The coauthors wish to acknowledge the contribution of the entire X-Culture team: Without the hard work the 141 instructors and thousands of students do every day, the X-Culture Project in general and this study in particular would not be possible. We also would like to acknowledge the support of our many corporate partners, including Gramedia, Lidaris, Innospark, and Caja de Burgos, whose involvement makes the project more meaningful and educational for our students.

Entrepreneurship has long been seen as an important instrument in stimulating and generating economic growth. The amount of research trying to identify key factors that drive entrepreneurship is considerable; yet, little consensus has been achieved. We argue that this lack of consensus could be on account of model uncertainty as empirical studies often tend to be selective on what variables are included in the final model. Drawing on recent literature, we demonstrate the benefits of Bayesian model averaging (BMA) in reducing the impact of model uncertainty on empirical research in entrepreneurship. Additionally, BMA provides measures of variable importance and can be seen as a complementary approach to dominance/relative importance analysis. We show that when model uncertainty is corrected for, gross domestic product per capita, unemployment, the marginal tax rate, and the volatility of inflation are the only macro variables significantly and universally associated with aggregate entrepreneurship. Furthermore, the emphasis on inflation and taxation suggests that governments have the power to influence the quantity and distribution of entrepreneurial activity by setting incentives that are not entrepreneurship specific but overlap significantly with general and fundamental principles of economic stability.

PurposeThe field of entrepreneurship has seen a dramatic increase in studies focusing on networks and relations. Research in this area has thus far focused on how the structure and quality of entrepreneurs' existing interpersonal ties shape information access and thereby influence entrepreneurial outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to extend the focus further by examining how the entrepreneur's socio‐demographic profile affects advisory network configuration in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) context.Design/methodology/approachIn this paper, the authors used Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data, at the individual level (total early‐stage entrepreneurial activities) in 14 countries within the MENA region over the course of three years (2009, 2010 and 2011). The sample of networks is obtained from the entrepreneurs identified among the adults interviewed in the adult population survey of GEM participating countries from the MENA region.FindingsStrong evidence was found that socio‐demographic variables such as gender, age, income and education have an impact on the usage of advice‐seeking networks by entrepreneurs across MENA. For instance, the findings suggest that women entrepreneurs in the MENA region tend to rely more on personal networks compared to male entrepreneurs.Originality/valueThe paper's contribution is novel in providing empirical evidence exposing the interplay between socio‐demographic factors, new venture start‐up phases, to entrepreneurial networks. Prospective scholarly research need to improve our understanding about the effects of network evolution on the entrepreneurial trajectory, as well to develop a greater understanding on how, when and why MENA‐based entrepreneurial networks emerge, develop and change over time.

No abstract

No abstract