Veronique Schutjens

The Evolution and Nature of Young Firm Networks: A Longitudinal Perspective

This paper describes the evolution of networks during the first three years after start-up and puts forward explanations of the nature of networks of young firms after three years. We extend current research on networks by explicitly including both temporal change and spatial variation in our analyses of the longitudinal dataset. In this paper we define networks as: the main business relationships with respect to sales, supply, outsourcing and cooperation. The nature of these business relationships is specified by four main characteristics: type, number, source, and location. The longitudinal network analysis is therefore at the micro-level: the individual young firm and the characteristics of its most important business contacts are central. In contrast to the literature our analyses show that sales relationships become increasingly social in source during the first three years after start-up. We also find a persistent geographical concentration strategy in the main business relationships. It seems that extra-regional relationships are losing ground to intra-regional relationships over time: firms are narrowing their spatial scope in their first three years. In addition, we trace important effects of gender, education, innovative firm behaviour, region and sector on the nature of young firm networks three years after start-up.

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.

Housing and Social Fragmentation in the Netherlands

The role of housing policy has been largely ignored in the debate on social fragmentation in Western societies. Only in Great Britain has this aspect attained prominence on the research agenda. Investigations there have shown that the mode of housing provision mitigates the effects of social fragmentation. Research elsewhere might help to clarify how and why the housing market amplifies or diminishes these effects. The case of the Netherlands is particularly illuminating because of the drastic housing policy reforms made there in recent years, allowing for a before-and-after assessment. This paper traces the effects of policy - and its reforms - on the range of housing conditions. In addition to dealing with the country as a whole, it investigates the changes in cities because of the specific nature of the urban housing stock. The analysis of how the housing conditions of various population categories changed during the period leading up to and following the announcement of the housing reforms of 1989 constitutes the core of the paper. The results show that housing conditions were already changing in the direction of the new policy aims during the 1980s. This casts doubt on the autonomous contribution of housing policy to changing housing conditions. The paper ends with a discussion of the implications of these results.

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:

A Place for Area-Based Policy? The Survival and Growth of Local Firms in Dutch Residential Neighborhoods

ABSTRACT: Although their market scope often exceeds the neighborhood level, for most entrepreneurs of small-scale firms the neighborhood is the relevant arena for both their professional activities and their personal affairs. Dutch local economic policy aims to stimulate new firm formation and firm survival in (disadvantaged) neighborhoods by conditioning economic, social, and physical aspects of the neighborhood such as economic zoning and clustering, livability, and the quality of the built-up area. Although substantial differences in firm success exist across neighborhoods, it is not clear whether area-level factors contribute to these differences, suggesting that area-level policies are useful, or whether differences are due to either urban effects or to microlevel entrepreneurial and firm composition effects. This article distinguishes neighborhood effects from composition effects on local firm survival and firm growth, thereby also taking into account spatial dependence across neighborhoods. Our results suggest that aspects of the local livability of neighborhoods and of economic agglomeration are significantly related to individual firm survival and firm growth. The models provide proof for spillover effects of livability problems and market potential between adjacent neighborhoods. Neighborhoods and cities are therefore potentially places for area-based policies, aiming at the survival and growth of local firms.

Neighbourhood Social Capital and Residential Mobility

This chapter reports findings from research in the Netherlands that links the change in neighbourhood social capital between 2002 and 2006 with resident’s moving intentions and their actual mobility outcomes. The underlying hypothesis is that those who live in a neighbourhood with high levels of macro level social capital are better off than others, even when they themselves do not have many actual social ties themselves. If neighbourhoods with high levels of macro social capital are good for you, than it can be hypothesised that those living in neighbourhoods that lack of macro level social capital are more likely to develop an intention to leave their neighbourhood and act on this desire. Using data from the Netherlands, the chapter shows that low and decreasing neighbourhood social capital stimulates moving intentions and actual moving behaviour. It is suggested that to get a better understanding of the interactions between moving intentions, moving behaviour and social capital, future work should inquire more deeply into the conditions which cause social capital in neighbourhoods to change.

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.

Dynamics in local inter-firm cooperation in Dutch residential neighbourhoods: Towards an Understanding of the Economies of Neighbourhoods and Communities

This chapter’s focus is on inter-firm networks of entrepreneurs located in residential neighbourhoods in the Netherlands and, in particular, on the importance of local inter-firm cooperation contacts and changes therein over time. If local inter-firm cooperation networks exist and become more important over time, the neighbourhood economic tissue might be strengthened and eventually benefit both incumbent firms and new entrepreneurial activities. Based on previous literature, we differentiate in our analysis between a number of characteristics, for example, firm age, firm home-basedness and firm local market orientation. Two waves of The Survey on the Social Networks of Entrepreneurs (in 2008 and 2014) provided us with a panel of 197 entrepreneurs active in over 140 residential neighbourhoods in 40 Dutch municipalities. For both years, the entrepreneurs mention one cooperation contact on average, and for local contacts this average is even lower. Therefore, we conclude that neither local cooperation nor cooperation in general is a common strategy. Using ordered logistic regression models, we found that over time, the average number and importance of local cooperation contacts hardly changed, although it did increase significantly for home-based firms, whereas it decreased for young firms. However, these findings disguise substantial turbulence in cooperation contacts at the individual (entrepreneurial) level. Between 2008 and 2014, almost 90 per cent of both total and local cooperation contacts were replaced by other contacts, emphasizing the ‘temporary coalition’ character of small neighbourhood firms’ cooperation strategies.

Variations in new firm life duration for immigrant and native entrepreneurs

Today we can observe an increasing spatial divide as some large urban regions and many more medium-sized and small regions face growing problems such as decreasing labour demand, increasing unemployment and an ageing population. In view of these trends, this book offers a better understanding of the general characteristics and specific drivers of the geographies of growth. It shows how these may vary in different spatial contexts, how hurdles and barriers to growth in different types of regions can be dealt with, how and to what extent resources in different areas can develop, and how the potential of these resources to stimulate growth can be realized.

Local Disorder and the Success of Firms in Residential Neighbourhoods

Abstract According to economic geography literature, the success of firms is affected by the local context, in particular when firms are socio-spatially embedded. We expect this effect to be stronger when firms face an increase in local disorder. We analysed data on 344 firms (active in retail, eating and drinking establishments, personal services and private education, business services, cultural activities, manufacturing and building) in 108 Dutch residential neighbourhoods, and data on the changes in social and physical disorder of those neighbourhoods, to examine firm success determinants. We find that it is not the degree of disorder that matters to local firms turnover, but rather recent changes in local disorder. More in particular, we find that local firm turnover is negatively affected by an increase in local disorder, but only when a firm depends on daily visits from predominantly local customers. Our results suggest that physical and social local interventions to create safe and clean public spaces will indirectly positively influence local firms and subsequently, the neighbourhood economy. This spill-over effect is promising for both residents, who benefit from local amenities and local ‘buzz’, and local entrepreneurs, whose firm success is stimulated.