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We investigate the manifold posed question: "To what extent does investment in human and social capital, besides the effect of "talent", enhance entrepreneurial performance?" We distinguish between three different performance measures: survival, profits, and generated employment. On the basis of the empirical analysis of a rich Dutch longitudinal data set of firm founders, we conclude that specific investments indeed affect the three performance measures substantially and significantly. Specific attention is paid to the unobserved talent bias. Moreover, the effect of the emergence of so called "knowledge industries" is explored.

In the media, role models are increasingly acknowledged as important influential factors for occupational choice and career outcomes. Apart from conceptual studies establishing a link between role models and entrepreneurial intentions, empirical research on the importance of role models for (nascent) entrepreneurs has been scarce and there is still little knowledge of what determines the use of specific entrepreneurial role models, as well as the precise function of such role models. Our explorative empirical study based on extensive face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of about 300 entrepreneurs who have recently started up a company in the Netherlands is a first step to fill this gap. We provide initial indications of the size and significance of the effect of role models on occupational choice, the function of role models and the relationship and similarity of characteristics between the (nascent) entrepreneur and the role model. KEYWORDS: role models, (nascent) entrepreneurs, human capital, occupational choice, start-up phase JEL-CODES: L26, M13, J24--Work in progress --Please do not cite or quote without permission from the authors --1 Entrepreneurship and role models Paper presented at the Conference of the European Regional Science Association, Jönköping, Sweden, August 19-23, 2010 INTRODUCTIONIndividual decisions to engage in a certain behavior are often influenced by the behavior and opinions of, or examples set by, others (Ajzen, 1991). This also holds for the occupational choice of individuals (Krumboltz et al., 1976) and, more specifically, the decision to engage in entrepreneurship. Many entrepreneurs claim that their business start-ups and business activities have been influenced by other people. These 'other people' are often entrepreneurs, for example famous ones such as Steve Jobs or family members. They serve as role models. A role model is a common reference to individuals who set examples for others to be emulated, and who may stimulate or inspire others to make (career) decisions and achieve certain goals (Shapiro et al., 1978;Basow and Howe, 1980;Wright et al., 1997). The relevance of role models becomes evident in the popular business press that is littered with references to the alleged influence, names (elicited by numerous polls) and speeches of entrepreneurial role models.Although entrepreneurial role models have become an important phenomenon in practice, as yet, their occurrence, function and characteristics have been studied to a limited extent by academics. In this paper we attempt to fill this gap by discussing the results from an empirical study that is explorative in nature and addresses the use of specific role models by entrepreneurs, both in the pre-and post-start-up phase of their company. For this purpose we collected data by means of in-depth face-to-face interviews with a representative sample of about 300 entrepreneurs who recently started a business in the Netherlands.Our study is inspired by the scarce and scattered literature on role models...

PurposeThis paper sets out to present a detailed empirical investigation of the entrepreneurial intentions of business students. The authors employ the theory of planned behaviour (TPB), in which intentions are regarded as resulting from attitudes, perceived behavioural control, and subjective norms.Design/methodology/approachThe methodology used was a replication study among samples of undergraduate students of business administration at four different universities (total n=1,225). Five operationalisations of intentions are used as well as a composite measure. Prior to the main study, qualitative research conducted at two other universities (total n=373) was held to operationalise the components of the TPB.FindingsThe results show that the two most important variables to explain entrepreneurial intentions are entrepreneurial alertness and the importance attached to financial security.Research limitations/implicationsVarious research design features are used that result in better and more detailed explanations of entrepreneurial intentions.Practical implicationsShould one want to stimulate entrepreneurship in educational or training settings, then this paper's results provide guidance. Several suggestions are offered on how entrepreneurial alertness can be improved and financial security concerns can be reduced.Originality/valueThe study provides detailed and solid results on entrepreneurial intentions which are positioned in the career literature.

This paper provides a review of empirical studies into the impact of formal schooling on entrepreneurship selection and performance in industrial countries. We describe the main effects found in the literature, we explain the variance in results across almost a hundred studies, and we put the empirical results in the context of related economic theory and the much further developed literature in labor economics (studying the rate of return to education among wage employees). Five main conclusions result from this meta-analysis. First, the impact of education on selection into entrepreneurship is insignificant. Second, the effect of education on performance is positive and significant. Third, the return to a marginal year of schooling is 6.1% for an entrepreneur. Fourth, the effect of education on earnings is smaller for entrepreneurs than for employees in Europe, but larger in the USA. Fifth, the returns to schooling in entrepreneurship are higher in the USA than in Europe, higher for females than for males, and lower for non-whites or immigrants. In conclusion, we offer a number of suggestions to move the research frontier in this area of inquiry. The entrepreneurship literature on education can benefit from the technical sophistication used to estimate the returns to schooling for employees.

This paper reports on a field experiment conducted to estimate the impact of the share of women in business teams on their performance. Teams consisting of undergraduate students in business studies start up a venture as part of their curriculum. We manipulated the gender composition of teams and assigned students randomly to teams, conditional on their gender. We find that teams with an equal gender mix perform better than male-dominated teams in terms of sales and profits. We explore various mechanisms suggested in the literature to explain this positive effect of gender diversity on performance (including complementarities, learning, monitoring, and conflicts) but find no support for them. This paper was accepted by Jesper Sørensen, organizations.

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