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02-02-2018

Entrepreneurs’ human capital and growth aspirations: the moderating role of regional entrepreneurial culture

Authors: Joan-Lluís Capelleras, Ignacio Contin-Pilart, Martin Larraza-Kintana, Victor Martin-Sanchez

Published in: Small Business Economics | Issue 1/2019

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Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of entrepreneurs’ human capital on their growth aspirations and the moderating role of regional entrepreneurial culture in this relationship. Based on human capital theory, we argue that growth aspirations will be higher for individuals with higher educational attainment and lower for those with prior entrepreneurial experience. Drawing on an institutional perspective, we also suggest that regional social acceptance of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial role models will positively moderate these effects. Using data that combines individual and province level information in Spain over the period 2008–2014, we find support for the differential effect of formal education and entrepreneurial experience. The results also show that both social approval of entrepreneurship and role models tend to increase the growth aspirations of experienced entrepreneurs, whereas aspirations of the more educated ones are only affected by the presence of role models. Implications from the findings are discussed.

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According to the information provided by the Spanish National Institute of Statistics (Instituto Nacional de Estadística or INE) 55 to 60% of the firms created in a given year in Spain have disappeared in 5 years.

Because their high levels of population density, we omit 2 provinces corresponding to Ceuta and Melilla that are two independent cities geographically located in North Africa but that belong to the Kingdom of Spain. Their inclusion in the analyses does not affect our results and conclusions.

An alternative methodological approach to control for the effect of heterogeneity across groups is to estimate linear regression models taking into consideration the clustering of standard errors at the province level. It is worth noting that results using this alternative approach are fully consistent with the ones reported here.

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Title: Entrepreneurs’ human capital and growth aspirations: the moderating role of regional entrepreneurial culture
Authors: Joan-Lluís Capelleras
Ignacio Contin-Pilart
Martin Larraza-Kintana
Victor Martin-Sanchez
Publication date: 02-02-2018
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Small Business Economics / Issue 1/2019
Print ISSN: 0921-898X
Electronic ISSN: 1573-0913
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-017-9985-0

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