nach oben

Erschienen in:

2019 | OriginalPaper | Buchkapitel

7. The Role of Knowledge

verfasst von : Michael Fritsch, Michael Wyrwich

Erschienen in: Regional Trajectories of Entrepreneurship, Knowledge, and Growth

Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Einloggen

Aktivieren Sie unsere intelligente Suche, um passende Fachinhalte oder Patente zu finden.

search-config

KI-gestützte Suche

Aus

Abstract

We investigate the role played by an entrepreneurship culture and the historical knowledge base of a region in current levels of new business formation in innovative industries. The analysis is for German regions and covers the years 1907–2016. We find a pronounced positive relationship between high levels of historical self-employment in science-based industries and new business formation in innovative industries today. This long-term legacy effect of an entrepreneurial tradition indicates the prevalence of a regional culture of entrepreneurship. Moreover, local presence and geographic proximity to a technical university founded before the year 1900 is positively related to the level of innovative start-ups more than a century later. The results show that a considerable part of the knowledge that constitutes an important source of entrepreneurial opportunities is deeply rooted in history. We draw conclusions for policy and for further research.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 390 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

Jetzt informieren

Vorheriges Kapitel Regional Entrepreneurship Culture and Growth

Nächstes Kapitel Traditions of Self-Employment and the Entrepreneurial Personality Profile of the Population

Nur mit Berechtigung zugänglich

For an overview of studies that find long-term persistence of entrepreneurship, see Fritsch and Wyrwich (2017b). Most studies that investigate the sources of regional knowledge and entrepreneurship (e.g., Grabher 1993; Saxenian 1994, and the contributions in Braunerhjelm and Feldman 2006) are on a case-study basis so that the results can hardly be generalized. Recent quantitative approaches based on larger sets of regions analyze the evolution of industries and industrial path-dependencies in regions in the medium run (e.g., Klepper 2009; Boschma 2017).

Saxenian’s (1994) comparison of the computer industry in Silicon Valley and the East Coast provides an impressive example of the role of entrepreneurship for the successful commercialization of knowledge.

Based on an empirical analysis of the development of the German Ruhr area, which is dominated by large-scale industries, Grabher (1993) argues that the old established incumbents may show a tendency to suppress the emergence of novel ideas and entrepreneurship.

There were three classical universities founded between 1900 and 1925 (University of Frankfurt/M. in 1914, University of Cologne in 1919 and University of Hamburg in 1919). These university foundings are not considered in order to keep the indicator consistent for the years 1907 and 1925.

A main aim of the initiatives to upgrade technical colleges was to overcome the lower social status of engineers as compared to university graduates. Moreover, upgrading technical colleges to technical universities was regarded an important means for improving the education of engineers (see König 2006).

At the same time, we agree that there could have been differences in the quality of universities in the early twentieth century which we cannot measure. Please note that there is no regional variation in literacy levels in Germany between 1907 and 1925, since schooling was compulsory.

For a correlation matrix, see Fritsch and Wyrwich (2018, Table A2).

Patents (per 10,000 working population) are taken from the REGPAT data base, and are assigned to the region where the inventor has his or her residence. If a patent has more than one inventor, the count is divided by the number of inventors and each inventor is assigned his or her share of that patent.

Data on the share of R&D employees is from the German Employment Statistics, which covers all employees subject to compulsory social insurance contributions (Spengler 2008). R&D employees are defined as those with tertiary degrees working as engineers or natural scientists.

The coalfields considered are those in the Ruhr area, the Saarland, and the Middle German field (Halle-Leipzig) (see Châtel and Dollfus 1931).

This information is available from historical university statistics (Deutsche Hochschulstatistik 1929).

Due to the rather small number of observations, one should not over interpret the results of the distinction made between small/large universities. The classification of universities by size is provided in Table A1 in Fritsch and Wyrwich (2018). The results of the empirical analysis are shown in Table A3 of the respective article.

Again, all estimated coefficients can be interpreted as elasticities that indicate the relative importance of the respective measure since all continuous variables are log-transformed.

As a robustness check, we also interacted the historical self-employment measures with a dummy variable indicating a location in East Germany. There is a significant positive effect for science-based entrepreneurship in the 1925 specifications of the base line models. There is no difference when controlling for the employment share in science-based industries (see Table A4 and A5 in Fritsch and Wyrwich 2018). Since the interaction variables remained insignificant in general, we conclude that the historical self-employment effect is not moderated by the substantial difference in entrepreneurship policies during German separation. Apart from that, a positive interaction for those regions where economic structure and institutions were destroyed to a larger degree indicates that persistent effects of historical self-employment predating these changes are due to cultural not structural components.

In a robustness check we added the two academies of mining (Bergakademie Clausthal and Bergakademie Freiberg) to the technical universities that existed in the year 1900 (see Table A6 in Fritsch and Wyrwich 2018). Both institutions are borderline cases of a technical university in the year 1900. Considering both institutions as technical universities does not change the results in a meaningful way.

We ran models with only one interaction term to rule out that the results are driven by using more than one interaction term. This method does not change the results. Splitting the sample of classical universities and technical universities into smaller and larger institutions reveals that the persistent effect of regional knowledge is driven by larger universities (see Table A7 and A8 in the Appendix of Fritsch and Wyrwich 2018).

The plots can be found in the Appendix of Fritsch and Wyrwich (2018). This includes Figure A1 to A16 including a supportive table for reading the plots.

To err on the side of caution, we run all models without the employment share in manufacturing as a robustness check. The results of this exercise reveal no meaningful differences to the set of models presented in Tables 7.3 and 7.4 (see Table A9 and A10 in the Appendix of Fritsch and Wyrwich 2018).

For results, see Table A11, and A12 in the Appendix of Fritsch and Wyrwich (2018).

For results, see Table A14 and A15 in Fritsch and Wyrwich (2018).

This type of explanation seems to hold for similar regions in the UK and US. For details see Chinitz (1961) and Stuetzer et al. (2016).

Acs ZJ, Braunerhjelm P, Audretsch DB, Carlsson B (2009) The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship. Small Bus Econ 32(1):15–30. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-008-9157-3CrossRef

Acs ZJ, Audretsch DB, Lehmann E (2013) The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship. Small Bus Econ 41(4):767–774. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-013-9505-9CrossRef

Andersson M, Henrekson M (2015) Local competitiveness fostered through local institutions for entrepreneurship. In: Audretsch DB, Link AN, Lindstein WM (eds) The Oxford handbook of local competitiveness. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 145–190. https://doi.org/10.1006/juec.1997.2032CrossRef

Anselin L, Varga A, Acs ZJ (1997) Local geographic spillovers between university research and high technology innovations. J Urban Econ 42(3):422–448. https://doi.org/10.1006/juec.1997.2032CrossRef

Asheim BT, Gertler MS (2006) The geography of innovation: regional innovation systems. In: Fagerberg J, Mowery DC, Nelson RR (eds) The Oxford handbook of innovation. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 291–317. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199286805.003.0011CrossRef

Audretsch DB, Lehmann E, Warning S (2005) University spillovers and new firm location. Res Policy 34(7):1113–1122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2005.05.009CrossRef

Beugelsdijk S (2007) Entrepreneurial culture, regional innovativeness and economic growth. J Evol Econ 17(2):187–210. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-006-0048-yCrossRef

Boschma R (2005) Proximity and innovation: a critical assessment. Reg Stud 39(1):61–74. https://doi.org/10.1080/0034340052000320887CrossRef

Boschma R (2017) Relatedness as a driver of regional diversification: a research agenda. Reg Stud 51(3):351–364. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2016.1254767CrossRef

Brambor T, Clark WR, Golder M (2006) Understanding interaction models: improving empirical analyses. Polit Anal 14:63–82. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpi014CrossRef

Braunerhjelm P, Feldman MP (2006) Cluster genesis: technology-based industrial development. Oxford University Press, Oxford. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1944-8287.2008.tb00409.xCrossRef

Carlsson B, Acs ZJ, Audretsch DB, Braunerhjelm P (2009) Knowledge creation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth: a historical review. Ind Corp Chang 18(6):1193–1229. https://doi.org/10.1093/icc/dtp043CrossRef

Châtel & Dollfus (1931) Atlas Châtel et Dollfus. Les Houillères Européennes. Société de Documentation Industrielle, Paris

Chinitz B (1961) Contrasts in agglomeration: New York and Pittsburgh. Am Econ Rev P&P 51(2):279–289

Dahl MS, Sorenson O (2009) The embedded entrepreneur. Eur Manag Rev 6(3):172–181. https://doi.org/10.1057/emr.2009.14CrossRef

Darnihamedani P, Block JH, Hessels J, Simonyan A (2018) How do taxes and start-up costs influence innovative entrepreneurship? Small Bus Econ. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-0005-9CrossRef

Deutsche Hochschulstatistik (1929) Version “Sommerhalbjahr 1928”. Verlag von Struppe & Windler, Berlin

Dilli S, Westerhuis G (2018) How institutions and gender differences in education shape entrepreneurial activity: a cross-national perspective. Small Bus Econ. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-0004-xCrossRef

Drucker PF (1998) From capitalism to knowledge society. In: Dale N (ed) The knowledge economy. Butterworth-Heinemann, Boston, pp 15–34

Elert N, Henrekson M, Stenkula M (2017) Institutional Reform for Innovation and Entrepreneurship─an Agenda for Europe. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55092-3CrossRef

Elfenbein DW, Hamilton BH, Zenger TR (2010) The small firm effect and the entrepreneurial spawning of scientists and engineers. Manag Sci 56:659–681 https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1090.1130CrossRef

Etzioni A (1987) Entrepreneurship, adaptation and legitimation. J Econ Behav Organ 8(2):175–199. https://doi.org/10.1016/0167-2681(87)90002-3CrossRef

Figueiredo O, Guimaraes P, Woodward D (2002) Home-field advantage: location decisions of Portuguese entrepreneurs. J Urban Econ 52(2):341–361. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0094-1190(02)00006-2CrossRef

Freytag A, Thurik R (2007) Entrepreneurship and its determinants in a cross-country setting. J Evol Econ 17(2):117–131. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00191-006-0044-2CrossRef

Fritsch M (2011) Start-ups in innovative industries—causes and effects. In: Audretsch DB, Falck O, Heblich S, Lederer A (eds) Handbook of innovation and entrepreneurship. Elgar, Cheltenham, pp 365–381

Fritsch M, Aamoucke R (2013) Regional public research, higher education, and innovative start-ups—an empirical investigation. Small Bus Econ 41(4):865–885. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-013-9510-zCrossRef

Fritsch M, Wyrwich M (2014) The long persistence of regional levels of entrepreneurship: Germany 1925 to 2005. Reg Stud 48(6):955–973. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2013.816414CrossRef

Fritsch M, Aamoucke R (2017) Fields of knowledge in higher education institutions, and innovative start-ups—an empirical investigation. Pap Reg Sci 96(S1):1–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/pirs.12175CrossRef

Fritsch M, Wyrwich M (2017a) The effect of entrepreneurship for economic development—an empirical analysis using regional entrepreneurship culture. J Econ Geogr 17(1):157–189. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbv049CrossRef

Fritsch M, Wyrwich M (2017b) Persistence of regional entrepreneurship: causes, effects, and directions for future research. Int Rev Entrep 15:395–416

Fritsch M, Wyrwich M (2018) Regional knowledge, entrepreneurial culture and innovative start-ups over time and space—an empirical investigation. Small Bus Econ 51:337–353 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-018-0016-6CrossRef

Gehrke B, Schasse U, Rammer C, Frietsch R, Neuhäusler P, Leidmann M (2010) Listen wissens- und technologieintensiver Güter und Wirtschaftszweige. Studien zum deutschen Innovationssystem, 19-2010. Frauenhofer ISI, NIW, ZEW, Karlsruhe

Grabher G (1993) The weakness of strong ties—the lock-in of regional development in the Ruhr area. In: Grabher G (ed) The embedded firm. Routledge, London, pp 255–277

Graf H (2011) Gatekeepers in regional networks of innovators. Camb J Econ 35(1):173–198. https://doi.org/10.1093/cje/beq001CrossRef

Henrekson M, Rosenberg N (2001) Designing efficient institutions for science-based entrepreneurship: lessons from the US and Sweden. J Technol Transfer 26(3):207–231. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011153922906CrossRef

Kauffeld-Monz M, Fritsch M (2013) Who are the knowledge brokers in regional systems of innovation? A multi-actor network analysis. Reg Stud 47(5):669–685. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343401003713365CrossRef

Kibler E, Kautonen T, Fink M (2014) Regional social legitimacy of entrepreneurship: implications for entrepreneurial intention and start-up behaviour. Reg Stud 48(6):995–1015. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2013.851373CrossRef

Klepper S (2009) Spinoffs: a review and a synthesis. Eur Manag Rev 6(3):159–171. https://doi.org/10.1057/emr.2009.18CrossRef

König W (2006) Vom Staatsdiener zum Industrieangestellten: Die Ingenieure in Frankreich und Deutschland 1750–1945 (From public servant to industry employee: engineers in France and Germany 1750–1945). In: Kaiser W, König W (eds) Geschichte des Ingenieurs (History of the engineer). Carl Hanser, Munich, pp 179–231

Manegold KH (1989) Geschichte der Technischen Hochschulen (History of Technical Universities). In: Boehm L, Schönbeck C (eds) Technik und Bildung (Technology and education). VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf, pp 204–234

Parker S (2009) Why do small firms produce the entrepreneurs? J Socio-Econ 38(3):484–494. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socec.2008.07.013CrossRef

Rodríguez-Pose A (2013) Do institutions matter for regional development? Reg Stud 47(7):1034–1047. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2012.748978CrossRef

Saxenian A (1994) Regional advantage: culture and competition in silicon valley and route 128. Harvard University Press, Cambridge

Schubert T, Kroll H (2016) Universities’ effects on regional GDP and unemployment: the case of Germany. Pap Reg Sci 95(3):467–489. https://doi.org/10.1111/pirs.12150CrossRef

Sorenson O (2017) Regional ecologies of entrepreneurship. J Econ Geogr 17(5):959–974. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbx031CrossRef

Spengler A (2008) The establishment history panel. Schmollers Jahr 128:501–509CrossRef

Stuetzer M, Obschonka M, Audretsch DB, Wyrwich M, Rentfrow PJ, Coombes M, Shaw-Taylor L, Satchell M (2016) Industry structure, entrepreneurship, and culture: an empirical analysis using historical coalfields. Eur Econ Rev 86:52–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.euroecorev.2015.08.012CrossRef

Stuetzer M, Audretsch DB, Obschonka M, Gosling SD, Rentfrow PJ, Potter J (2017) Entrepreneurship culture, knowledge spillovers and the growth of regions. Reg Stud. https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2017.1294251CrossRef

Titel: The Role of Knowledge
verfasst von: Michael Fritsch
Michael Wyrwich
Verlag: Springer International Publishing
Buch: Regional Trajectories of Entrepreneurship, Knowledge, and Growth
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97781-2

Electronic ISBN: 978-3-319-97782-9

Copyright-Jahr: 2019
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97782-9_7

Springer Professional

Abstract

Bitte loggen Sie sich ein, um Zugang zu Ihrer Lizenz zu erhalten.

Sie haben noch keine Lizenz? Dann Informieren Sie sich jetzt über unsere Produkte:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"