The regional economic impact of more graduates in the labour market: a “micro-to-macro” analysis for Scotland

This paper explores the system-wide impact of graduates on the regional economy. Graduates enjoy a significant wage premium, often interpreted as reflecting their greater productivity relative to non-graduates. If this is so there is a clear and direct supply-side impact of HEI activities on regional economies. We use an HEI-disaggregated computable general equilibrium model of Scotland to estimate the impact of the growing proportion of graduates in the Scottish labour force that is implied by the current participation rate and demographic change, taking the graduate wage premium in Scotland as an indicator of productivity enhancement. While the detailed results vary with alternative assumptions about the extent to which wage premia reflect productivity, they do suggest that the long-term supply-side impacts of HEIs provide a significant boost to regional GDP. Furthermore, the results suggest that the supply-side impacts of HEIs are likely to be more important than the expenditure impacts that are the focus of most HEI impact studies

Business experience and start-up size: buying more lottery tickets next time around?

This paper explores the determinants of start-up size by focusing on a cohort of 6247 businesses that started trading in 2004, using a unique dataset on customer records at Barclays Bank. Quantile regressions show that prior business experience is significantly related with start-up size, as are a number of other variables such as age, education and bank account activity. Quantile treatment effects (QTE) estimates show similar results, with the effect of business experience on (log) start-up size being roughly constant across the quantiles. Prior personal business experience leads to an increase in expected start-up size of about 50%. Instrumental variable QTE estimates are even higher, although there are concerns about the validity of the instrument

An appropriate tool for entrepreneurial learning in SMEs? The case of the 20Twenty Leadership Programme

The 20Twenty Leadership Programme was developed by Cardiff Metropolitan University as an executive education programme to be delivered within South Wales to small businesses. It is funded by the European Social Fund (ESF) and administered by the Welsh European Funding Office and has the key aim of developing SME’s growth potential via a range of leadership and management skills, including a focus on ‘soft’ skills. The focus of this paper is to place the 20Twenty Leadership Programme within the wider context of entrepreneurship policy and SME training initiatives in particular, and then to examine the rationale and delivery methods of the Programme in relation to these. It also reflects on the Programme’s success (or otherwise) to date where possible. Finally, the paper seeks to suggest fruitful areas of further research both in terms of the 20Twenty Leadership Programme itself, but also with regard to evaluation in relation to other parallel programmes, and to SME training initiatives more generally

Looking inside the spiky bits : a critical review and conceptualisation of entrepreneurial ecosystems

The authors wish to thank the Organisational for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) for funding their original research on entrepreneurial ecosystems.The concept of entrepreneurial ecosystems has quickly established itself as one of the latest ‘fads’ in entrepreneurship research. At face value, this kind of systemic approach to entrepreneurship offers a new and distinctive path for scholars and policy makers to help understand and foster growth-oriented entrepreneurship. However, its lack of specification and conceptual limitations has undoubtedly hindered our understanding of these complex organisms. Indeed, the rapid adoption of the concept has tended to overlook the heterogeneous nature of ecosystems. This paper provides a critical review and conceptualisation of the ecosystems concept: it unpacks the dynamics of the concept; outlines its theoretical limitations; measurement approaches and use in policy-making. It sets out a preliminary taxonomy of different archetypal ecosystems. The paper concludes that entrepreneurial ecosystems are a highly variegated, multi-actor and multi-scalar phenomenon, requiring bespoke policy interventions.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Entrepreneurs’ age, institutions, and social value creation goals: a multi-country study

This study explores the relationship between an entrepreneur's age and his/her social value creation goals. Building on the lifespan developmental psychology literature and institutional theory, we hypothesize a U-shaped relationship between entrepreneurs’ age and their choice to create social value through their ventures, such that younger and older entrepreneurs create more social value with their businesses while middle age entrepreneurs are relatively more economically and less socially oriented with their ventures. We further hypothesize that the quality of a country’s formal institutions in terms of economic, social, and political freedom steepen the U-shaped relationship between entrepreneurs’ age and their choice to pursue social value creation as supportive institutional environments allow entrepreneurs to follow their age-based preferences. We confirm our predictions using multilevel mixed-effects linear regressions on a sample of over 15,000 entrepreneurs (aged between 18 and 64 years) in 45 countries from Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data. The findings are robust to several alternative specifications. Based on our findings, we discuss implications for theory and practice, and we propose future research directions

A Multidimensional, Comparative Analysis of the Regional Entrepreneurship Performance in the Central and Eastern European EU Member Countries

Entrepreneurship research has changed considerably over the last 30 years, and today entrepreneurship is widely accepted as a major driving force of economic development, of the creation of employment and of innovation (Acs et al. 2008, 2009; Carree and Thurik 2003; Braunerhjelm et al. 2010; Lazear 2004). However, the dynamics of the effect of entrepreneurship are very diverse and depend on many factors such as the development level of the home country and the institutional context (Acs et al. 2008). Whilst previous studies on entrepreneurship have focused on examining the role of entrepreneurial activity and start-up rates, recent research has shown that not all entrepreneurial activity is effective. High growth rates, such as those achieved by innovative gazelle companies, are responsible for the bulk of new job creation and growth, whilst other non-innovative or traditional businesses have only minor economic influence (Acs and Mueller 2008; Baumol 1996; Wong et al. 2005)

Born to be green: new insights into the economics and management of green entrepreneurship

While the number of green start-ups has steadily increased around the world in response to the environmental problems demanding immediate solutions, there are several unresolved questions on the behaviour and performance of such ventures. The papers in this special issue shed light on these issues by underscoring the role of several factors, such as industry life cycles, knowledge spillovers, institutions, and availability of external finance, in shaping decision-making and firm behaviour in green start-ups. This paper highlights the state-of-the art developments in the literature, discusses the key contributions of the papers put together in this special issue and presents a future research agenda for scholars interested in green entrepreneurship

Innovation Practices in Emerging Economies: Do University Partnerships Matter?

Enterprises’ resources and capabilities determine their ability to achieve competitive advantage. In this regard, the key innovation challenges that enterprises face are liabilities associated with their age and size, and the entry barriers imposed on them. In this line, a growing number of enterprises are starting to implement innovation practices in which they employ both internal/external flows of knowledge in order to explore/exploit innovation in collaboration with commercial or scientific agents. Within this context, universities play a significant role providing fertile knowledge-intensive environments to support the exploration and exploitation of innovative and entrepreneurial ideas, especially in emerging economies, where governments have created subsidies to promote enterprise innovation through compulsory university partnerships. Based on these ideas, the purpose of this exploratory research is to provide a better understanding about the role of universities on enterprises’ innovation practices in emerging economies. More concretely, in the context of Mexico, we explored the enterprises’ motivations to collaborate with universities in terms of innovation purposes (exploration and exploitation) or alternatives to access to public funds (compulsory requirement of being involved in a university partnership). Using a sample of 10,167 Mexican enterprises in the 2012 Research and Technological Development Survey collected by the Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Geography, we tested a multinomial regression model. Our results provide insights about the relevant role of universities inside enterprises’ exploratory innovation practices, as well as, in the access of R&D research subsidies

The role of a firm's absorptive capacity and the technology transfer process in clusters: How effective are technology centres in low-tech clusters?

This paper analyses how the internal resources of small- and medium-sized enterprises determine access (learning processes) to technology centres (TCs) or industrial research institutes (innovation infrastructure) in traditional low-tech clusters. These interactions basically represent traded (market-based) transactions, which constitute important sources of knowledge in clusters. The paper addresses the role of TCs in low-tech clusters, and uses semi-structured interviews with 80 firms in a manufacturing cluster. The results point out that producer–user interactions are the most frequent; thus, the higher the sector knowledge-intensive base, the more likely the utilization of the available research infrastructure becomes. Conversely, the sectors with less knowledge-intensive structures, i.e. less absorptive capacity (AC), present weak linkages to TCs, as they frequently prefer to interact with suppliers, who act as transceivers of knowledge. Therefore, not all the firms in a cluster can fully exploit the available research infrastructure, and their AC moderates this engagement. In addition, the existence of TCs is not sufficient since the active role of a firm's search strategies to undertake interactions and conduct openness to available sources of knowledge is also needed. The study has implications for policymakers and academia

The entrepreneurial ladder, gender, and regional development

Gender differences at five levels of entrepreneurial engagement are explained using country effects while controlling for individual-level variables. We distinguish between individuals who have never considered starting up a business, those who are thinking about it, and nascent, young, and established entrepreneurs. We use a large international dataset that includes respondents from 32 European countries, three Asian countries, and the United States. Findings show that cross-country gender differences are largest in the first and final transitions of the entrepreneurial process. In par