TY - RPRT A1 - Caliendo, Marco A1 - Kritikos, Alexander A1 - Stier, Claudia T1 - The Influence of Start-up Motivation on Entrepreneurial Performance T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers 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, expansion and innovation activities for up to 40 months after business formation. Using 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. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 59 KW - Entrepreneurship KW - Push and Pull Theories KW - Start-up Motivation KW - Survival KW - Job Creation KW - Firm Growth KW - Innovation Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-571152 SN - 2628-653X IS - 59 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Giotopoulos, Ioannis A1 - Kritikos, Alexander A1 - Tsakanikas, Aggelos T1 - A Lasting Crisis affects R&D decisions of smaller firms BT - the Greek experience T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - We use the prolonged Greek crisis as a case study to understand how a lasting economic shock affects the innovation strategies of firms in economies with moderate innovation activities. Adopting the 3-stage CDM model, we explore the link between R&D, innovation, and productivity for different size groups of Greek manufacturing firms during the prolonged crisis. At the first stage, we find that the continuation of the crisis is harmful for the R&D engagement of smaller firms while it increased the willingness for R&D activities among the larger ones. At the second stage, among smaller firms the knowledge production remains unaffected by R&D investments, while among larger firms the R&D decision is positively correlated with the probability of producing innovation, albeit the relationship is weakened as the crisis continues. At the third stage, innovation output benefits only larger firms in terms of labor productivity, while the innovation-productivity nexus is insignificant for smaller firms during the lasting crisis. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 49 KW - Small firms KW - Large firms KW - R&D KW - Innovation KW - Productivity KW - Long-term Crisis Y1 - 2022 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-558442 SN - 2628-653X IS - 49 ER - TY - RPRT 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 T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers 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 nonunemployment 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. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 12 KW - Entrepreneurship KW - Start-up Subsidies KW - Business Grow KW - Innovation KW - Job Creation Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-437012 SN - 2628-653X IS - 12 ER - TY - RPRT A1 - Audretsch, David B. A1 - Hafenstein, Marian A1 - Kritikos, Alexander A1 - Schiersch, Alexander T1 - Firm Size and Innovation in the Service Sector T2 - CEPA Discussion Papers N2 - A rich literature links knowledge inputs with innovative outputs. However, most of what is known is restricted to manufacturing. This paper analyzes whether the three aspects involving innovative activity - R&D; innovative output; and productivity - hold for knowledge intensive services. Combining the models of Crepon et al. (1998) and of Ackerberg et al. (2015), allows for causal interpretation of the relationship between innovation output and labor productivity. We find that knowledge intensive services benefit from innovation activities in the sense that these activities causally increase their labor productivity. Moreover, the firm size advantage found for manufacturing in previous studies nearly disappears for knowledge intensive services. T3 - CEPA Discussion Papers - 4 KW - MSMEs KW - R&D KW - Service Sector KW - Innovation KW - Productivity KW - Entrepreneurship Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus4-427670 SN - 2628-653X IS - 4 ER -