Browsing by Subject "Entrepreneurship"

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Das Beste aus zwei Welten – Key Learnings aus dem ACTIVATR-Programm
(2018) Kuckertz, Andreas; Morales Reyes, C. Arturo; Brändle, Leif
Gerade innovative Startups drohen in allen Industrien die Geschäftsmodelle etablierter Unternehmen zu zerstören. Etablierte Unternehmen hingegen haben die nötigen Ressourcen und Netzwerke, um Geschäftsmodelle früh zu testen und schnell zu skalieren. Dieser Research Brief beantwortet daher die Frage, wie Vorteile aus der Corporate- und der Startup-Welt zum Zwecke erfolgreicher Innovationen verbunden werden können. Dazu werden Beobachtungen und Interviews aus einem mehrmonatigen Accelerator-Programm ausgewertet, welches bewusst Teams aus beiden Welten für eine Innovation Challenge kombiniert. Wir leiten Erkenntnisse ab für Entscheider aus etablierten Unternehmen, Startups sowie Accelerator-Programmen und zeigen, unter welchen Bedingungen eine erfolgreiche Kombination der Startup- und der Corporate-Logik möglich wird.
Corporate entrepreneurship in the public sector : exploring the peculiarities of public enterprises
(2021) Tremml, Timo; Ebersberger, Bernd
Entrepreneurship is predominantly treated as a private-sector phenomenon and consequently its increasing importance in the public sector goes largely unremarked. That impedes the research field of entrepreneurship being capable of spanning multiple sectors. Accordingly, recent research calls for the study of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) as it manifests in the public sector where it can be labeled public entrepreneurship (PE). This dissertation considers government an essential entrepreneurial actor and is led by the central research question: What are the peculiarities of the public sector and how do they impact public enterprises’ entrepreneurial orientation (EO)? Accordingly, this dissertation includes three studies focusing on public enterprises. Two of the studies set the scope of this thesis by investigating a specific type of organization in a specific context—German majority-government-owned energy suppliers. These enterprises operate in a liberalized market experiencing environmental uncertainties like competitiveness and business transformation. The aims and results of the studies included in this dissertation can be summarized as follows: The systematic literature review illuminates the stimuli of and barriers to entrepreneurial activities in public enterprises and the potential outcomes of such activities discussed so far. The review reveals that research on EO has tended to focus on the private sector and consequently that barriers to and outcomes of entrepreneurial activities in the public sector remain under-researched. Building on these findings, the qualitative study focuses on the interrelated barriers affecting entrepreneurship in public enterprises and the outcomes of entrepreneurial activities being inhibited. The study adopts an explorative comparative causal mapping approach to address the above-mentioned research goal and the lack of clarity around how barriers identified in the public sphere are interrelated. Furthermore, the study bases its investigation on the different business segments of sales (competitive market) and the distribution grid (natural monopoly) to account for recent calls for fine-grained research on PE. Results were compared with prior findings in the public and private sector. That comparison indicates that the barriers revealed align with aspects discussed in prior research findings relating to both sectors. Examples include barriers associated with the external environment such as legal constraints and barriers originating from within the organization such as employee behavior linked to a value system that hampers entrepreneurial action. However, the most important finding is that a public enterprise’s supervisory board can hinder its progress, a finding running counter to those of previous private-sector research and one that underscores the widespread prejudice that the involvement of a public shareholder and its nominated board of directors has a negative effect on EO. The third study is quantitative (data collection via a questionnaire) and builds on both its predecessors to examine the little understood topic of board behavior and public enterprises’ social orientation as predictors of EO. The study’s results indicate that social orientation represses EO, whereas board strategy control (BSC) does not seem to predict EO. Regarding BSC, we find that the local government owners in our sample are less involved in BSC. The third study also examines board networking and finds its relationship with EO depends on the ownership structure of the public-sector organization. An important finding is that minority shareholders, such as majority privately-owned enterprises and hub firms, repress EO when engaging in board networking. In summary, this doctoral thesis contributes to the under-researched topic of CE in the public sector. It investigates the peculiarities of this sector by focusing on the supervisory board and social oriented activities and their impact on the enterprise’s EO in the quantitative study. The thesis addresses institutional questions regarding ownership and the last study in particular contributes to expanding resource dependence theory, and invites a nuanced perspective: The original perspective suggests that interorganizational arrangements like interfirm network ties and equity holdings reduce external resource dependency and consequently improve firm performance. The findings within this thesis expose resource delivery to potential contrary effects to extend the understanding of interorganizational action with important implications for practice.
Distal embedding as a technology innovation network formation strategy
(2012) Pyka, Andreas; Paredes-Frigolett, Harold
Although the area of innovation economics dates back to the early twentieth century with the seminal contributions of Schumpeter (1911), it is only recently that governments have understood the role of a comprehensive approach towards public sector economics that puts innovation systems in the eye of public policy decision makers. Although well researched in academia in recent years, the role that innovation networks play in driving successful processes of innovation and entrepreneurship has been less understood by policy makers. Indeed, so far public policy makers have been concerned with the macro level of public policy in a way that has been rather ?disconnected? from the meso level of innovation networks. Not surprisingly, overall strategies for innovation network formation have not been on the radar screen of public policy. The academic community, on the other hand, has been devoting more attention to the study of innovation networks in an attempt to understand the role they play as a catalyst of innovation and entrepreneurship. By and large in the research community, the process of innovation network formation has been left rather unattended. Indeed, the question of how these networks are formed and what strategies can be developed to ignite processes of innovation network formation has been largely absent from the academic debate. In this article, we make a contribution in this area and present ?distal embedding" as one of three generic innovation network formation strategies. We also show why ?distal embedding'' is particularly well suited for emerging regions of innovation and entrepreneurship. Our contributions lie at the macro-meso interface and can shed light on public policy at the macro level aiming to have a direct impact at the meso level of innovation network formation.
Does regulation trade-off quality against inequality? : The case of German architects and construction engineers
(2018) Strohmaier, Kristina; Rostam-Afschar, Davud
We exploit an exogenous price increase by about 10% for architectural services to answer the question how price regulation affects income inequality and service quality. Using individual-level data from the German microcensus for the years 2006 to 2012, we find a significant reform effect of 8% on personal net income for self-employed architects and construction engineers. This group moved from the second lowest to the highest quintile of the net income distribution. This increase in inequality is associated with a deterioration of service quality. The reform reduced average scores of a peer ranking for architects by 18%.
Essays on investor communication in the context of startups
(2023) Kaiser, Manuel Tobias; Kuckertz, Andreas
With their creativity and innovative business models, entrepreneurs make an important contribution to global innovation, thus promoting economic growth and the labor market with startup jobs. However, the growth ambitions of entrepreneurs also require investments. Against this backdrop, previous research has already extensively discussed the importance of external investors and highlighted different facets of the entrepreneur-investor relationship. Central concept, to explain this relationship, is investor relations, which mainly refers to the communication of entrepreneur and investor. However, research on investor communication faces the challenge that a variety of new players, hence new forms of financing, have recently emerged in the market, further fragmenting the research field. In addition, technological advances are also changing the way entrepreneurs and investors communicate with each other. Against this background, previous research on investor relations in the startup context leaves open research questions that will be answered in this dissertation. This results in the following overarching research question for the structure of this dissertation: How do entrepreneurs shape communication with their investors? The first study was co-authored with Andreas Kuckertz and captures the research landscape on entrepreneurial communication using bibliometric analyses with algorithmic historiography and thematic map for science mapping. Thus, the structures of previous communication research from an entrepreneurship perspective are examined in more detail. The basis of this analysis is 383 articles from peer-reviewed journals. The results of these analyses show that communication in the context of resourcing is a relevant field of research, especially in investor relations. Overall, this study thus opens the research field of this dissertation by embedding investor communication as an element of entrepreneurial communication research. The second study was conducted with Elisabeth S.C. Berger and is a structured literature review that reviews the current state of research on trust between entrepreneurs and different types of investors. It identified and analyzed 32 articles dealing with trust in the context of venture capital, business angels, crowdfunding, or bank financing. This study builds on the results from the first study by revealing that communication is a trust-building factor. Thus, the second study shows how different concepts are interrelated and influence trust in the entrepreneur-investor relationship. The third study is co-authored with Andreas Kuckertz and examines the communication of entrepreneurs before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also considers the extent to which entrepreneurs financed by a venture capital investor differ in their communication from those entrepreneurs working without an investor. For this purpose, a novel method of text analysis was used to examine 110,283 tweets from 760 entrepreneurs. The results indicate that working with a venture capital investor also changes the professionalism of founder communication. This group shows a more professional expression of their emotions. In the fourth study, which was conducted in collaboration with Andreas Kuckertz, the emotions of investors expressed in communication are examined. This study focuses on venture capitalists and business angels. Although these two investors have a longer history in entrepreneurship research, their emotions have so far been largely ignored. However, since emotions are also relevant within relationships and therefore also in communication, this study broadens the view of the big picture in the entrepreneur-investor relationship by adding an emotional perspective. For this study, 994,969 tweets from 822 investors were analyzed and statistically compared regarding their emotions. Overall, the four studies in this dissertation address different relationship concepts that arise in the context of entrepreneur-investor relationships. Thus, this dissertation also provides impulses for entrepreneurs and investors in practice, for research and also for politics.
Founder CEOs and new venture media coverage
(2018) Kolb, Johannes; Howard, Michael D.
Among their early key decisions, new ventures must choose whether to retain founder CEOs and how to craft a media strategy to best represent themselves to the outside world. These decisions have critical implications for firm survival and success, shaping perceptions of important external stakeholders. Our study explores the interplay between founder CEOs and media coverage and their effect on firm performance. We employ competing risk models to analyze data on 2,327 US VC-backed technology firms during the period 1985 to 2009, finding that founder CEOs enhance volume and positive tonality of media coverage, which increase the likelihood of firm IPO. Our findings provide important contributions for research into entrepreneurship and organizational reputation.
From passion to performance : entrepreneurial passion in the creative industries
(2022) Schulte-Holthaus, Stefan; Kuckertz, Andreas
Entrepreneurship drives progress, innovation, growth, and prosperity. Passion, in turn, motivates and energizes people to pursue meaningful activities on a sustained basis. In following their passion and in interacting with their proximal environments, people build up competencies, knowledge, experience, and social relations, which may result in peak performance. When passion develops and relates to the creation, discovery and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities, entrepreneurial passion emerges. The current state of research shows that entrepreneurial passion is a source of motivation, inspiration, creativity, and perseverance. In the cultural and creative industries, entrepreneurship often begins from a passion for an artistic or creative work that is pursued as a hobby or leisure activity, which professionalizes over time. Thereby, passion for a creative or artistic activity can also create tensions between ideational and economic-organizational imperatives in entrepreneurial contexts. However, how, and why an artistic or creative passion develops into an entrepreneurial one and how it affects entrepreneurial success is unchartered territory. Hence, the aim of this dissertation is to investigate and explain the development of passion and its effect on entrepreneurial performance of creative people whose venturing ambitions are primarily driven by a non-entrepreneurial passion. The first study identifies the current state of literature on entrepreneurship in the cultural and creative industries. The review elaborates the phenomenon of a non-entrepreneurial passion as central feature of creative industries entrepreneurship and outlines its potential for future research. The second study presents a review of the state of research on passion in the entrepreneurial context and develops a theory-based approach that explains how passion emerges, and how it can extend to entrepreneurship and lead to entrepreneurial performance. Based on 11 semi-structured interviews with successful entrepreneurs whose life paths are characterized by passion for music, the third study follows this assumption and generates mental maps using the Conceptual Causal Mapping method. The results explain the development of real-life passion over time, its current constitution and embeddedness within the personal, social, and entrepreneurial life context and the relation of passion to performance. Based on the person-environment fit theory, the final study develops a model that substantiates the positive effects of life context fit on entrepreneurial passion and performance. Life context fit is operationalized using personal project analysis and the hypotheses were tested on a sample of 406 creative entrepreneurs using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results demonstrate the effect of life context fit on entrepreneurial passion and its successive translation into performance in four subsegments that can be classified as artepreneurs, culturepreneurs, creative entrepreneurs, and lifestyle entrepreneurs. However, contrary to expectations, the analyses also indicate that neither the life context fit, nor the domains of entrepreneurial passion have uniform positive outcomes. Rather, these relations occur with compounded positive and negative effects. These results are surprising as the extant literature has found nearly consistent positive outcomes of passion on performance. Post-hoc analyses reveal the varying constitutions of life contexts and the existence of previously unmeasurable domains of entrepreneurial passion for products, for people, and for a social cause among creative practitioners and help explaining the positive and negative combination effects in the segments. Overall, this dissertation contributes to the cultural and creative industries literature, the state of research on passion in entrepreneurship and psychology, and the literature whose epistemological interest aim at capturing and explaining entrepreneurial contexts and environments. Findings reveal (a) the central importance, development, and impact of passion among creative and cultural entrepreneurs, (b) the influence of life context on passion and performance, and (c) the interplay of combined positive and adverse effects of the domains of entrepreneurial passion and their impact on entrepreneurial performance.
Den „Generationenkonflikt“ durch richtige Kooperation überwinden – was Startups von Großunternehmen erwarten
(2017) Allmendinger, Martin P.; Kuckertz, Andreas
Der Zusammenarbeit von etablierten Großunternehmen mit Startups wird in Deutschland und insbesondere in Baden-Württemberg große Bedeutung eingeräumt, um im globalen Innovationswettbewerb weiter erfolgreich sein zu können. Wir zeigen, basierend auf aktuellen Umfragedaten, wie Startup-Unternehmer aus Baden-Württemberg das Kooperationsverhalten von Großunternehmen beurteilen und mit welchen Maßnahmen Unternehmen und Politik mehr Kooperation fördern können. Etablierte Großunternehmen sollten mehr Empathie für Startups aufbringen und dies durch mehr Offenheit und einen hohen Grad an Verpflichtung bei der Zusammenarbeit über alle Hierarchieebenen hinweg deutlich machen. Die Politik kann Kooperation als Vermittler direkt und indirekt unterstützen.
How do entrepreneurial portfolios respond to income taxation?
(2017) Steiner, Viktor; Rostam-Afschar, Davud; Rees, Ray; Fossen, Frank M.
We investigate how personal income taxes affect the portfolio share of personal wealth that entrepreneurs invest in their own business. In a reformulation of the standard portfolio choice model that allows for underreporting of private business income to tax authorities, we show that a fall in the tax rate may increase investment in risky entrepreneurial business equity at the intensive margin, but decrease entrepreneurial investment at the extensive margin. To test these hypotheses, we use household survey panel data for Germany eliciting the personal wealth composition in detail in 2002, 2007, and 2012. We analyze the effects of personal income taxes on the portfolio shares of six asset classes of private households, including private business equity. In a system of simultaneous demand equations in first differences, we identify the tax effects by an instrumental variables approach exploiting tax reforms during our observation period. To account for selection into entrepreneurship, we use changes in entry regulation into skilled trades. Estimation results are consistent with the predictions of our theoretical model. An important policy insight is that lower taxes drive out businesses that are viable only due to tax avoidance or evasion, but increase investment in private businesses that are also worthwhile in the absence of taxes.
It's a man's world? The rise of female entrepreneurship during privatization in Serbia
(2020) Kufenko, Vadim; Ivanovic, Vladan
The relationship between female empowerment and economic development is one of the most complex examples of reverse causality, yet multiple scholars acknowledge that female empowerment promotes economic progress. One of the crucial aspects of female empowerment is female entrepreneurship; however, the literature on the emergence of female entrepreneurship is scarce. We focus on the rise of female entrepreneurship in Serbia and collect an extensive biographical dataset of women, who took part in privatization. Although women enjoyed the same de jure rights as men, they faced a number of informal restrictions such as i) patriarchal values, limiting the role of women in the society and ii) occupations in low-wage sectors, making it difficult to accumulate capital. Analyzing the determinants of failures of the newly privatized firms during 2002{2019 we find a significant negative relationship between the risks of failure and the cases of own independent entrepreneurial success of women prior to privatization as well as the cases, in which only the entrepreneurial success of husbands of these women was registered. This relationship is robust to controlling for diverse characteristics of firms and to inclusion of ownership duration. We also find that the presence of influential husbands in the background was not significantly related to the subsequent change of ownership. Although the ownership change was registered for the majority of firms in our sample, we find that during the Serbian privatization women managed to build up on their own entrepreneurial success, which contributed to female empowerment. These findings can be relevant for understanding the aftermath of privatizations with respect to gender inequality in other transition countries.
Konzeption und Potenziale eines Gründungsklimaindex
(2019) Kuckertz, Andreas
Gründungsaktivität ist nicht allein davon abhängig, ob Unternehmensgründer potenzielle Chancen zur Etablierung neuer Geschäftskonzepte wahrnehmen. Denn genauso bestimmen generell hemmende und fördernde Faktoren des Umfelds, ob eine potenziell interessante Geschäftsidee in die Tat umgesetzt wird. Wie Unternehmensgründer ihr Umfeld bewerten, lässt sich als Gründungsklima bezeichnen. Kenntnis darüber, wie das Gründungsklima konkret ausgeprägt ist, kann nicht nur eine wertvolle Information für angehende Unternehmensgründer sein, sondern auch für politische Entscheidungsträger und die Wissenschaft. Dieser Research Brief stellt daher die Konzeption eines geeigneten Index zur Messung des Gründungsklimas vor.
Kreative Gründungsförderung - wo Startups die Politik in der Pflicht sehen
(2017) Kuckertz, Andreas; Prochotta, Alicia
Deutschland zählt im internationalen Vergleich zu den Volkswirtschaften, die auf eine bestens ausgebaute Förderinfrastruktur verweisen können. Dennoch verbleibt die Gründungsrate auf einem nicht akzeptablen, niedrigen Niveau. Wir befragen daher rund 200 Startup- Unternehmer aus Baden-Württemberg zu ihren Unterstützungserwartungen gegenüber der Politik. Insbesondere für politische Entscheidungsträger und öffentliche Fördereinrichtungen legen die Ergebnisse zwei Schlüsse nahe. Einerseits werden vielfach Förderangebote gefordert, die längst etabliert sind. Offenkundig haben etliche Programme ein Kommunikationsproblem und können sich im „Förderdschungel“ nicht bemerkbar machen. Andererseits liegt trotz der zahlreichen existierenden Angebote immer noch ein immenses Aufwärtspotenzial in der Etablierung kreativer, neuartiger Ansätze der Gründungsförderung. Hierzu machen wir entsprechende Vorschläge.
Leidenschaft und Performanz im Unternehmertum von Kreativschaffenden
(2023) Schulte-Holthaus, Stefan
Die Kultur- und Kreativwirtschaft ist geprägt von Menschen, deren Leidenschaft für eine kreative Arbeit den Beginn einer selbständigen oder unternehmerischen Tätigkeit darstellt. Dabei kommt es häufig zu Konflikten zwischen der eigenen Leidenschaft, den unternehme-rischen Anforderungen und dem persönlichem Lebensumfeld. Anderseits können sich Le-ben, Leidenschaft und Unternehmertum auch positiv ergänzen und die Herausbildung einer umfassenden unternehmerischen Leidenschaft begünstigen, die wiederum unternehmeri-sche Performanz fördert. Dieser Research Brief stellt die aktuellen Forschungsergebnisse zu Leidenschaft von kreativschaffenden Unternehmern dar und zeigt, wie die gewonnenen Erkenntnisse in der Praxis und in der Entrepreneurship-Ausbildung genutzt werden können.
Next match entrepreneurship : three studies exploring the career transition from professional athletes to entrepreneurs
(2022) Steinbrink, Kathrin Michaela; Kuckertz, Andreas
Der Karriereübertritt von Leistungssportlern wird in der Gesellschaft mit großem Interesse verfolgt. Aber nicht nur berühmte Olympia-Gewinner oder Weltmeister müssen ihre Karriere in jungen Jahren überdenken. Auch Berufssportler auf nationaler Ebene oder Leistungssportler von Randsportarten sind damit konfrontiert, an einem gewissen Punkt in ihrer Sportkarriere einen komplett neuen beruflichen Weg einzuschlagen. Bisherige Forschung hat ein hohes Maß an unternehmerischer Aktivität im Sportsektor gezeigt. Es stellt sich die Frage, ob die hohe dichte an Unternehmertum von den Hauptakteuren des Sports abhängt, den Athleten. Um die spezielle Ausgangssituation von Athleten besser zu verstehen, die Athleten im Übertritt zu fördern und auf ihr enormes Potenzial durch die einzigartigen Erfahrungen hinzuweisen, befasst sich diese Dissertation mit der übergeordneten Forschungsfrage: “Was beeinflusst den Karriereübertritt von Athleten in eine unternehmerische Laufbahn?” Nach einer kurzen Einleitung, werden Leistungssportler als “second career entrepreneurs” eingeordnet. Der aktuelle Forschungsstand, dargestellt in 1.2, zeigt auf, dass Athleten-Gründertum als eigener untergeordneter Forschungsstrom von bestehender Forschung zu Sport-Gründertum abgegrenzt werden sollte. Abschnitt 1.3 führt neben einer grafischen Übersicht über die drei Studien dieser Dissertation die untergeordneten Teilforschungsfragen auf, welche unterschiedliche Aspekte der Theorie des geplanten Verhaltens (TPB) betrachten. Anschließend werden in Abschnitt 1.4 die Struktur und die Anwendungsbereiche der Dissertation aufgezeigt. Studie 1 in Abschnitt 2 wurde gemeinsam mit Andreas Kuckertz und Elisabeth S. C. Berger erstellt und befasst sich mit der Eignung von Leistungssportlern als Unternehmer. Es wurden die big five Persönlichkeitsmerkmale (Neurotizismus, Extraversion, Offenheit für Erfahrungen, Gewissenhaftigkeit und Verträglichkeit) sowie die Risikoneigung von Leistungssportlern (von Sportarten mit niedrigem und hohem Risiko) und Nicht-Sportlern erhoben und mit einer Varianzanalyse (ANOVA) und post-hoc Tests analysiert. Die Ergebnisse wurden mit den Persönlichkeitsmerkmalen verglichen, die Unternehmern zugesprochen werden. Dieser explorative Vergleich basiert auf der Theorie der Passung zwischen Person und Arbeit und zeigt die Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen den Karrieren von Leistungssportlern und Unternehmern. Die übereinstimmenden Persönlichkeitsmerkmale führen zu dem Schluss, dass Unternehmertum eine geeignete Wahl für eine zweite Karriere von Leistungssportlern sein kann. Diese erste Studie der Dissertation bildet die Grundlage für die in Kapitel 2 und 3 folgenden Untersuchungen. Die zweite Studie in Kapitel 3 konzentriert sich auf den Prozess des Karriereübertritts aus dem Leistungssport in das Unternehmertum. Mit dem explorativen Ansatz werden zahlreiche Treiber und Hindernisse über elf semi-strukturierte Interviews identifiziert. Mit der Methode “comparative causal mapping” wurden Gemeinsamkeiten festgestellt, welche in Fähigkeiten und Eigenschaften, Ergebniserwartungen, Übertrittsbedingungen und Effekte gruppiert wurden. Durch das Einhalten des Person-Umwelt Fits unterstützen die Ergebnisse sowohl die Selektions- als auch die Sozialisationshypothese der Karriere. Außerdem wurden der Vorteil von Leistungssportlern herausgestellt, auf mögliche widrige Umstände verschiedene Bewältigungsstrategien zu entwickeln. Nachdem Einflussfaktoren auf den Karriereübertritt von Athleten-Gründern gefunden wurden, konzentriert sich Studie 3 in Kapitel 4, die gemeinsam mit Celine Ströhle erstellt wurde, auf den Einfluss von Resilienz auf die Gründungsneigung. Basierend auf der Annahme eines erhöhten Resilienzlevels von Leistungssportlern verglichen mit Nicht-Sportlern, wird Resilienz als Einflussfaktor auf die Gründungsneigung untersucht. Zunächst zeigt die Varianzanalyse zwischen den beiden Gruppen einen signifikanten Unterschied im Resilienzlevel auf. Die Strukturgleichungsanalyse bestätigt den Einfluss der Resilienz auf die Gründungsneigung bei Leistungssportlern und Nicht-Sportlern unter Einbezug der Theorie des geplanten Verhaltens. Außerdem wurde ein signifikanter Unterschied in der Beziehung zwischen wahrgenommener Verhaltenskontrolle und Gründungsneigung zwischen Leistungssportlern und Nicht-Sportlern festgestellt. Abschnitt 5 schließt die Dissertation mit einer Zusammenfassung der wichtigsten Ergebnisse ab. Die Ergebnisse werden in den Gesamtzusammenhang der Dissertation eingeordnet und der Beitrag zu den Forschungsgebieten Athleten-Gründertum, Karriereübertritt in das Unternehmertum sowie Förderprogramme und Ausbildung zum Unternehmertum werden herausgestellt. Dies zeigt die wegweisende Rolle dieser Dissertation in der frühen Entwicklung eines neuen und entscheidenden Forschungsgebietes.
Next match entrepreneurship : three studies exploring the career transition from professional athletes to entrepreneurs
(2022) Steinbrink, Kathrin Michaela; Kuckertz, Andreas
With great interest, society watches sports stars’ career transitions. However, not only famous Olympia winners and world champions have to reconsider their career paths in their younger years. All professional athletes, also those competing on a national level or top athletes proceeding niche sports, are confronted with the need for a completely different profession at some point in their sports career. Previous research finds a high intensity of entrepreneurship within the sports sector. Therefore, the question arises on what factors that high entrepreneurial density depends on. To better understand the specific starting position into career transition, support athletes on the way out of sports, and acknowledge the great potential of athletes with unique experiences, this dissertation is guided by the overall research question: What affects the career transition of professional athletes into an entrepreneurial career? Following the short introduction, athletes are introduced as potential second career entrepreneurs. The current state of the literature on athlete entrepreneurship in 1.2 shows that athlete entrepreneurship should be considered an own sub-research stream in deferral to the existing research on sports entrepreneurship. Section 1.3 gives a graphical overview of three studies conducted within this dissertation and provides an overview of the sub-research questions addressing different aspects of the theory of planned behavior (TPB). After that, section 1.4 shows the structure and scope of this dissertation. Study 1 in section 2 was co-authored with Andreas Kuckertz and Elisabeth S. C. Berger and addresses the suitability of top athletes as entrepreneurs. The big five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, openness for experience, conscientiousness, and agreeableness) and risk-propensity are investigated over top athletes (practicing low-risk or high-risk sport) and non-athletes. The results are analyzed with an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and post-hoc tests and compared to the personality traits associated with entrepreneurship. The explanatory comparison builds upon the person-job fit theory, showing the similarities between the athletes’ and the entrepreneurs’ careers. The matching personality traits lead to the conclusion that entrepreneurship might be an appropriate second career choice for athletes. The first study builds a basis for the following research in studies 2 and 3. Study 2 in section 3 concentrates on the career transition process of top athletes into an entrepreneurial career. The explorative approach identifies numerous athlete entrepreneurs’ drivers and barriers within eleven semi-structured interviews. Comparative causal mapping was used to identify commonalities clustered into skills and traits, outcome expectations, transitions conditions, and effects. Findings support selection as well as socialization processes of careers by retaining the person-environment fit. Furthermore, exploiting different coping strategies on possible adversities is identified as a significant advantage for athlete entrepreneurs. After identifying influencing factors on the career transition of athlete entrepreneurs, study 3 within section 4, co-authored with Celine Ströhle, concentrates on the role of resilience influencing entrepreneurial intention. Based on the assumption of athletes higher resilience level than non-athletes, resilience is examined as a determining factor on entrepreneurial intention. First, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows a significant difference in the level of resilience between the two groups. The structural equation analysis supported the influence of resilience on entrepreneurial intention within the frame of the TPB for top athletes and non-athletes. Furthermore, the influence of perceived behavioral control on entrepreneurial intention was found significantly different between top athletes and non-athletes Section 5 closes the dissertation by summarizing the main findings. Placing the findings in the overall context of this dissertation and highlighting the contributions to the research areas of athlete entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial career transition, and support programs and entrepreneurship education accentuates the pioneering role of this dissertation in the early development of a new vital research stream.
Sustainable entrepreneurship and the bioeconomy transition
(2023) Hinderer, Sebastian; Kuckertz, Andreas
Transgressing planetary boundaries endangers the safe operating space for humanity. Thus, a transition of socioeconomic systems toward sustainable development is needed. Prior research elevated the role of sustainable entrepreneurship (SE) in the transition process toward sustainable development in general and the bioeconomy in specific. Bioeconomy strategies worldwide acknowledge the importance of entrepreneurship for the transition process. There is consensus in research that entrepreneurs are needed to implement the vision of a bioeconomy as defined in these strategies. However, it remains unclear how opportunities for entrepreneurial activity in the bioeconomy come into existence and how entrepreneurs contribute to the bioeconomy transition by acting on the provided opportunities. Thus, this dissertation aims to shed light on the interface of SE and the bioeconomy, specifically by investigating the interplay between SE and the bioeconomy transition in light of planetary boundaries and the role of entrepreneurs within the transition. The four empirical studies included in this dissertation take different perspectives on the interface of SE and the bioeconomy and thus contribute different insights to the overall picture drawn in this dissertation. For instance, Study 1 examines a transition pathway to a sustainable bioeconomy by involving an international expert sample in a Delphi survey and subsequent cross-impact analysis. Study 1 presents a list of events necessary to achieve the transition ranked by the experts to reflect their urgency. The cross-impact analysis facilitates combining the most urgent events to create an integrated model of the transition to a sustainable bioeconomy. The findings suggest that rather than bioeconomy strategies, technological progress leveraged by innovative bioeconomy startups and investments currently constitute the main bottleneck hindering a transition to a bioeconomy. Study 2 zooms into the level of new bioeconomy ventures. Based on interviews with ten bioeconomy entrepreneurs from six European countries, it investigates how entrepreneurial opportunities emerge in the bioeconomy context and what competencies entrepreneurs need to act on them. Conceptualizing the bioeconomy transition as an external enabler for SE, Study 2 opens new avenues for research on sustainable development and innovation policy. Furthermore, Study 2 shows that new venture creation in the bioeconomy requires unique knowledge and specific competencies. Study 3 asks how to scale sustainable new ventures and puts it in the context of the ongoing de-growth debate. In recent years the de-growth paradigm has gained popularity in the sustainability discourse. Questioning the absolute decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation, de-growth proponents suggest downscaling production and consumption to reduce resource extraction and energy consumption. Applying latent class analysis to reveal de-growth attitudes among 393 surveyed entrepreneurs and subsequent regression analysis, Study 3 answers how de-growth attitudes among (sustainable) entrepreneurs are associated with their decision-making on scaling strategies for their ventures. Furthermore, it shows that the development level of the economy an entrepreneur is active in is an essential factor in the decision-making on scaling strategies. Study 4 investigates how sustainable new ventures gain legitimacy to acquire the necessary resources to grow. Previous research suggested being distinctive yet understandable as key to legitimacy for new ventures. However, Study 4 describes complex entrepreneurial identities, i.e., unconventional combinations of entrepreneurial identity claims from the founder and venture levels, as an additional source of legitimacy that benefits only sustainable new ventures but not conventional ones. Since sustainable startups aim to tackle complex problems, external audiences expect them to be different from established conventions of the status quo. An analysis of 15,116 crowdfunding campaigns and their creators’ user profiles via topic modeling and subsequent regression analysis supports this argumentation. The findings show that sustainable ventures with complex – or even odd – entrepreneurial identities receive more support from crowdfunders, while conventional ventures do not. Overall, this dissertation conceptualizes a bi-directional and potentially reinforcing relationship between SE and the bioeconomy transition by building on extant literature and collecting and analyzing new data in four empirical studies. Moreover, it highlights the role of entrepreneurs who need unique knowledge and specific competencies and differ significantly from conventional entrepreneurs in their behavior and entrepreneurial identity. Finally, this dissertation discusses how policy and societal norms can foster productive entrepreneurship that is innovative and sustainable within planetary boundaries.
The entrepreneur's social self and its impact on the entrepreneurial process
(2021) Brändle, Leif; Kuckertz, Andreas
Economic action is embedded into social systems. Prior research in entrepreneurship research has made substantial progress in delineating the impact of entrepreneurial activity on societal progress. The early agentic view on entrepreneurship relies on perceiving individual entrepreneurs as actors who shape their economic and social environments. However, entrepreneurs and their organizations are, at the same time, embedded in and driven by their social environments. Positions in social systems, in particular, might inform how individuals discover, evaluate, and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. This doctoral thesis aims to shed light on how individuals’ feelings of belonging and status in social environments influence key mechanisms in the entrepreneurial process. More specifically, the thesis builds and tests a theory on how the social class origins of individuals influence their beliefs in entrepreneurial feasibility and alter their entrepreneurial career intentions. Furthermore, it addresses how the perceived belonging to a social group—namely, the social identity of founders—influences the strategic orientations of new ventures and ultimately impacts the entrepreneurship outcomes for the organization, the community, and the society. By drawing on the extant literature and collecting new data, this thesis analyzes the interplay between individuals’ feelings of social belonging, their status, and the key mechanisms of the entrepreneurial process over the course of four quantitative studies. In building on the existing discussions about the compatibility of structural and agentic views, it develops a theoretical model of the entrepreneur’s social self, functioning as intermediary between social systems and an entrepreneur’s behavior. For instance, the first study of this dissertation asks how social class origins affect entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Based on a sample of 700 individuals that are largely representative of the German student population, the findings show that early social environments imprint cognitive tendencies toward entrepreneurship such as an individual’s perceived entrepreneurial self- efficacy. However, in line with the study’s hypotheses, individuals can alter these cognitive imprints through selecting and creating more favorable environments at later points in time. Specifically, education and perceptions of social mobility alter initial cognitive imprints toward individuals’ belief of adequately responding to relevant entrepreneurial tasks. Whereas the first study of this dissertation enhances the understanding of the role of individuals’ perceived positions in social systems over time on their perceived feasibility of the entrepreneurial process, the second study sheds light on how such perceptions of feasibility and social position affect entrepreneurial career entries. Based on a survey among 1,003 young adults in a critical career phase, the study’s findings indicate that social class origins influence how rather than if individuals intend to enter an entrepreneurial career. That is, the higher the individuals’ social class origins, the more likely their intention to combine paid employment with self-employment activities as entrepreneurial career path. While the first two studies highlight the role of positions in social systems for the entrepreneurial process, the remaining two studies in this dissertation turn toward how perceptions of belonging to social systems drive individual entrepreneurial cognition, firm-level strategic decision making and performance. Hence, one study asks how entrepreneurs’ social identities affect their entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Since social identities represent individual feelings of belonging to groups in social systems, the study hypothesizes how belonging to particular founder groups alters individuals’ beliefs in their entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Drawing on a survey among 753 nascent entrepreneurs, the study finds that feelings of belonging generally increase entrepreneurial self-efficacy beliefs. Furthermore, nascent entrepreneurs identifying with a group of self-oriented entrepreneurs (driven by economic self-interest) more likely experience entrepreneurial self-efficacy compared to those entrepreneurs identifying with a group of others-oriented entrepreneurs (driven by interests in communitarian and societal value generation). The final study of this dissertation takes up the difference between self- and other oriented founder identities in order to examine its impact on new ventures’ strategic decision making and performance. Based on a sample of 318 active founders, the study’s findings delineate how founders’ social identities influence the innovativeness, risk-taking and proactiveness of their newly found ventures. Furthermore, the findings indicate that these strategic orientations only partially succeed in translating founders’ social identities into performance. Whereas founder social identities that focus on creating value for others trigger more innovative ventures, self-oriented social identities are related to more risk-taking at an organizational level, which leads to higher performance outcomes at the enterprise, community, and societal levels. Overall, the results of this dissertation contribute to research on how individuals interpret their social environments and accordingly form decisions in the entrepreneurial process. Particularly, the findings speak to the emerging field of research on the interplay between social inequality and entrepreneurial organizations. However, this doctoral thesis can only be an intermediate step of understanding the inclusiveness of the entrepreneurial process. Hence, it formulates a call and outlines a future research agenda on how social status influences the ways in which individuals identify, evaluate, and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. This might lay the ground for further research on the role of the entrepreneur’s social self in the entrepreneurial process.
The phenomenon of corporate venture capital from an entrepreneurial finance perspective
(2018) Röhm, Patrick; Kuckertz, Andreas
The dissertation sheds light on several aspects of the corporate venture capital (CVC) phenomenon, and thereby contributes to the ongoing development of the research field as such. In addition to a structural literature review (Chapter 2), two studies (Chapter 3 and Chapter 4) with a special focus on the motivational drivers within the CVC dyad and two further studies (Chapter 5 and Chapter 6) were conducted. First, the investment motivation is observed at the CVC level—investigating how CVC units interpret their mission as delegated by the corporate mother. And thereby going beyond the well-established “either-or approach” of previously-published articles by focusing on the continuum between the financial and strategic investment motivation of CVC units (Chapter 3). Second, the study presented in Chapter 4 applies the framework of exploration and exploitation to scrutinize the interplay of corporate venture capital investments and subsequent startup acquisitions. The final two articles then address the application of new approaches in the context of CVC research. On the one hand in stimulating the use of isomorphic tendencies in the CVC context, and on the other hand in developing a data-cleaning procedure to enable future scholars to achieve academic rigor by identifying CVC units among the data records of information providers.
The role of Old Believers’ enterprises : evidence from the nineteenth century Moscow textile industry
(2014) Raskov, Danila; Kufenko, Vadim
The early accumulation of capital and the pioneering of capitalist enterprise have been undertaken in many countries by heterodox religious communities. The role of the Old Believers (further OB) in the early development of Russian industry and trade was noted by many economic historians (Blackwell, 1965; Gerschenkron, 1970; Beliajeff, 1979; Stadnikov, 2002; Kerov, 2004; Raskov, 2012); however, empirical and statistical research on the topic is still scarce. Therefore one of our goals is to analyze the role of the OB entrepreneurship in a dynamic dimension using statistical data. Taking advantage of official censuses of 1850, 1857 and, what is more important, 15 archive sources for confessional data for 1808 - 1905 and 7 industrial reports, we analyze the role of the OB firms in the Moscow textile industry for the period of 1832 - 1890. We find that the share of the OB firms in turnover and employment was over-proportionate prior to 1879, which hints at a higher propensity to entrepreneurship. The turnover per worker of the OB firms was significantly higher only in the wool sub-sector. Additionally, the OB firms tended to employ more labor. We capture the continuous process of the rise and fall of the OB entrepreneurship, especially in cotton-paper and wool weaving sub-sectors. Bearing in mind cyclical waves of repressions against the OB, we can state, that the performance of their firms was impressing. We discuss the Weber thesis and the Petty-Gerschenkron argument, and state that various factors contributed to their success: working ethics and minority status; social capital, networking and access to interest free financing; own informal institutions and reputation mechanisms; human capital and literacy.
Third Mission Advancement in Higher Education : developing and envisioning entrepreneurial pathways for higher education institutions
(2020) Stolze, Audrey; Kuckertz, Andreas
In 1983, Henry Etzkowitz coined the term ‘entrepreneurial universities’ to explain the strategic developments taking place at some American higher education institutions (HEIs) that have engaged in industry partnerships and generating revenue from new sources, such as patents. The involvement of HEIs in economic activities has led scholars to propose that HEIs currently have a third mission beyond the traditional two missions of teaching and researching. In the past few decades, this phenomenon has attracted the attention of policy-makers, researchers, and HEI leaders, with new developments being documented in many countries around the world. Nevertheless, one aspect of this phenomenon that remains poorly understood is the entrepreneurial pathways pursued by HEIs in their attempt to strategically develop their third mission. Therefore, the overarching research question addressed in this dissertation is: how can HEIs become more entrepreneurial and strategically advance their third mission? The purpose of this dissertation is to envision and develop entrepreneurial pathways for HEIs, contributing to the research domain of higher education entrepreneurialism from a managerial perspective. This dissertation comprises three studies: (1) a systematic literature review of the transformation journey of 36 HEIs across the globe establishes the researching status quo, proposes core entrepreneurial pathways and an action-framework, and identifies specific research avenues for the topic; (2) an international foresight study adds a novel perspective by proposing five future scenarios for HEIs based on the interests, preoccupations, and expectations of entrepreneurial ecosystem stakeholders from sixteen countries; and (3) a confirmatory study which identifies two mechanisms through which dynamic capabilities translate into third mission strategic advancements. Combined, these studies shed light on the strategic choices HEIs must take when developing their third mission, effectively explaining how HEIs can become more entrepreneurial. This dissertation thereby contributes concomitantly to the theory on entrepreneurial universities and HEIs’ management practice.