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Whereas initially physical capital and later, knowledge capital were viewed as crucial for growth, more recently a very different factor, entrepreneurship capital, has emerged as a driving force of economic growth. In this paper, we define a region's capacity to create new firms start-ups as the region's entrepreneurship capital. We then investigate the local embeddedness of this variable and which variables have an impact on this variable. Using data for Germany, we find that knowledge-based entrepreneurship capital is driven by local levels of knowledge creation and the acceptance of new ideas, indicating that local knowledge flows play an important role. Low-tech entrepreneurship capital is rather increased by regional unemployment and driven by direct incentives such as subsidies. All three measures are locally clustered, indicating that indeed, entrepreneurship capital is a phenomenon that is driven by local culture, and is therefore locally bounded. Mientras que inicialmente el capital físico, y posteriormente el capital conocimiento, fue considerado crucial para el crecimiento, más recientemente un factor muy diferente, el capital empresarial de espíritu emprendedor ( entrepreneurship capital), ha surgido como una fuerza impulsora de crecimiento económico. En este artículo, definimos como capital empresarial emprendedor la capacidad de una región para originar la puesta en marcha de nuevas empresas. A continuación investigamos el arraigo local de esta variable y las variables que tienen un impacto sobre esta variable. Usando datos de Alemania, hallamos que el capital empresarial emprendedor basado en el conocimiento está motivado por niveles locales de creación de conocimiento y la aceptación de nuevas ideas, indicando que los flujos de conocimiento local juegan un papel importante. El capital empresarial emprendedor basado en bajas tecnologías aumenta con el desempleo regional y está motivado por incentivos directos como subsidios. Las tres variables están agrupadas localmente ( locally clustered), indicando que sin duda el capital empresarial emprendedor es un fenómeno motivado por la cultura local, y por tanto atribuible a una localidad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how entrepreneurs from different national cultures deal with cultural diversity of their entrepreneurial teams. The explorative research looks at six case studies in different stages of the venture process. The paper delivers insights from early to later phases of start-ups. From the case-study research and theoretic considerations the paper develops different propositions. Core findings are: first, in cross-cultural teams monochronic/low-context/high-space entrepreneurs strongly structure tasks. Second, polychronic/high-context/low-space founders tend to supply external contacts to the diverse team. Third, polychronic/high-context/low-space founders have a propensity to stimulate communication procedures. Fourth, enhanced communication in cross-cultural teams seems to be related to creativity. At last, monochronic/low-context/high-space founders tend to deny positive effects from cultural diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Little is known about the individual location behaviour of self-employed entrepreneurs. Population geography has not researched this issue and entrepreneurship literature has given it little attention. This paper examines whether self-employed entrepreneurs are 'rooted' in place and also whether those who are more rooted in place are more likely to enter self-employment, thereby shedding new light onto the place embeddedness of self-employment. Drawing on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) 1996-2009 it shows that self-employed entrepreneurs as compared with employees are not more rooted in place and that those who are more rooted in place are not more likely to become self-employed. In contrast to expectations drawn from previous literature, flows into self-employment are positively associated with inter-regional moves. The only finding that supports the assumption of 'place inertia' of entrepreneurship is that starting a business is less likely to be linked with internal migration than job changes in the wage and salary sector. It concludes that mobility and immobility and individual and household constraints and preferences are important for understanding those who become self-employed. At the same time, the people-place relations of self-employment are important to understand migration and the functioning of labour markets. More generally, this paper underpins the importance of demographic phenomena for economic outcomes and thus the need for population geography to engage with other disciplines, in this case economic geography and entrepreneurship research. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the Lisbon Strategy and mandate, the European Commission committed itself to promoting entrepreneurship as a major driver of innovation, competitiveness, and growth. This paper demonstrates that the renaissance of entrepreneurship policy along with the implementation of the Lisbon Agenda resulted in the localization of policy-making, and re-strengthened policy-makers on the ground to successfully mobilize directly at the supranational level. Furthermore, it shows that EU entrepreneurship policy-making has contributed to a shift from hierarchical government to a more horizontal and interactive form of governance in the new German Laender which were highly exposed to Structural Funds and the Lisbon Agenda. The focus of analysis on the sub-national level helps to fill an academic void in Europeanization and governance literature. By integrating a region- and policy-specific perspective, this contribution goes beyond theorizing the regional dimension of Europeanization in a multi-level governance scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The empirical finding that entrepreneurs invest a large share of their wealth in their own firms, despite comparably low returns and high risk, has become known as the private equity premium puzzle. This paper provides evidence supporting the hypothesis that lower risk-aversion of entrepreneurs, and thus not necessarily credit constraints, may explain this puzzle. The analysis is based on a representative panel survey for Germany, which provides information on asset portfolios and experimentally validated risk attitudes. The results show that both the ownership probability and the conditional portfolio share of private business equity significantly increase with higher risk-tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When potential income tax reforms are debated, the suspected impact on entrepreneurship is often used as an argument in favour of or against a certain policy. Quantitative ex-ante evaluations of the effect of certain tax reform options on entrepreneurship are very rare, however. This paper estimates the ex-ante effects of the German tax reform 2000 and of two hypothetical flat-rate tax scenarios on entries into and exits out of self-employment based on a structural microsimulation model with econometrically estimated transition rates under risk. The simulation results indicate that flatter tax systems do not encourage people to choose self-employment, but rather discourage them from doing so. This is explained by the reduction of entrepreneurs' income risk through progressive taxation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates entrepreneurial women confronted with the self-employment or business career choice. Optimistic women have a higher proclivity to be businesswomen. Businesswomen select self- over paid employment when they are young or old, less educated, married or with under-age children. There are no significant native-immigrant differences. However, among immigrant women those who are in Germany 6 to 12 years are more likely to go into self-employment. These results show that women in Germany who are in their prime working age, educated, not married, and with no under-age children are less likely to choose self-employment, as it is not viewed as a channel to achieving higher socio-economic standing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Smart City initiatives are considered a vehicle for achieving sustainable development of urban growth. This paper explores the conditions and factors that affect innovation in Smart Cities from an entrepreneurial vantage point. Data was obtained through a series of interviews with German entrepreneurs active in Smart Cities. Beyond examining the importance of a set of factors that originate from the extant literature, our findings suggest that entrepreneurs believe that Smart City initiatives need a clear vision to drive their development and growth and that government has a key role to play in bringing the necessary resources and stakeholders together. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The spatial scope of knowledge flows is a topic of fierce debate. While several studies have focused on single modes, the aim of this paper is to look at different knowledge flows originating from individual scientists, namely, scientific and industrial collaboration, entrepreneurial activities and human capital formation. The analysis is based on qualitative data acquired from interviews with distinguished German scientists from the disciplines of science and technology. It was found that the excellence of star scientists manifests itself in several ways. However, the results do not confirm the expectation that knowledge flows are predominantly locally embedded. The impact on the local economy was especially low for industrial collaborations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines a model project initiated by a German Federal Ministry in the middle of the vast increase in forced migration to Germany after 2015. The project aimed at facilitating the integration of female refugees into German society by way of 'empowering' them to become self‐employed. A business counseling agency with a feminist orientation was commissioned to design and run the project. Interpellating refugee women as subjects of entrepreneurial self‐actualization to enact gender equality, the project embodies a tangible example of postfeminist governmentality. Combining recent research on postfeminism with analytics of governmentality, the study directs its analytical gaze to the work of governing. This opens up a twofold perspective: it enables us to investigate the operation of governmental power in relation to its envisioned subjects, and how this power acts upon the subjects tasked with the work of governing in the contemporary organizational context. Drawing on qualitative interviews and documentary materials within an "ethnographic imaginary", we examine, first, the assemblage of elements that made up the fabric of postfeminist governmentality in the governmental intervention at hand and what happened when the governmental attempts "hit the ground" met—and failed to meet—the diverse bodies of the envisioned participants. This perspective illustrates how the logic of postfeminist governmentality radically failed when it came to differences deriving from the structural positioning of the women, but also indicates moments of agency and resistance and the perspectives for those who were able and willing to access the offered subject position. Second, the analysis shows how this failure affected the women involved less than the female project manager who was to bear the consequences. In this respect, the analysis sheds light on the amount of practical and emotional work that the task of rendering the project nevertheless 'a success' required, the "hidden injuries" this work involved, and how this work ultimately led to a reaffirmation of the logic of postfeminist governmentality. The study contributes to understandings of the gendered operation of governmental power in and through contemporary organizations and in the organization of labor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To shed light on how incumbent firms implement sustainable corporate entrepreneurship (SCE) processes, this study investigates how organizations connect sustainability and venture departments. Based on qualitative interviews with 14 experts from 12 multinational corporations headquartered in Germany, we identified five maturity levels of SCE with increasing cross‐functional collaboration: Non‐Existent, Occasional, Expert, Collaboration, and Strategic Collaboration. Using secondary interview data from seven multinational companies headquartered outside Germany, we find initial support for these collaboration types in an international context. Results indicate that a company's general approach to innovation is associated with its SCE maturity level: companies with dedicated entrepreneurship units are more likely to have a higher level of SCE focus. Furthermore, the likelihood of working on radical innovations for sustainability seems to increase as soon as venture experts collaborate with sustainability managers, which, in turn, increases the chances of initiating sustainability transitions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on knowledge strategies argues that the configuration of activities used by companies to acquire new and leverage existing knowledge is an important influencing factor of company performance. However, we do not know very much about how companies actually structure knowledge acquisition. In addition, we do not know which configurations of knowledge acquisition are conducive to company performance. Furthermore, knowledge strategies have largely been neglected in the context of young and entrepreneurial companies. Drawing on an explorative analysis of quantitative and qualitative data, we investigate strategies and activities for knowledge acquisition in the context of young biotechnology companies in Germany. The study reveals four distinct knowledge acquisition strategies (low key, mid range, focus and explorer) and shows that these strategies differ in their relation to company performance as a result of their configuration of knowledge acquisition activities and the type of knowledge acquired. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurship in agriculture is a phenomenon that is growing in importance with the changing framework conditions for agricultural production and has led to heterogeneity in farm business development paths. To understand this phenomenon better, a classification scheme for strategic entrepreneurial choices in agriculture is developed for family farmers. The choices that are scrutinized are reduction, continuation, expansion, diversification, and the dual strategy of expansion and diversification. Each farmer is uniquely assigned to one of these choice classes according to their implemented entrepreneurial activities. Determinants influencing these choices are investigated with a multinomial logit model. The data are derived from a quantitative survey among German farmers (N = 745). Strong effects are observable within the area of personal factors; creativity and risk affinity benefit entrepreneurial strategies connected with diversification. Farmers with a third‐level education qualification are less likely to follow expansion strategies, and those with off‐farm employment and risk‐averse farmers mainly choose a reduction strategy. Family involvement, especially the farmer's spouse, proves to have stabilizing and even enhancing effects on certain strategies. Implications for policymakers and actors within the agricultural sector can thus be derived. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate entrepreneurship (CE) is highly important for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to remain competitive. It is difficult for these organizations, however, to choose relevant SME management practices to induce CE. The goal of this study is to determine which human resource management (HRM) practices promote CE in SMEs. We examined the interrelationships between specific HRM practices (staff selection, staff development and training, staff rewards, specialist assignments) and CE dimensions (innovativeness, risk propensity, proactiveness, new business venturing, and self-renewal). To that end, we analyzed empirical data from a cross-sectional dataset of 214 knowledge-intensive German SMEs. The results provided empirical evidence for the strong impact of staff selection, staff development, and training as well as staff rewards on CE. We contribute to current CE/HRM research, which is generally rather qualitative, by identifying specific productive approaches that SMEs can use to increase entrepreneurial activity through HRM practices and by discussing the positive impacts that such activity can produce. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Entrepreneurs designing novel business model configurations face cognitive biases that derive from limited mental capacity to deal with complex and uncertain decision contexts. Building on the notion of the business model as an idiosyncratic mental representation that organizes managerial understanding of value creating and value capture, we investigate how entrepreneurs cope with cognitive biases inherent in business model design. We conducted a total of 35 in‐depth interviews with entrepreneurs situated in 15 corporate entrepreneurship initiatives in Germany. Our study results suggest that entrepreneurs counter cognitive biases by combining intuitive and deliberate reasoning approaches. Specifically, we identify five cognitive mechanisms and two higher level cognitive processes undergirding entrepreneurial reasoning in the design of new business models. Our findings provide empirically grounded insights into the cognitive perspective in business model research and help to theorize managerial reasoning during the process of business model design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe an approach to characterizing and diagnosing complex professional competencies (CPCs) for the field of Intrapreneurship, i.e. activities of an entrepreneurial nature engaged by employees within their existing organizations. Our approach draws upon prior conceptual, empirical, and analytical efforts by researchers in Germany. Results are presented from an application of a cognitive diagnostic modeling approach to the performance of late stage apprentices on tasks derived from a previously developed competence model of Intrapreneurship. The results are discussed in terms of the type of cognitive diagnosis model (CDM) most appropriate for the domain and task battery, and patterns of performance are presented for seven diagnosable Intrapreneurship skills. By interpreting the assessment task response data in terms of a CDM, diagnostic, skill‐based information is obtained which verifies the strengths and weaknesses of the apprentices at a late stage in their training and has the potential to provide feedback to training programs triggering the improvement of individual apprentice learning and subsequent work‐related performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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We study a unique sample of 1,547 nascent entrepreneurs in Germany and analyze which factors are associated with their self-reported satisfaction regarding their start-up. Our study identifies a new facet of procedural utility and offers new insights about the motivations and goals of nascent entrepreneurs. Most importantly, we identify a group of nascent entrepreneurs that ‘cannot get satisfaction’ with their start-up—not because their start-up fails to deliver financial returns, but because they did not choose to become entrepreneurs in the first place. This group of unsatisfied entrepreneurs includes individuals starting a business after a period of long-term unemployment and those individuals with a lack of better employment alternatives (necessity entrepreneurs). In addition, we provide additional evidence for the importance of both financial and non-financial incentives of entrepreneurs. While financial success is the most important determinant of start-up satisfaction, achievement of independence and creativity is also highly important. Our results emphasize the relevance of procedural utility for understanding economic behavior. We show that the process leading to a decision has an impact on the later satisfaction with the outcome of that decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, there is a dearth of research on strategic antecedents and consequences of management support activities which German venture capital firms (VCFs) provide for the portfolio companies (PCs) they have invested in. This article provides insights regarding such support practices, their main determinants and impacts on the economic performance of PCs. Hypotheses were derived regarding usage of various types of management support, typical functional foci of management support and the influence of VCF and PC characteristics on management support practice. Hypotheses also cover relationships between type, intensity, and frequency of management support and PC performance. Data for 103 PCs of 12 German VCFs indicate the VCFs can improve the performance of their PCs by providing consultative management support, including active involvement in key functional decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on the Ethnic economies, especially the Turkish ethnic economy have already become important and are predicted to become even more so for the German national economy in the near future. One German city with a thriving 'Turkish' economy is Berlin. This article seeks to shed light on a rather 'hidden aspect' of its Turkish ethnic economy: the structure and role of female labor and female self-employment therein. The article starts with a broad discussion of the significance of the gender concept in the international debate on ethnic economies - including findings on minority and immigrant women in self-employment in Europe. The second section then focuses on Berlin and seeks to throw light on two crucial aspects of the 'ethnic' socio-economic fabric. Existing knowledge on the patterns of the Turkish ethnic economy rounds off the pictures. The third section presents exploratory empirical data concentrating exclusively on female Turkish entrepreneurs and employees. A few basic areas indicated by the theoretical debate have been chosen for analysis: the social, family and educational background of the female Turkish entrepreneurs and employees; forms and patterns of work organization; the importance of kinship and household obligations; and the position of the business in the 'ethnic community'.