Petra Moog

Social Capital and the Willingness to Become Self-Employed: Is There a Difference between Women and Men?

This article studies the role of social capital in the occupational choice process involving whether to become self-employed or not. Although the decision to become self-employed has itself been analyzed frequently, social capital as an important explanatory variable has often been neglected. We show that the willingness to become self-employed depends quite strongly on a persons social capital. Furthermore, we are able to show for the first time that since women invest differently in social capital than men, this factor helps to explain gender differences in the willingness to become self-employed. We test our hypotheses with two ordered probit estimates using a data set with 5,000 students. Firstly, we find that the more social capital individuals hold, the more willing they are to start their own business. Secondly, we observe that women invest differently and on a smaller scale in social capital than men and are therefore less willing to become self-employed. This helps to explain why the entrepreneurship rate of women is still substantially lower than that of men and underlines the importance of fostering the inclusion of women in networking activities and other events generating social capital.

The Impact of Balanced Skills, Working Time Allocation and Peer Effects on the Entrepreneurial Intentions of Scientists

To date, little is known about the effects of the composition of skills on academic entrepreneurship. Therefore, in this paper, following Lazear’s (2005) jack-of-all-trades approach, we study how his or her composition of skills affects a scientist’s intention of becoming an entrepreneur. Extending Lazear, we examine how the effect of balanced entrepreneurial skills is moderated by a balanced working time allocations and peer effects. Using unique data collected from 480 life sciences researchers, we provide the first evidence that scientists with more balanced skills are more likely to have higher entrepreneurial intentions, particularly when they are in contact with entrepreneurial peers. Furthermore, we find even higher entrepreneurial intentions when balanced skill sets are combined with balanced working time allocations. Thus, to encourage the entrepreneurial intentions of life scientists, one has to ensure that they are exposed to diverse work experiences, have balanced working time allocations across different activities and work with entrepreneurial peers; i.e., collaborating with colleagues or academic scientists who have started new ventures in the past is important.

Who Chooses to Become an Entrepreneur? The Jacks-of-All-Trades in Social and Human Capital

This paper studies willingness to become an entrepreneur depending on an individual’s composition of human and social capital. Our theoretical analysis is an extension of Lazear’s (2005) jack-of-all-trades theory. Our primary implication is that it is not individuals with a higher level of human or social capital but rather individuals with a more balanced portfolio of human and social capital that are more willing than others to become entrepreneurs. We use survey data from a sample of more than 2000 German students to test this hypothesis and find that the jacks-of-all-trades, i.e. the more balanced individuals are more likely to become entrepreneurs. On the other hand, the Masters-in-One, i.e. the specialists, are better off being an employee and rightly prefer to be so.

Crisis and turnaround management in SMEs: a qualitative-empirical investigation of 30 companies

During their life cycles, many companies are confronted with crisis. The aim of this paper is to empirically test theoretical approaches in the case of 30 small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) from Germany. The presented explorative study contributes gaining a deeper insight how these companies deal with crisis. The interviews were analysed by the qualitative method GABEK that transforms abstract individual unstructured and unorganised texts onto a collective level. Among others, the results show that the personal contact to stakeholders is an added value of SMEs because of their size in order to manage and overcome crisis. Finally, it is shown that crisis can be best overcome by focusing on the core business and growth, in addition to job cuts and reduction of working time.

Die Rolle der Hochschullehrer für Gründungen aus deutschen Hochschulen — erste empirische Erkenntnisse

Seit den 90iger Jahren stehen Grundungen aus Hochschulen — sog. academic spinoffs — im Fokus der Grundungsforschung. Das besondere Interesse gilt dabei den Einflussfaktoren, die die Grundungsneigung von Studierenden und wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeitern wesentlich bestimmen. Auf Basis einer bundesweiten Online-Erhebung unter Professoren und wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeitern aller Fachbereiche an deutschen Hochschulen, bei der insgesamt uber 5.000 Antworten ausgewertet werden konnten, untersuchen die Autorinnen die Haltung der Hochschullehrer zur Selbstandigkeitsthematik: Wahrend die erste Frage einer sehr differenzierten Darstellung hinsichtlich verschiedener strukturspezifischer Merkmale bedarf — ob ein Professor Grundungen aktiv unterstutzt, hangt z.B. wesentlich davon ab, ob er auseruniversitare Berufserfahrung besitzt oder nicht — lasst sich dagegen die zweite Frage eindeutig mit ‚nein‘ beantworten. Die Zahl der wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiter, die ein Unternehmen grunden wollen, ist bisher verschwindend gering. Ein entscheidendes Ergebnis der Analyse auf der Basis von bivariaten Analysen ist auch, dass sich ein struktureller Zusammenhang zwischen den Unterstutzungsaktivitaten der Professoren und Ausgrundungen nachweisen lasst. Das zeigt, dass den Hochschullehrern im Hinblick auf Grundungen von Studierenden und wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeitern eine Schlusselrolle zukommt.

Internationalisation in new ventures what role do team dynamics play

The role of team size and dynamics in the internationalisation process of new ventures has received little attention in entrepreneurship literature so far. We hope to fill this gap by investigating how team formation and the intertemporal dynamics of teams in the first years of new ventures affect their propensity for early-stage-internationalisation. Using the resource-based view and matching theory, our study generates new insights in this field regarding productivity effects. Using regression models for binary outcome variables, we test our hypotheses with a data set of start-ups that are either internationalised or not (Cologne Founder Study). We find that new ventures with productive matched teams will overcome barriers to internationalisation easier than single person start-ups. In particular, we can show that a variation in team size (a decrease) enhances the productivity of the management and increases the probability to internationalise.

Repatriates as entrepreneurs? – A theoretical analysis

This contribution raises the question as to whether repatriates may pursue entrepreneurship and aims to theoretically determine if repatriates are particularly suitable candidates for venturing into self-employment. To address this research question, the Jack-of-all trades view and the human and social capital theories are employed. Research shows that insufficient repatriation strategies in international firms, lead these usually qualified, skilled and experienced employees to change employers after an international assignment. Clear insights into whether they also opt for self-employment as a career path are unavailable. To investigate this prospect, the opportunity recognition and development approach is applied because the realisation and exploitation of market opportunities is a precondition for venturing into self-employment. The above named theories are also employed to compare repatriates and start-up entrepreneurs as they have been found to facilitate the identification and exploitation of ideas. Profile similarities are found to prevail thus supporting our proposition.

Why Do Employees Leave Their Jobs for Self-Employment? – The Impact of Entrepreneurial Working Conditions in Small Firms

Based on the finding that entrepreneurs who found new firms tend to work as employees of small rather than large firms prior to start-up, we test how different working conditions, which enhance entrepreneurial learning, affect their decision to become entrepreneurs when moderated by firm size. Based on data of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), we find a significant relationship between entrepreneurial learning (extracted in an orthogonal factor analysis based on twelve working conditions as proxy for entrepreneurial human capital and work experience) and firm size when predicting the probability of leaving paid employment for self-employment. We think, that this is a special kind of knowledge spillover. We also control for other aspects such as gender, age, wage, etc. – factors that may potentially influence the decision to become self-employed. Thus, our analysis sheds new light onto the black box of SMEs as a hotbed of new start-ups.

The impact of labour market regulations on (potential) entrepreneurs: the case of Germany

This paper explores the impact of German labour market regulations on the willingness of labour market entrants to start their own business. We study the legal situation, the actual and the perceived constraints imposed on businesses as well as the actual flexibility available of start-ups. We find strong evidence that labour market regulations are often misperceived in Germany. Furthermore, these misperceptions distort the willingness to become selfemployed. Start-ups are de jure hardly affected by labour market regulations because of a large number of exemptions. They are able to use a number of flexibility measures and thereby avoid regulatory restrictions. However, perceptions are quite the opposite, particularly in legal areas with high media coverage. This leads to a strong reluctance of labour market entrants to consider a start-up. Thus, measures aiming at increasing entrepreneurship should place strong emphasis on accurate knowledge of regulatory constraints and particularly in Germany, on less sceptical media coverage.

A Case Study of an Ethiopan Refugee in Germany

Kaficho is the youngest of three Ethiopians, from an outspoken family who were engaged in political clashes with the government. His journey to refuge is unique in the sense that he undertook postgraduate studies in Germany, returning to Ethiopia with the intention of starting a family there with his wife. As his tourism company grew, when he returned to it in 2010, he entered into partnership. He also held a position at a university near Addis Ababa, but soon started to face political pressure to join the ruling party or suffer the consequences. In 2013, this pressure led him to abandon the idea of staying in Ethiopia, and he fled the country, successfully immigrating into Germany. Not being able to find employment in Heidelberg, he established “Kaficho Trading” in 2015, which is a transnational business-to-business sole proprietorship for small machinery and coffee.