Our paper investigates how the type of work experience gained from prior paid employment influences the path to entrepreneurship. We distinguish between two distinct entrepreneurship entry modes: business takeover and new venture start-up. Using a large and rich French data set, we find that...

Firms that develop user innovations for their own use often find these innovations attractive to their competitors. Thus, the user innovator may consider vertical diversification, turning to manufacturing and selling its own innovation while keeping its original business as a user. The question...

This paper takes a holistic approach to investigate SME financing patterns in Europe by performing a cluster analysis including 12,726 SMEs in 28 European countries. The results reveal that SME financing in Europe is not homogenous but that different financing patterns exist. The cluster...

Die Internationalisierung von kleinen und mittleren Unternehmen (KMU) ist für die Unternehmenspraxis von hoher Bedeutung. Die vorliegende Arbeit beschäftigt sich damit, inwiefern Charakteristika des Chief Executive Officers (CEO) Einfluss auf die Markteintrittsformwahl von KMU nehmen. Die...

Education is argued to be an important driver of the decision to start a business. The measurement of its influence, however, is difficult since it is considered to be an endogenous variable. This study accounts for this endogeneity by using an instrumental variables approach and a data set of...

The knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship seeks to explain the fundamentals and consequences of entrepreneurship with respect to economic performance. This paper uses the knowledge spillover theory to explain different innovation outcomes. We hypothesize that a high rate of...

Innovativeness of a start-up is regarded as a prerequisite to acquire venture capital. However, it is neither obvious how to conceptualize nor how to measure it. Even though start-up innovativeness is of high practical relevance, no empirical research on the topic exists. This article is a first...

Part I. Status Quo in SME Financing and Financial Market Regulation -- European SME Financing: An Empirical Taxonomy -- The European Capital Markets Union and its Impact on Future SME Financing -- Innovation and Investment Finance in Comparison -- Trends in Financing Programs for the Development...

Research and public interest on economic inequality have grown over the last years. Family firms and the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few wealthy business families have been discussed as both a cause and a consequence of economic inequality. Yet, so far, we lack knowledge...