Knowledge and Culture on Entrepreneurship

Petrakis, Panagiotis and Kostis, Pantelis (2012): Knowledge and Culture on Entrepreneurship.

Abstract

The paper contributes to the interpretation of entrepreneurship based on the effect of knowledge and the cultural background. Entrepreneurship is defined as both the self-employment and the entry density rates, comparing the two models. The present paper uses a series of variables to express these effects, which are analysed with a principal component analysis and a regression analysis. The results confirm that cultural background strongly affects both entrepreneurship rates. Knowledge creation does not affect entrepreneurship rates, as its impact on entrepreneurship is long-lasting (it could reach more or less 10 years) and not a short-term one. Simultaneously, knowledge impact affects negatively the self-employment rates and positively the entry density rates in the economies. Furthermore, performing a sensitivity analysis on knowledge and cultural background, the conclusions confirm that cultural background has a strong interpretive role in both entrepreneurship rates. Moreover, under the new prevailing conditions the creation of knowledge and the impact of knowledge have a negative effect on self-employment, while the effect of knowledge impact is strengthened in the cases where we increase knowledge and it is weakened where we decrease the knowledge variables.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Cultural background, Entrepreneurship, Entry density, Knowledge, Self-employment
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty; L - Industrial Organization > L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior; Z - Other Special Topics > Z1 - Cultural Economics ; Economic Sociology ; Economic Anthropology

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