Etla » entrepreneurship

Network! Network! Network! How global technology start-ups access modern business ecosystems

Antti-Jussi Tahvanainen — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:56:09 +0000

to connect to critical stakeholders and, thereby, to integrate into foreign business ecosystems. Reverting to explorative, inductive methodology, the study contributes to the existing body of knowledge by approaching networking from a rare angle; networking as practice. The study examines (i) the precepts and principles that direct the start-ups’ networking efforts, (ii) the practices they employ to identify relevant partners and establish connections to them, (iii) the practices they make use of in the interface of newly established connections to sway and commit the respective partners to their cause and network, and finally (iv), the practices that offshore governmental agency nodes apply to help start-ups assimilate to foreign local ecosystems. We found that firms need to embrace and learn how to exploit serendipitous networking opportunities to gain access to stakeholders that purely ansoffian planning approaches could never uncover. The exploitation of serendipity necessitates flexibility with regard to the start-ups’ existing product or service concepts, strategies and business plans because in the serendipitous mode these are often re- and co-designed with newly encountered stakeholders. Many of the actual networking practices were found to have evolved together with the progress of other dominant megatrends such as the spread and acceptance of social and other digital media. Such progress seems to have endogenously affected some of the conventional cultural tenets of networking, helping to bypass hierarchical gatekeepers in organizations, for instance. In addition, the diffusion and acceptance of more content- and context-rich communication techniques such as social and mobile video, prototyping and story-telling have made pitching a proposal faster, more holistic, experiential and interactive. We further found that offshore governmental agency nodes can play a decisive role in accelerating and facilitating the integration of foreign newcomers into a local ecosystem. Important prerequisite for the capability to provide such services is a respected and established status within the ecosystem, a vast, cross-sectoral network, and professional employees with hands-on industrial experience in the respective ecosystem.

Tax Incentives in Catalyzing Informal Venture Capital Investments (in Finnish with English abstract and summary)

admin — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 11:00:00 +0000

Various approaches have been considered in Finland to catalyze new growth oriented innovative companies and to develop the functioning of the risk capital market. One approach suggested in several studies and public statements has been to consider creating tax incentives to catalyze informal venture capital investments. The purpose of this paper is to review existing research knowledge and international experiences on the use of tax incentives to catalyze informal venture capital. Based on current (still quite limited) research and experiences from many countries, well designed and targeted tax incentives can be assessed to have an important role in catalyzing informal venture capital investments. Tax incentives could improve the supply of risk capital needed in growth oriented young innovative companies and they could also strengthen the domestic ownership of Finnish companies. Furthermore, adoption of tax incentives to catalyze informal venture capital would also be seen as a clear and credible signal of positive change in the Governments attitude towards growth-oriented entrepreneurship and thereby improve the entrepreneurship culture in Finland.

The Tax Incentives on Entrepreneurship and Firms (in Finnish with English abstract and summary)

admin — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 11:00:00 +0000

The report surveys the incentive effects of taxes on capital and entrepreneurial income in light of the research in the field. The cash flow tax, the ACE tax and the tax on distributed profits of mature firms are known to be neutral with respect to the investment decisions. It is not widely understood that they are not neutral with respect to the entry decisions of start-up firms. The idea of creating tax incentives represents a departure from the neutrality principle. The entrepreneurial risk does not as such justify an investment incentive but an asymmetric tax treatment of it does. The Nordic dual income tax encourages the start-up investment of an entrepreneur who is expecting relatively high profitability. However, when setting the share of entrepreneurial income to be taxed as capital income, the failure risk matters. The empirical studies on the relation between the income tax rates and entrepreneurship point due to the tax avoidance motive to a positive relationship, though only at high tax rates. When judging the tax incentives on R&D spending, the strategic behavior between firms becomes relevant to be analyzed. Underinvestment or overinvestment are both potential outcomes. The entry barriers reduce in principle the validity of a tax policy based on the idea of tax neutrality.

Growth-orientation of nascent entrepreneurs (in Finnish with English summary)

Mika Pajarinen — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 11:00:00 +0000

This report studies Finnish growth-orientated nascent entrepreneurship on the basis of an extensive computer-aided telephone survey. The findings suggest that growth-orientated entrepreneurs are typically well-educated men with a technical degree; they have prior managerial and/or entrepreneurial experience; they are risk-takers; and they have had a high (prior) paid-employment income. The proportion of growth-oriented businesses is the highest in knowledge-intensive business services. Growth businesses are already initially larger : they have more initial capital and larger numbers of both founders and employees. They also engage in innovation activities and own intangible assets as well as are more frequently orientated towards international markets.

A part of research conducted for the Entrepreneurship Policy Programme. Also available as the Ministry of Trade and Industry Publication 29/2006.

What makes an entrepreneur independent? Evidence from time use survey

admin — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 11:00:00 +0000

It is a well-documented empirical regularity that it is more satisfying to be self-employed han to work as an employee for an organization. A large part of this difference in job satisfaction is in the literature attributed to the strong perception of independence by the self-employed. In this paper we study people’s time use as a source of entrepreneurial independence. By making use of disaggregated sequential microdata on people’s time use, we are able to document that the perceived independence hardly derives from more flexible time use : The self-employed work longer effective hours as well as more in the evenings and weekends than the organizationally employed. Albeit being able to time one’s work may be a signal of flexibility in time use, the self-employed have less pure leisure and are less frequently absent from work in general and because of sickness on weekdays in particular. Moreover, we document that the self-employed who have small children are more likely to work after 5 p.m., when the communal day-care centers close. On the basis of these findings it is not surpirising that the selfemployed perceive that they are more often than the organizationally employed under time pressure and in hurry.

When Do Employees Leave Their Job for Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Linked Employer-Employee Data

admin — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 11:00:00 +0000

Existing firms are argued to be an important source of new entrepreneurs. Yet, relatively little is known about the characteristics of firms that breed new entrepreneurs. We use a large linked employee-employer dataset to trace and characterize the types of firms from which new entrepreneurs come in Finland. We find evidence for entrepreneurial learning in smaller firms, for they spawn new entrepreneurs more frequently than larger firms. We also find that the productivity of firms and their R&D-intensity are negatively related to the probability that employees transit into entrepreneurship. These results are robust to controlling for a number of employee and employer attributes.

Why Are All New Entrepreneurs Better Than Average? Evidence from Subjective Failure Rate Expectations

admin — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 11:00:00 +0000

Do Foreign Players Change the Nature of the Game Among Local Entrepreneurs?

admin — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 11:00:00 +0000