Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine if and how entrepreneurial assistance programs, through guided preparation, affect start-up success. Design/methodology/approach –This study uses Heckman's two-stage sample selection model to predict the effect of contact and interactions...

Purpose – When a small business purchases a capital asset, its cost for tax purposes is spread over the useful life of the asset through the process of depreciation. It has become common in the USA for policy makers to enhance depreciation rules in an effort to increase business investment in...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate contingency factors on the emergence of university spin-off firms. The institutional and organisational factors the paper explores comprise the transfer potential of the university, the strategy and characteristics of the University...

Purpose – Recent findings by Hamilton ( Journal of Political Economy , 2000) suggest that the self-employed do not receive a monetary premium for the risk and uncertainty associated with business ownership. The purpose of this paper is to show that income underreporting by entrepreneurs can...

Purpose – Existing work documents the role that institutional setting plays in the process of spin-off creation. However, despite decades of studies, scholars have not clearly explained why some regions are more involved in spin-off activity than others. Drawing from institutional theory, the...