The geography of creative people in Germany

It has been argued that creativity is an important source of regional growth. This paper investigates the geography of people in creative occupation in Germany. The population share of the Creative Class as well as of bohemians and artists is relatively high in larger cities, but smaller places and rural regions may also have a considerable proportion of people with a creative job. While ethnical and cultural diversity and a high level of public supply in health care and education can explain the distribution of creative people, employment opportunities seem to play only a minor role. A high share of creative occupations seems to be conducive to regional growth; however, the exact nature of this relationship is still unclear

Die Geographie der Kreativen Klasse in Deutschland [The geography of the Creative Class in Germany]

We analyze the regional distribution of different categories of creative individuals in Germany. Generally, the share of creative people is higher in cities as compared to the rural area The freelancing artists are a kind of exception in this respect; they constitute a relatively high share of the population in some rural area A high share of creative people in a region can be explained by a high level of public provisions and a high share of foreign born population, which can be regarded as an indicator of the “openness” in the local milieu. Good employment opportunities have only a relatively weak impact. Regions with a high share of creatives tend to have an above average level of new business formation, a high level of innovation and a relatively high share of employees in high-tech industries

Disentangling the Effects of New Venture Team Functional Heterogeneity on New Venture Performance

Previous research on entrepreneurial teams has failed to settle the controversy over whether team heterogeneity helps or hinders new venture performance. Reconciling this inconsistency, this paper suggests a new conceptual approach to disentangle differential effects of team heterogeneity by modeling two separate heterogeneity dimensions, namely knowledge scope and knowledge disparity. Analyzing unique data on functional experiences of the members of 337 start-up teams, we find support for our contention of team heterogeneity as a two-dimensional concept. Results suggest that knowledge disparity negatively relates to both start-ups' entrepreneurial and innovative performance. In contrast, we find knowledge scope to positively affect entrepreneurial performance, while it shows an inverse U-shaped relationship to innovative start-up performance.Entrepreneurial teams, New venture performance, Team heterogeneity, Team diversity

The Geography of the Creative Class in Germany

We analyze the regional distribution of different categories of creative individuals in Germany. Generally, the share of creative people is higher in cities as compared to the rural area The freelancing artists are a kind of exception in this respect; they constitute a relatively high share of the population in some rural area A high share of creative people in a region can be explained by a high level of public provisions and a high share of foreign born population, which can be regarded as an indicator of the “openness” in the local milieu. Good employment opportunities have only a relatively weak impact. Regions with a high share of creatives tend to have an above average level of new business formation, a high level of innovation and a relatively high share of employees in high-tech industries.Creative Class; bohemians; artists; innovation; regional development

Regional characteristics, opportunity perception and entrepreneurial activities

This paper seeks to better understand the link between regional characteristics and individual entrepreneurship. We combine individual-level GEM data for Western Germany with regional-level data, using multi-level analysis to test our hypotheses. We find no direct link between regional knowledge creation, the economic context and an entrepreneurial culture on the one side and individual business start-up intentions and start-up activity on the other side. However our findings point to the importance of an indirect effect of regional characteristics as knowledge creation, the economic context and an entrepreneurial culture have an effect on the individual perception of founding opportunities which in turn predicted start-up intentions and activity

Die Geographie der Kreativen Klasse in Deutschland

We analyze the regional distribution of different categories of creative individuals in Germany. Generally, the share of creative people is higher in cities as compared to the rural area The freelancing artists are a kind of exception in this respect; they constitute a relatively high share of the population in some rural area A high share of creative people in a region can be explained by a high level of public provisions and a high share of foreign born population, which can be regarded as an indicator of the “openness” in the local milieu. Good employment opportunities have only a relatively weak impact. Regions with a high share of creatives tend to have an above average level of new business formation, a high level of innovation and a relatively high share of employees in high-tech industries

Die Geographie der Kreativen Klasse in Deutschland

We analyze the regional distribution of different categories of creative individuals in Germany. Generally, the share of creative people is higher in cities as compared to the rural area The freelancing artists are a kind of exception in this respect; they constitute a relatively high share of the population in some rural area A high share of creative people in a region can be explained by a high level of public provisions and a high share of foreign born population, which can be regarded as an indicator of the “openness” in the local milieu. Good employment opportunities have only a relatively weak impact. Regions with a high share of creatives tend to have an above average level of new business formation, a high level of innovation and a relatively high share of employees in high-tech industries

Knowledge and innovative entrepreneurship - social capital and individual capacities

A central development within the management literature has been the growth of nascent entrepreneur research analysing on--going venture start-up efforts and/or firms in gestation over time (Davidsson, 2006). New ventures have an important effect on economic development. They are credited for the transfer of innovations into the market (Schumpeter, 1934; Acs and Plummer; 2005) and creating regional employment (e.g. Fritsch and Mueller, 2004). Central questions in nascent entrepreneurship research concern the characteristics of the venture creation process and the factors affecting performance of these firms (for an overview see Davidsson, 2006). Among other factors considered in the literature, the social embeddedness of the entrepreneur has been found to play a pivotal role (Davidsson and Honig, 2003). Social capital enables entrepreneurs to access resources (Florin et al., 2003) or novel information (Uzzi, 1997) in order to create opportunities (Baker and Nelson, 2005). During the venture creation process, most firms suffer from substantial resource constraints (Shepherd et al., 2000) and use their personal networks as a means to access resources and information far below market price (Elfring and Hulsink, 2003). However, a sizeable gap exists in the burgeoning social capital literature on the subject of team start--ups. A most prominent finding is that team start--ups are more successful than solo start--ups (e.g. Lechler, 2001). One of the offered explanations is that entrepreneurs can combine their abilities and financial capital in a team, giving them an advantage above solo entrepreneurs (e.g. Gartner, 1985; Stam and Schutjens, 2006). Sometimes explicitly (e.g. Colombo and Grilli, 2005; Stam and Schutjens, 2006) but more often implicitly (e.g. Davidsson and Honig, 2003; van Gelderen et al., 2005), the same argument is applied to the usage of social capital, i.e. that the social capital from individual team members is combined to provide an advantage for teams over solo entrepreneurs. As yet, to our knowledge, no study has explicitly analysed whether, compared to solo entrepreneurs, more social capital is found within teams and whether this leads to their better performance. In this chapter, we approach these two questions and empirically explore the use of social capital of solo entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial teams during the venture creation process. In doing so, we refine the empirical concept of social capital in that we do not look at its mere existence but focus on its use in terms of concrete support (e.g. advice on the business plan, marketing, or research and development - R&D) for the entrepreneurs. We address two major research questions. The first concerns the differential use of social capital. Do solo entrepreneurs rely more often on social capital than new venture teams, or is it the other way around? How do both types of start--ups use social capital? More precisely, we investigate the relationship between social capital and other characteristics of the new venture and its founders (e.g. human capital). The second research question then turns to the effect of social capital on subsequent new venture performance. Appropriate hypotheses in this study are tested using a dataset of 456 start--ups in innovative industries in the German state of Thuringia. The reminder of this chapter is organized as follows. In Section 2, we review the theory and previous research on social capital in order to generate six testable hypotheses. In Section 3, we describe the dataset and the methods employed to measure the use of social capital. We then present (Section 4) the results of our analysis. The chapter concludes in Section 5, where we interpret and discuss the results and draw some conclusions

The growth of entrepreneurial human capital : origins and development of skill variety

Plain English Summary Human capital is important for entrepreneurship. In particular, a varied skill set enables entrepreneurs to tackle the various tasks of starting a new firm. However, no one is born with such a skill set; it develops over time. In this study, we explore the origins of a varied skill set and its development. We find that skill variety in adulthood has its roots in a varied set of interests among teenagers, such as having many hobbies or finding different school subjects important. This growth in skill variety is driven by an entrepreneurial personality. For prospective entrepreneurs, our research suggests that investing in a varied skill set pays off. The implication for research is to look at the developmental process of how people become entrepreneurs. The most important conclusion for policymakers and educators is that educational support programs should center around encouraging especially adolescents and young adults to engage in varied activities and teach varied skills instead of focusing on a narrow curriculum. Given that recent research on entrepreneurial behavior and success has established skill variety as a central human capital factor, researchers, educators, and policymakers have turned their interest to a deeper understanding of the formation of skill variety. Based on human capital theory and the competence growth approach in developmental psychology (highlighting long-term, age-appropriate, and cumulative skill-growth processes), we hypothesize that a broad, early variety orientation in adolescence is a developmental precursor of such entrepreneurial human capital in adulthood. This was confirmed in an analysis of prospective longitudinal data via structural equation modeling and serial mediation tests. We also find that an entrepreneurial constellation of personality traits, but not entrepreneurial parents, predicts early variety orientation, skill variety, and entrepreneurial intentions. By shedding new light on the long-term formation of entrepreneurial human capital, the results suggest that establishing and benefiting from an early variety orientation is not only an important developmental mechanism in entrepreneurial careers but gives those with an entrepreneurial personality an early head start in their vocational entrepreneurial development. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.Peer reviewe