Niels Bosma

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) and Its Impact on Entrepreneurship Research

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) is a project carried out by a research consortium dedicated to understanding the relationship between entrepreneurship and national economic development. Since 1999 GEM reports have been a key source of comparable data across a large variety of countries on attitudes toward entrepreneurship, start-up and established business activities, and aspirations of entrepreneurs for their businesses. The growing databases increasingly allow for in-depth academic research and this is mirrored by the rapidly increasing amount of GEM-based scientific publications in a wider range of academic journals. At this point it is appropriate to provide an overview on these publications, to summarize their main contributions, and to provide some directions for obtaining promising GEM-based academic contributions in the future. This publication provides a review of 89 GEM-based academic publications in SSCI-listed journals since 2004, with the objectives to highlight the particular advantages of GEM data, their quality and usability, as well as their limitations. It also recommends a number of ways in which the GEM project might evolve further and make more impact on entrepreneurship research, on entrepreneurship policy and practice, and ultimately on getting more grip on the complex relation between entrepreneurship and economic development.

Entrepreneurship as an Urban Event? Empirical Evidence from European Cities

Bosma N. and Sternberg R. Entrepreneurship as an urban event? Empirical evidence from European cities, Regional Studies. This paper investigates whether urban areas are more entrepreneurial than other parts of countries and to what extent the observed differences between cities are caused by individual characteristics and context effects. Using Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data from 47 urban areas in 22 European Union member states, it is found that in particular opportunity-motivated (instead of necessity-motivated) entrepreneurship tends to be higher in urban areas. Adopting a multilevel framework focusing on 23 urban areas in 12 European Union countries, it is found that urban regions with high levels of economic growth and diversity of economic activities exhibit higher levels of opportunity-motivated entrepreneurial activity than their counterparts.

Mapping entrepreneurial activity and entrepreneurial attitudes in European regions

There is increasing attention on the attitudes towards entrepreneurship as an important predictor of entrepreneurial activity. So far, the focus has mainly been on the individual or national levels. This paper describes, based on the existing literature, the link between the entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial activity at the regional level. We explore both the entrepreneurial attitudes and activity using data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor over the period from 2001–2006. We provide newly constructed and harmonised regional indices on entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial activity across 18 European countries. By mapping these indices, patterns emerge on different spatial levels. We observe a positive link between entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial activity, but argue that this relationship is not clear-cut, in particular, when linking to economic development. Regional and national forces – in terms of population density, national institutions and the differences in cultures – matter in determining how the link between entrepreneurial attitudes and entrepreneurial activity is established.

Ten Years of Global Entrepreneurship Monitor: Accomplishments and Prospects

In its first ten years, the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) has had three main aims: to measure differences in the level of entrepreneurial activity between countries, to uncover factors determining national levels of entrepreneurial activity and to identify policies that would stimulate entrepreneurship. This paper reviews the theoretical and empirical contributions by the GEM consortium ten years after the presentation of its first Global Report in 1999. The evolution of GEM measures of entrepreneurship is tracked, and the quantity and quality of peer-reviewed scholarship based on GEM data and models are assessed. Prospects and recommendations for the future are noted, as GEM continues to expand and scholars outside the consortium increasingly employ GEM data in their work.

Initial capital constraints hinder entrepreneurial venture performance

This article investigates empirically whether and to what extent initial capital constraints hinder entrepreneurial performance once the venture has been started. Prior empirical research in this area could investigate this issue only indirectly by lack of data. The key contribution of this article is that the authors are able—due to their comprehensive data set—to measure the influence of capital constraints more directly. The authors find that initial capital constraints during the start-up phase of business have quite a substantial negative influence on performance as measured by the survival probability of the venture and entrepreneurial earnings. These results appear quite robust.

An Exploratory Study of International Commitment by Nascent and Existing Firms

Abstract This exploratory study addresses two research questions: What factors are related to firms’ decision to internationalize, and after they internationalize, What factors relate to firms’ choice of high-risk versus low-risk foreign entry modes? We contribute to the literature by examining these questions with two separate sets of entrepreneurial firms: nascent (in the process of being set up but not yet operational) and existing (operational)firms. Accordingly, we draw on different streams of research, including the theory of planned behaviour and the new venture theory of internationalization, to study firm involvement in foreign markets. Among nascent firms, growth orientation and innovation level relate positively to the plan to internationalize; however, we find no discriminating factors for whether nascent firms plan to choose high- versus low-risk entry modes. For existing firms, growth orientation and team size are positively associated with internationalization. Finally, existing firms that have chosen high-risk (versus low-risk) entry modes are more growth oriented and differ in their individual-level factors.

Entrepreneurship in World Cities

Living in an era of increased globalization requires discussing the distinctive role of (large) cities in their countries. The general importance of world cities for economic development is underlined by the fact that, in 2010, 50.6 percent of the global population lives in urban areas according to the UN definitions (United Nations 2007). Furthermore, using the common definition of a city (as opposed to urban areas), by 2030 nearly 5 billion people will live in cities—roughly fifty percent of the world population—whereas only thirteen percent lived in cities in 1900. A recent issue of Science (2008) took a broad perspective and emphasized the impacts of urban life on global development. Similarly, in line with Jacobs’ seminal work on cities’ externalities (Jacobs 1969), Glaeser et al. (1992) stressed the importance of the availability of human capital in cities. Finally, some studies have discussed how a high degree of cultural and economic diversity in metropolitan areas, compared to the rest of the country, may enhance growth (Florida 2004), especially if entrepreneurial activity is abundant (Lee et al. 2004). Despite the observation that entrepreneurship is a worldwide phenomenon, only in the past two decades has it been identified as a crucial driver of both national and regional economies (Acs et al. 2004). Schumpeter’s (1942) creative destruction argument supports the idea that new (and very often small) firms have a significant impact on structural change both from an industrial perspective and from a spatial perspective (national, regional).

Entrepreneurship in European Regions

Policy makers’ interest in stimulating entrepreneurship suggests a general consensus about their beneficiary economic effects that exist. For example, the goal of the EU 2000 Lisbon Agenda to become the world’s most innovative area by 2010 relies on the entrepreneurial power of regions. The European Commission , in its Green paper on Entrepreneurship in Europe (European Commission 2003 , p. 9), makes it more explicit:

Local social entrepreneurship and social capital

This chapter explores the interrelation between social entrepreneurship and social capital at the neighbourhood level. Although the relevance of social capital theory for explaining the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship is obvious and undisputed, in-depth academic studies in this area remain scarce. We link social cohesion and collective efficacy, two neighbourhood-level components of social capital, to social entrepreneurial activity in the neighbourhood. In this way, we connect the theoretical perspectives of ‘institutional void’ and ‘institutional support’ that are addressed in the social entrepreneurship literature. We investigate these relations by using a sample of 360 entrepreneurs in 161 Dutch neighbourhoods and their report of the values they attach to societal and economic goals in their businesses. We find that in particular, collective efficacy in neighbourhoods can be linked to social entrepreneurship. This effect appears to be non-linear and U-shaped, which supports the idea that both a lack (signalling ‘institutional void’) and an abundance (signalling ‘institutional support’) of collective efficacy may trigger social entrepreneurial activities in a neighbourhood.