TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Künn, Steffen A1 - Weissenberger, Martin T1 - Catching up or lagging behind? BT - the long-term business and innovation potential of subsidized start-ups out of unemployment JF - Research policy : policy, management and economic studies of science, technology and innovation N2 - From an active labor market policy perspective, start-up subsidies for unemployed individuals are very effective in improving long-term labor market outcomes for participants. From a business perspective, however, the assessment of these public programs is less clear since they might attract individuals with low entrepreneurial abilities and produce businesses with low survival rates and little contribution to job creation, economic growth, and innovation. In this paper, we use a rich data set to compare participants of a German start-up subsidy program for unemployed individuals to a group of regular founders who started from non-unemployment and did not receive the subsidy. The data allows us to analyze their business performance up until 40 months after business formation. We find that formerly subsidized founders lag behind not only in survival and job creation, but especially also in innovation activities. The gaps in these business outcomes are relatively constant or even widening over time. Hence, we do not see any indication of catching up in the longer run. While the gap in survival can be entirely explained by initial differences in observable start-up characteristics, the gap in business development remains and seems to be the result of restricted access to capital as well as differential business strategies and dynamics. Considering these conflicting results for the assessment of the subsidy program from an ALMP and business perspective, policy makers need to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of such a strategy to find the right policy mix. KW - entrepreneurship KW - start-up subsidies KW - business growth KW - innovation KW - job KW - creation Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2020.104053 SN - 0048-7333 SN - 1873-7625 VL - 49 IS - 10 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Goethner, Maximilian A1 - Weißenberger, Martin T1 - Entrepreneurial persistence beyond survival: Measurement and determinants JF - Journal of Small Business Management N2 - Entrepreneurial persistence is demonstrated by an entrepreneur’s continued positive maintenance of entrepreneurial motivation and constantly renewed active engagement in a new business venture despite counterforces or enticing alternatives. It thus is a crucial factor for entrepreneurs when pursuing and exploiting their business opportunities and in realizing potential economic gains and benefits. Using rich data on a representative sample of German business founders, we investigated the determinants of entrepreneurial persistence. Next to observed survival, we also constructed a hybrid persistence measure capturing the motivational dimension of persistence. We analyzed the influence of individual-level (human capital and personality) and business-related characteristics on both measures as well as their relative importance. We found that the two indicators emphasize different aspects of persistence. For the survival indicator, the predictive power was concentrated in business characteristics and human capital, while for hybrid persistence the dominant factors were business characteristics and personality. Finally, we showed that results were heterogeneous across subgroups. In particular, formerly unemployed founders did not differ in survival chances, but they were more likely to lack a high psychological commitment to their business ventures. KW - entrepreneurship KW - startups KW - persistence KW - survival Y1 - 2019 VL - 58 IS - 3 PB - Taylor & Francis CY - London ER - TY - GEN A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Goethner, Maximilian A1 - Weißenberger, Martin T1 - Entrepreneurial persistence beyond survival: Measurement and determinants T2 - Postprints der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe N2 - Entrepreneurial persistence is demonstrated by an entrepreneur’s continued positive maintenance of entrepreneurial motivation and constantly renewed active engagement in a new business venture despite counterforces or enticing alternatives. It thus is a crucial factor for entrepreneurs when pursuing and exploiting their business opportunities and in realizing potential economic gains and benefits. Using rich data on a representative sample of German business founders, we investigated the determinants of entrepreneurial persistence. Next to observed survival, we also constructed a hybrid persistence measure capturing the motivational dimension of persistence. We analyzed the influence of individual-level (human capital and personality) and business-related characteristics on both measures as well as their relative importance. We found that the two indicators emphasize different aspects of persistence. For the survival indicator, the predictive power was concentrated in business characteristics and human capital, while for hybrid persistence the dominant factors were business characteristics and personality. Finally, we showed that results were heterogeneous across subgroups. In particular, formerly unemployed founders did not differ in survival chances, but they were more likely to lack a high psychological commitment to their business ventures. T3 - Zweitveröffentlichungen der Universität Potsdam : Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaftliche Reihe - 144 KW - entrepreneurship KW - startups KW - persistence KW - survival Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-524813 SN - 1867-5808 IS - 3 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Kritikos, Alexander A1 - Rodriguez, Daniel A1 - Stier, Claudia T1 - Self-Efficacy and Entrepreneurial Performance of Start-Ups T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - Self-efficacy reflects the self-belief that one can persistently perform difficult and novel tasks while coping with adversity. As such beliefs reflect how individuals behave, think, and act, they are key for successful entrepreneurial activities. While existing literature mainly analyzes the influence of the task-related construct of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, we take a different perspective and investigate, based on a representative sample of 1,405 German business founders, how the personality characteristic of generalized self-efficacy influences start-up performance as measured by a broad set of business outcomes up to 19 months after business creation. Outcomes include start-up survival and entrepreneurial income, as well as growth-oriented outcomes such as job creation and innovation. We find statistically significant and economically important positive effects of high scores of self-efficacy on start-up survival and entrepreneurial income, which become even stronger when focusing on the growth-oriented outcome of innovation. Furthermore, we observe that generalized self-efficacy is similarly distributed between female and male business founders, with effects being partly stronger for female entrepreneurs. Our findings are important for policy instruments that are meant to support firm growth by facilitating the design of more target-oriented offers for training, coaching, and entrepreneurial incubators. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 61 KW - entrepreneurship KW - firm performance KW - general self-efficacy KW - survival KW - job creation KW - innovation Y1 - 2023 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-572527 SN - 2628-653X IS - 61 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Kritikos, Alexander A1 - Rodríguez, Daniel A1 - Stier, Claudia T1 - Self-efficacy and entrepreneurial performance of start-ups JF - Small business economics N2 - Self-efficacy reflects the self-belief that one can persistently perform difficult and novel tasks while coping with adversity. As such beliefs reflect how individuals behave, think, and act, they are key for successful entrepreneurial activities. While existing literature mainly analyzes the influence of the task-related construct of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, we take a different perspective and investigate, based on a representative sample of 1,405 German business founders, how the personality characteristic of generalized self-efficacy influences start-up performance as measured by a broad set of business outcomes up to 19 months after business creation. Outcomes include start-up survival and entrepreneurial income, as well as growth-oriented outcomes such as job creation and innovation. We find statistically significant and economically important positive effects of high scores of self-efficacy on start-up survival and entrepreneurial income, which become even stronger when focusing on the growth-oriented outcome of innovation. Furthermore, we observe that generalized self-efficacy is similarly distributed between female and male business founders, with effects being partly stronger for female entrepreneurs. Our findings are important for policy instruments that are meant to support firm growth by facilitating the design of more target-oriented offers for training, coaching, and entrepreneurial incubators. KW - entrepreneurship KW - firm performance KW - general self-efficacy KW - survival KW - job creation KW - innovation Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-022-00728-0 SN - 0921-898X SN - 1573-0913 PB - Springer Science CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Fossen, Frank M. A1 - Kritikos, Alexander A1 - Wetter, Miriam T1 - The Gender Gap in Entrepreneurship: Not just a Matter of Personality JF - CESifo economic studies : a joint initiative of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität and Ifo Institute for Economic Research N2 - Why do entrepreneurship rates differ so markedly by gender? Using data from a large representative German household panel, we investigate to what extent personality traits, human capital, and the employment history influence the start-up decision and can explain the gender gap in entrepreneurship. Applying a decomposition analysis, we observe that the higher risk aversion among women explains a large share of the entrepreneurial gender gap. We also find an education effect contributing to the gender difference. In contrast, the Big Five model and the current employment state have effects in the opposite direction, meaning that the gender gap in entrepreneurial entry would be even larger if women had the same scores and the same employment status as men. (JEL codes: L26, J16, D81, J24, M13). KW - entrepreneurship KW - gender gap KW - personality KW - decomposition analysis Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/cesifo/ifu023 SN - 1610-241X SN - 1612-7501 VL - 61 IS - 1 SP - 202 EP - 238 PB - Oxford Univ. Press CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Kritikos, Alexander A1 - Stier, Claudia T1 - The influence of start-up motivation on entrepreneurial performance JF - Small business economics N2 - Predicting entrepreneurial development based on individual and business-related characteristics is a key objective of entrepreneurship research. In this context, we investigate whether the motives of becoming an entrepreneur influence the subsequent entrepreneurial development. In our analysis, we examine a broad range of business outcomes including survival and income, as well as job creation, and expansion and innovation activities for up to 40 months after business formation. Using the self-determination theory as conceptual background, we aggregate the start-up motives into a continuous motivational index. We show – based on a unique dataset of German start-ups from unemployment and non-unemployment – that the later business performance is better, the higher they score on this index. Effects are particularly strong for growth-oriented outcomes like innovation and expansion activities. In a next step, we examine three underlying motivational categories that we term opportunity, career ambition, and necessity. We show that individuals driven by opportunity motives perform better in terms of innovation and business expansion activities, while career ambition is positively associated with survival, income, and the probability of hiring employees. All effects are robust to the inclusion of a large battery of covariates that are proven to be important determinants of entrepreneurial performance. KW - entrepreneurship KW - push and pull theories KW - start-up motivation KW - survival KW - job creation KW - firm growth KW - innovation Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-022-00722-6 SN - 0921-898X SN - 1573-0913 VL - 61 SP - 869 EP - 889 PB - Springer Science+Business Media CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Fossen, Frank M. A1 - Kritikos, Alexander T1 - What Makes an Employer? T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - As the policy debate on entrepreneurship increasingly centers on firm growth in terms of job creation, it is important to better understand which variables influence the first hiring decision and which ones influence the subsequent survival as an employer. Using the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP), we analyze what role individual characteristics of entrepreneurs play in sustainable job creation. While human and social capital variables positively influence the hiring decision and the survival as an employer in the same direction, we show that none of the personality traits affect the two outcomes in the same way. Some traits are only relevant for survival as an employer but do not influence the hiring decision, other traits even unfold a revolving door effect, in the sense that employers tend to fail due to the same characteristics that positively influenced their hiring decision. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 13 KW - employer KW - entrepreneurship KW - business venturing KW - firm growth KW - employment growth KW - personality Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-437360 SN - 2628-653X IS - 13 ER -