Bram Timmermans

Two's Company: Composition, Structure and Performance of Entrepreneurial Pairs

We explore the effects of diverse team composition on the survival and growth of new ventures using the Danish Linked Employer‐Employee database. To get cleaner measures of diverse team composition, we focus on entrepreneurial dyads, and also investigate the asymmetric hierarchical effects of team composition by distinguishing between the ‘primary’ and the ‘secondary’ member. We complement existing work by showing that heterogeneity in team composition is moderated by the asymmetric hierarchical structure within the team, and that a unidimensional diversity indicator (which is usually applied) fails to capture a number of performance effects of heterogeneous team composition. Pairs of younger individuals have lower survival chances but higher employment growth. Pairs led by a male tend toward ‘jobless growth’ in the sense that they have higher growth of profits and sales but not employment. Family firms have lower employment growth, especially when formed with ones mother.

Regional skill relatedness: towards a new measure of regional related diversification

ABSTRACT This paper proposes a novel index of regional skill-relatedness and calculates this measure for all Norwegian labour-market regions. Studies of regional related diversification rely on measures of related variety, which build on the industry classification hierarchy. However, the growing literature identifying similarities in knowledge and competences across industries demonstrates that these classifications fail to identify a great deal of actual skill relatedness, and that measures based on empirical measures of industry relatedness are required. The skill relatedness measure builds on labour mobility flows across industries to develop a relatedness matrix for Norwegian industries. It further uses social network analysis to identify the number of other regional industries to which each industry in a particular region is related. Comparing this measure to the related variety index, the analysis shows that the two measures are highly correlated, but that the regional skill relatedness index is able to identify more of the relatedness across industries. In particular, the related variety index tends to underestimate the level of relatedness in many of Norway’s most technologically sophisticated manufacturing regions, whereas these rank highly in the regional skill relatedness index. Consequently, the regional skill relatedness index represents a promising new tool for identifying relatedness in regional systems.

The Effect of Prior Joint Work Experience on New Venture Performance

Previous research has proposed a range of factors that can assist in overcoming the challenges that explain the mortality rate of new ventures. The underlying premise of this liability of newness argument is that the lack of social interaction and social structures result in higher risk of failure but that this risk decreases as the organization ages. However, these previous studies mainly list non-social factors, e.g., firm environment, firm strategy, and individual characteristics. The purpose of this article is to address this phenomenon by focusing on prior co-worker experience. I propose that this pre-founding experience can overcome: (i) the lack of an organizational culture, (ii) the lack of internal social capital, and (iii) the lack of routines in coordinating co-workers’ activities. By using the Danish employer- employee register I am able to investigate the effect of prior co-worker experience in more detail. Based on a large and generalizable sample of 4,219 new ventures I find that priorco-worker experience has a positive effect on survival and growth.

Knowledge Bases and Relatedness: A Study of Labour Mobility in Norwegian Regions

Two ideas have emerged as central in evolutionary economic geography in recent years: First, innovation is often the result of meetings between related ideas, and regions are therefore best served by hosting a variety of related industries. Second, innovation often comes from the combination of different knowledge bases. However, there have been few attempts at linking these approaches in empirical studies. This paper connects the dots by examining relatedness among industries with similar and different knowledge bases in specific regional contexts. We focus on regions expected to have different types of innovation systems, from the organisationally thick and diversified RIS of large cities through the more specialised RIS in intermediate cities to the organisationally thin RIS found in small rural regions. The analysis finds that industries with different knowledge bases are related in various regional settings, with combinatorial knowledge base industries having a central role in many regions. However, there are also cases of potential lock-in, where relatedness is mainly found among regions with the same knowledge base.

Hiring Molecules, Not Atoms: Comobility and Wages

What role do social connections play in the labor market? A vast, influential literature has detailed the ways in which ties facilitate the flow of information about job opportunities to workers as well as endorsements or referrals of workers to firms. We propose that this role is not constrained to an informational one alone. Rather, relationships between workers can enable a collective job-matching process that facilitates the transfer of shared human capital from one organization to another. Yet “comobility” has been studied only occasionally and among elite workers in particular industries. This study delivers both fieldwork as well as large-sample analysis among all nongovernmental workers in Denmark, finding a 5.5% wage premium for those who move jointly instead of independently, both in the full sample as well as when applying strict matching or fixed effects for workers or firms. Co-movers whose skills are related but not identical capture a higher premium, and the wage gains associated with comob...

The Impact of a Diverse Human Resource Composition on the Survival of Start-Ups

Over the last decades, many studies have been conducted that investigate the impact of diversity on the performance of teams. The goal of this chapter is to study the impact of a diverse composition in entrepreneurial ventures and how it affects the likelihood of survival. This impact will be determined by looking at demographic diversity, based on the ascribed (e.g. gender, age, nationality) and achieved (e.g. education and work experience) characteristics, of all the members of such a venture. This includes both founders and the first employees. The empirical part will rely on the Danish Integrated Database for Labor Market Research (IDA), which allows me to identify detailed firm and personal information. The results of the various analyses show a predominant neutral and negative effect of diversity on new firm survival, especially in those situations where there is a high degree of diversity on industry experience and educational background.

Is There an End to the Concentration of Businesses and People

There is extensive literature describing the mechanisms of economic growth, which has tended to occur in big cities. The emergence of knowledge economies has enhanced the importance of human capita ...

Two's Company: Composition, Structure and Performance of Entrepreneurial Pairs: Composition, Structure and Performance of Entrepreneurial Pairs

We explore the effects of diverse team composition on the survival and growth of new ventures using the Danish Linked Employer‐Employee database. To get cleaner measures of diverse team composition, we focus on entrepreneurial dyads, and also investigate the asymmetric hierarchical effects of team composition by distinguishing between the ‘primary’ and the ‘secondary’ member. We complement existing work by showing that heterogeneity in team composition is moderated by the asymmetric hierarchical structure within the team, and that a unidimensional diversity indicator (which is usually applied) fails to capture a number of performance effects of heterogeneous team composition. Pairs of younger individuals have lower survival chances but higher employment growth. Pairs led by a male tend toward ‘jobless growth’ in the sense that they have higher growth of profits and sales but not employment. Family firms have lower employment growth, especially when formed with ones mother.

Two's Company

We explore the effects of diverse team composition on the survival and growth of new ventures using the Danish Linked Employer‐Employee database. To get cleaner measures of diverse team composition, we focus on entrepreneurial dyads, and also investigate the asymmetric hierarchical effects of team composition by distinguishing between the ‘primary’ and the ‘secondary’ member. We complement existing work by showing that heterogeneity in team composition is moderated by the asymmetric hierarchical structure within the team, and that a unidimensional diversity indicator (which is usually applied) fails to capture a number of performance effects of heterogeneous team composition. Pairs of younger individuals have lower survival chances but higher employment growth. Pairs led by a male tend toward ‘jobless growth’ in the sense that they have higher growth of profits and sales but not employment. Family firms have lower employment growth, especially when formed with ones mother.