Transitions to Entrepreneurship andIndustry-Specific Barriers

Drivers of entrepreneurial entry are investigated in this study by examining how entry intosmall-business ownership is shaped by industry-specific constraints. The human- andfinancial-capital endowments of potential entrepreneurs entering firms in various industriesare shown to differ profoundly, depending on the type of venture entered. The educationalcredentials of highly educated potential entrepreneurs, in particular, predict avoidance ofsmall-firm ownership in some industries as well as attraction to others. Recognizing thatindividuals choose an industry sector jointly with their decision to enter entrepreneurship, wefind that the conventional practice of conflating different industry types in empirical analysesof transitions to entrepreneurship generates misleading findings about the determinants ofentrepreneurship....