Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2008 The Netherlands

Abstract

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is a research program executed annually with the aim to obtain internationally comparative high quality research data on entrepreneurial activity at the national level. Over the years, GEM has expanded from 10 countries in 1999 to 43 countries in 2008. In this report, we focus specifically on entrepreneurial attitudes, activity and aspirations in the Netherlands. Hereby, we follow the entrepreneurial engagement ladder, consisting of latent entrepreneurship, earlystage entrepreneurial activity, established business activity and entrepreneurial exits. In order to measure earlystage entrepreneurial activity in a country, GEM developed the Total earlystage Entrepreneurial Activity rate. This rate includes both the prevalence of nascent entrepreneurs and that of owner-managers of young or new businesses. The group of nascent entrepreneurs refers to individuals within the adult population who are actively involved in their own new firm start-up, as full or part owner. The GEM data collection covers the complete life cycle of the entrepreneurial process. This cycle starts with personal assessments of attitudes and perceptions towards entrepreneurship. The life cycle continues with individuals who have the intention to start a business within the next three years (pre-nascent or prospective entrepreneurs). Next, the cycle refers to individuals at the point when they commit resources to start a business they expect to own themselves (nascent entrepreneurs), when they currently own and manage a new business that has paid salaries for more than three months but not more than 42 months (new business owners), and when they own and manage an established business that has been in operation for more than 42 months (established business owners). The aggregate of nascent entrepreneurship and young/new business entrepreneurship forms the TEA.