Although conventional register and survey data on entrepreneurship have enabled remarkable insights into the phenomenon, the added value has slowed down noticeably over the last decade. There is a need for fresh approaches utilising modern data sources such as Big Data. Until now, it has been quite unknown whether Big Data actually embodies valuable contributions for entrepreneurship research and where it can perform better or worse than conventional approaches. To contribute towards the exploration of Big Data in entrepreneurship research, we use a newly developed dataset based on publications of the German Press Agency (dpa) to explore the relationship between news coverage of entrepreneurship and regional entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore, we apply sentiment analysis to investigate the impact on sentiment of entrepreneurial press releases. Our results show mixed outcomes regarding the relationship between reporting of entrepreneurial events, i.e., media coverage, and entrepreneurial activity in German planning regions. At this stage, our empirical results reject the idea of a strong relationship between actual entrepreneurial activities in regions and the intensity of it being reported. However, the results also imply much potential of Big Data approaches for further research with more sophisticated methodology approaches. Our paper provides an entry point into Big Data usage in entrepreneurship research and we suggest a number of relevant research opportunities based on our results.
Describing the distribution and development of socio-economic activities in space is frequently limited due to data availability, as official statistical data sources are often restricted to specific topics and geographical scales. Consequently, new and alternative data sources are needed as complements. This paper presents, discusses, and empirically explores an example of such an alternative data source that promises to give detailed and novel insights into regions' socio-economic structures: press releases. While press releases have seen some use in the literature, they have hardly seen any applications in regional research. Consequently, it is still largely unknown to what extent their information content gives systematic insights into regional socio-economic patterns. The paper closes this gap by assessing the degree to which the content of press releases corresponds to the socio-economic characteristics of regions, by means of an empirical analysis of German NUTS-3 regions. The results confirm that press release content varies systematically between regions, and regional differences in socioeconomic characteristics, events, and activities seem to be well-presented by press releases. This suggests that press releases offer substantial potential and might be a useful complementary data source in regional studies.
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