disease, adding sitagliptin to usual care did not appear to increase the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events, hospitalization for heart failure, or other adverse events

Effect of SGLT2 inhibitors on stroke and atrial fibrillation in diabetic kidney disease: Results from the CREDENCE trial and meta-analysis

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Chronic kidney disease with reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate or elevated albuminuria increases risk for ischemic and hemorrhagic stroke. This study assessed the effects of sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) on stroke and atrial fibrillation/flutter (AF/AFL) from CREDENCE (Canagliflozin and Renal Events in Diabetes With Established Nephropathy Clinical Evaluation) and a meta-Analysis of large cardiovascular outcome trials (CVOTs) of SGLT2i in type 2 diabetes mellitus. METHODS: CREDENCE randomized 4401 participants with type 2 diabetes mellitus and chronic kidney disease to canagliflozin or placebo. Post hoc, we estimated effects on fatal or nonfatal stroke, stroke subtypes, and intermediate markers of stroke risk including AF/AFL. Stroke and AF/AFL data from 3 other completed large CVOTs and CREDENCE were pooled using random-effects meta-Analysis. RESULTS: In CREDENCE, 142 participants experienced a stroke during follow-up (10.9/1000 patient-years with canagliflozin, 14.2/1000 patient-years with placebo; hazard ratio [HR], 0.77 [95% CI, 0.55-1.08]). Effects by stroke subtypes were: ischemic (HR, 0.88 [95% CI, 0.61-1.28]; n=111), hemorrhagic (HR, 0.50 [95% CI, 0.19-1.32]; n=18), and undetermined (HR, 0.54 [95% CI, 0.20-1.46]; n=17). There was no clear effect on AF/AFL (HR, 0.76 [95% CI, 0.53-1.10]; n=115). The overall effects in the 4 CVOTs combined were: Total stroke (HRpooled, 0.96 [95% CI, 0.82-1.12]), ischemic stroke (HRpooled, 1.01 [95% CI, 0.89-1.14]), hemorrhagic stroke (HRpooled, 0.50 [95% CI, 0.30-0.83]), undetermined stroke (HRpooled, 0.86 [95% CI, 0.49-1.51]), and AF/AFL (HRpooled, 0.81 [95% CI, 0.71-0.93]). There was evidence that SGLT2i effects on total stroke varied by baseline estimated glomerular filtration rate (P=0.01), with protection in the lowest estimated glomerular filtration rate (45 mL/min/1.73 m2]) subgroup (HRpooled, 0.50 [95% CI, 0.31-0.79]). CONCLUSIONS: Although we found no clear effect of SGLT2i on total stroke in CREDENCE or across trials combined, there was some evidence of benefit in preventing hemorrhagic stroke and AF/AFL, as well as total stroke for those with lowest estimated glomerular filtration rate. Future research should focus on confirming these data and exploring potential mechanisms