Entrepreneurial culture and innovation in the services sector: case study evidence from Greece

Petrou, Anastasia and Daskalopoulou, Irene (2009): Entrepreneurial culture and innovation in the services sector: case study evidence from Greece.

Abstract

Innovation in the services sectors has been a rather neglected research area under the commonly held view that manufacturing firms are the main drivers of innovation in developed economies. The rise of the service economy has redirected the research agenda towards the potential of services firms to adopt innovation activity. Here we analyze the determinants of innovation activity in the tourism industry, which is one of the fastest growing service industries in the world. Our analysis builds upon the theoretical notion of entrepreneurial culture in order to suggest that entrepreneurs possess such culture when they actively and consciously seek information in order to underwrite the risk and ambiguity inherent in actions such as innovation activity. At the empirical level, entrepreneurial culture is approximated by active engagement in networking activity. Our results indicate that both internal and external to the firm social capital generation processes, determine innovation activity in tourism and provide evidence over the selective nature of information networks.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: social capital, innovation, firm behavior
• Subjects: D - Microeconomics > D2 - Production and Organizations > D21 - Firm Behavior: Theory; L - Industrial Organization > L2 - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior > L21 - Business Objectives of the Firm; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O3 - Innovation ; Research and Development ; Technological Change ; Intellectual Property Rights > O31 - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives; O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development > O12 - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

References

Amemiya, T. (1981), Qualitative response models: a survey. Journal of Economic Literature, 19, 481-536.

Anderson, A. R., Jack, S. L. (2002), The articulation of social capital in entrepreneurial networks: a glue or a lubricant?. Entrepreneurship and Regional Development, 14 (3), 193-210.

Boschma, R. A. (2004), Competitiveness of regions from an evolutionary perspective. Regional Studies, 38 (9), 1001-1014.

Castells, M. (2004). Informationalism, networks, and the network society: atheoretical blueprint. In: M. Castells (Ed.), The Network Society. A Cross-cultural Perspective (pp. 3-45). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

CEC, (2003). Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC of 6 May 2003, OJ L124, 2003, p.36.

Galaskiewicz, J., Wasserman, S., Rauschenbach, B., Bielefeld, W., Mullaney, P. (1985), The influence of corporate power, social status and market position on corporate interlocks in a regional network. Social Forces, 64, 403-431.

Greene, W. (1997). Econometric Analysis. NY: Prentice-Hall International.

Guiliani, E. (2007), The selective nature of knowledge networks in clusters: evidence from the wine industry. Journal of Economic Geography, 7, 139-168.

Hirsch-Kreinsen, H., Jacobson, D., Laestadius, S., Smith, K. (2003). Lowtech industries and the knowledge economy: state of the art and research challenges. PILOT: Policy and Innovation in Low-Tech, European Commission Framework 5 Programme.

Hjalager, A. M. (1997), Innovation patterns in sustainable tourism. An analytical typology. Tourism Management, 18(1), 35-41.

Julien, P. A. (2007). A Theory of Local Entrepreneurship in the Knowledge Economy. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Maddala, G. S. (1995). Specification tests in limited dependent variables models. In: G. S. Maddala, P. C. B Phillips, T. N. Srinivasan, (Eds), Advances in Economics and Quantitative Economics (pp. 1-49). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

McFadden, D. (1974). Conditional logit analysis of qualitative choice analysis. In: P. Zarembka (Ed.), Frontiers in Econometrics (pp. 105-142). NY: Academic Press.

Nordin, S. (2003). Tourism Clustering and Innovation – Paths to Economic Growth and Development. European Tourism Research Institute U2003: 14.

OECD, (2001). Cities and Regions in the New Learning Economy. Paris: OECD.

OECD. Regulatory Reforms and Innovations. Undated Report. Available at: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/23/61/2102514.pdf.

Ritchie, J. R. B., Crouch, G. I. (2003). The Competitive Destination. A Sustainable Tourism Perspective. UK: CABI Publishing.

Schumpeter, J. (1939). Business Cycles. McGraw-Hill Book Company, INC.

Sundbo, J., Orfila-Sintes, F., Sorensen, F. (2007), The innovative behavior of tourism firms – Comparative studies of Denmark and Spain. Research Policy, 36(1), 88- 106.

UNWTO (2007). Tourism Highlights 2007. UNWTO-OMT-IOHBTO.

Van Alstyne, M., Bulkley, N. (2004). Why information should influence productivity. In: M. CASTELLS (Ed.), The Network Society. A Cross-cultural Perspective (pp. 145-173). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar.

Viginier, P. (Ed.) (2002). La France dans la nouvelle économie du savoir : pour une dynamique collective. Paris : La documentation Française.

Wennekers, S., Thurik, R., Van Stel, A., Noorderhaven, N. (2007), Uncertainty avoidance and the rate of business ownership across 21 OECD countries, 1976-2004. Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 17(2), 133-160.

Westlund, H. (2006). Social Capital in the Knowledge Economy. Theory and Empirics. Berlin: Springer.

Wooldridge, J. M. (2002). Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data. MA: The MIT Press.