Iñaki Peña

Innovation-driven entrepreneurship in developing economies

The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (KSTE) has recently emerged as an influential research stream that examines the origin, development and economic impact of innovation-driven entrepreneurship. While empirical evidence has shown that the main premise of the KSTE generally holds in most advanced economies, the purpose of the present study is to investigate the extent to which the ideas advocated by the KSTE are generalizable to different contexts in developing countries. On applying a logistic multilevel analysis to a sample of almost 250,000 individuals across 45 developing countries, the results show that the different context found in developing economies produces a limited connection between knowledge spillovers, innovation and entrepreneurship in comparison with the conventional linkage studied in the KSTE literature.

Earnings of Immigrants : Does Entrepreneurship Matter?

The economic integration of immigrants has become a challenging topic in the European political agenda. This is especially true for countries that are struggling to survive the economic recession which started in 2008. In this context, entrepreneurship emerges as an alternative to unemployment. While the self-employment propensity of immigrants is well documented, little is known about the performance of these ventures. This article contributes to the literature by comparing and explaining the differential earnings of self-employed versus salaried immigrants in Spain. A binary logistic regression is applied to explore data collected by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor project for 2005 and 2006. Our findings show that self-employed immigrants’ income exceeds that of salaried workers. Human capital and location-related environmental variables were found to be the best predictors of both self-employed and salaried immigrants’ earnings.

Interpreneurial strategic behaviour and business performance

During the 1990s, we have witnessed a proliferation of business networks formed by knowledge-intensive companies with the aim of developing modern technologies (i.e. optoelectronics, semiconductors, biotechnology, nanotechnology, etc.) and launching innovative products to the marketplace. We define interpreneurial networks as inter-firm cooperative agreements between two or more companies in order to develop path-breaking technologies, which in turn, are expected to produce marketable innovative products. Both alliance formation and innovation have been at the core of interpreneurial strategies. This study is an attempt to test the relationship between interpreneurial strategic behaviour and business performance in major biotechnology and life science US and European companies. Results suggest that firm intangible resources like industry experience and research skills acquired over time seem to be key assets for successful product innovation. Moreover, companies pursuing option-like interpreneurial strategies, that is, strategies that imply a slower pace for conducting successive inter-firm agreements and a lower alliance investment commitment, show a better financial performance.

Book Review: Developing Entrepreneurship. Experience in Latin America and Worldwide

each building on the previous, and thereby contributing to the understanding of the complexity which characterizes the environment for the internationalizing SME. Business leaders, scholars and students alike, interested in international business and entrepreneurship, will welcome this timely and authoritative volume, which sheds light on the complex nature of international entrepreneurship in the 21st century.