Yazid Abdullahi Abubakar

Knowledge Creation and Human Capital for Development: The Role of Graduate Entrepreneurship.

Purpose – Tackling structural and emergent problems in the labour market, valorising skilled human capital (HC) for opportunity creation, economic development and growth, are some of the key drivers for graduate entrepreneurship. This paper aims to examine developments in Africa, focusing on the significance of improving human capital through graduate entrepreneurship to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Nigeria.Design/methodology/approach – Based on a unique Education Partnerships in Africa (EPA) project the paper adopts a conceptual and exploratory approach to understand the institutional, cultural and economic dimensions of change and the specific role of graduate entrepreneurship education and training in enabling productive outcomes, using an illustrative case study of the project to develop the arguments.Findings – Knowledge creation lies at the heart of entrepreneurship development in developing economies such as Nigeria. Knowledge creation (KC) for entrepreneurship (E) is based on hu...

Developing a culture for entrepreneurship in the East of England: the value of social and human capital

Most UK Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) have committed themselves to developing an Enterprise Strategy for their region. This commitment is mainly in response to the current Labour governments keenness to see enterprise and entrepreneurship at the centre of any economic development agenda. Pro-entrepreneurship policies have been embraced as a means of generating economic growth and diversity, ensuring competitive markets, helping the unemployed to create jobs for themselves, countering poverty and welfare dependency, encouraging labour market flexibility and drawing individuals out of informal economic activity. The regional dimension of economic regeneration has been influenced, in part, by increasing interest in the local ramifications of national innovation and entrepreneurship policies, and also by growing awareness of the local or regional phenomenon of enterprise creation and innovation. The authors examine the connection between R&D activities in universities and the creation of new businesses (in particular ICT firms), and especially the role that social capital plays in fostering these relationships or connections. Preliminary empirical analyses suggest the importance of university–high-tech industry social capital in generating technology based start-ups. The findings suggest a case for fostering ‘connectedness’ between research universities and high-technology firms in regions with interest in technology-based entrepreneurship.

Innovation performance in European regions: comparing manufacturing and services ICT subsectors

This paper investigates factors influencing regional innovation by contrasting high-tech manufacturing and knowledge intensive services. Based on regression analysis of European regions, we find the following consistent results for two separate years, 2001 and 2003: 1) High-tech manufacturing is relatively more significant than knowledge intensive services for regional innovation performance. 2) For high-tech manufacturing sector, local manufacturing employment is relatively more important than local RD while the service sector needs specific attention on R&D, which could boost the sectors innovativeness.

The venturesome poor and entrepreneurial activity in Nigeria: the role of consumption, technology and human capital

Based on a cross-sectional study using a data set of 77,400 households in 37 regions of Nigeria, the authors examine how the ability of the poor to use information and communication technology-based products (their ‘venturesomeness’) influences the location of entrepreneurial firms in urban and rural regions. They investigate in particular the role of human capital in mediating the relationship between such venturesome consumption and the location of entrepreneurial firms. They test three sets of hypotheses to examine this relationship using multiple regression analyses, bivariate correlations and t-tests. The authors find that the use of information and communication technology by both the urban and rural poor is significantly linked to the location of entrepreneurial firms. While human capital mediates this relationship with regard to the poor in urban areas, the same is not the case for the rural poor. Implications are drawn for theory, practice and policy.

Technology in impoverished markets and new business formation rates: Spatial analysis of developing countries

Purpose – While it has been speculated for some time that technology market development at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) will create millions of new entrepreneurs in developing countries, as the BOP is the largest untapped market, to date, there is hardly any macro‐level cross‐country study investigating the extent to which such market development at the BOP influences new business formation “rates” in developing countries. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of technology market development at the BOP in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector in influencing new business formation rates in developing countries.Design/methodology/approach – The study draws on cross‐country data from developing countries from World Resources Institute and the World Bank. Several steps were taken to ensure robustness.Findings – First, a connection is established between a developing countrys level BOP market for ICT and the countys “rate” of new business formation. Second, it is suggested...

Mobile Telephony and New Business Formation Rates in BRICS and Beyond: Does Human Capital Matter?:

Abstract This study examines whether and to what extent ‘domestic’ education level mediates the relationship between mobile phone diffusion and new business formation rates across the developing world, that is, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) and non-BRICS developing countries. Drawing on the knowledge spillover theory (KST) of entrepreneurship, we suggest that the recent rise in domestic education levels might explain the positive association between mobile phone diffusion and new business formation rates. Utilising country-level panel data on 66 developing countries, the results indicate that the mediating effect of education on mobile phone diffusion and new business formation rates is not just limited to developing countries (including BRICS) but that this pattern can also be found in non-BRIC developing nations too, with the exception of the least developed countries (LDCs). We conclude with implications for theory and policy.

Entrepreneurial Growth and Labour Market Dynamics: Spatial Factors in the Consideration of Relevant Skills and Firm Growth in the Creative, Knowledge-Based Industries

Studies into the spatial determinants of entrepreneurship have tended to focus on (a) the characteristics of more successful regions, knowledge spillovers and agglomerations of economic activity (Jaffe, 1993,1998, Zucker, et al, 1998, Acs, 2002, Sorensen and Stuart, 2003, Audretsch and Feldman, 2004; regional differences in entrepreneurship capital (Sternburg & Wennekers 2005), (c) the relationship between personal entrepreneurial characteristics and behaviour and new business creation. An apparent propensity for researchers to focus on the performance outcomes of entrepreneurship at a regional level, rather than the structural supply-side conditions that may influence regional differences in rates of new venture formation, and therefore be construed as constituent components of an ‘entrepreneurial culture’ in those areas. This paper is concerned with the exploration of some of the critical, spatial and structural factors underpinning industry growth, entrepreneurship and labour market dynamics with particular reference to the so-called ‘Creative Industries’. Our research shows a statistically significant spatial correlation between levels of human capital (amongst other framework factors) and higher rates of new firm formation in knowledge-intensive sectors in the United Kingdom. It then goes on to investigate how human capital (measured in terms of educational attainment at different levels) can be enhanced within an economically peripheral sub-region to overcome mismatches between the supply of, and demand for, what the government terms ‘economically valuable’ skills (Leitch Review of Skills in the UK, 2004). Not all such enhancement measures generate entrepreneurial outcomes in terms of self-employment and new business creation. Equally, the availability of flexible labour and skills can support the growth of innovative firms. It is precisely these dynamics within local production systems, coupled with the existence of an entrepreneurial capability, that force many workers to change from the status of self-employed to that of employees at various times in their lives (Cappellin 1998). Thus, the issue of labour market skills and flexibility is of particular relevance in this paper. In recent years there has been a growing interest from academia and policy makers in the idea of the ‘cultural industries’ initially, and more recently in the ‘creative industries’ and the notion of the ‘creative economy’. It is the specific and special construct of the ‘creative industries’ (as distinct from all other industries) that has received overwhelming attention from the media, policy makers and researchers. Florida (2002, 2005) makes a compelling argument that creative talent is the key driver of growing knowledge-based economies. Creative industry products and services incorporate individual skill and creativity that are knowledge-intensive and locally derived. This paper seeks to address these issues with a particular focus on the determinants of new firm formation and the factors that can help determine regional advantage for new business creation and innovation in the creative industries. Specifically, we attempt to explore and identify key determinants of business formation in Knowledge Intensive sectors (which include the creative industries) of regions outside the major metropolitan conurbations, and their possible differences with other Non-Intensive Sectors. Based on analysis of Local Authority Districts of Thames Gateway South Essex (TGSE) in East of England, we find that while human capital is positively correlated with new business entry in Knowledge intensive sectors, it is negatively correlated with new start-ups in non-knowledge intensive sectors. This finding suggests that while entrepreneurship in knowledge based and creative industries requires highly skilled labour, in non-knowledge based industries, low skilled labour is the primary determinant of new firm creation. Our findings also appear to suggest the need for higher skills/educated base in order to boost the growth of new businesses in the TGSE region. Finally, we develop a new creativity index for secondary regions that measures more directly the concentration of creative and knowledge based industries.