Knowledge‐intensive entrepreneurship and human capital

Abstract

This paper discusses human capital in connection with the entrepreneurial processes in knowledge‐based new ventures. Until recently, research on the founding of new ventures has focused mainly on the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs, but this trait approach tends to underestimate the role of crucial skills. The findings of this paper suggest that it is not so much inherent personality traits that influence the foundation and growth of new ventures as previous employment and entrepreneurial experience. The longer the career path prior to founding the venture, the more experience an entrepreneur has accumulated. Age thus seems to have a positive influence on the success of a newly founded venture. Furthermore, the dimensions of human capital, experience and previous employment seem to be essential in building the networks that help secure both early and continuing finance for the ventures.

The Influence of Social and Human Capital in Developing Young Women as Entrepreneurial Business Leaders

“…Education is identified as a particularly important element of human capital for aspiring young entrepreneurs, given that they may engage in business venturing straight from school, college, or university with little prior work experience (McGowan et al 2012;Madsen, Neergaard, and Ulhoi 2003). It can provide the basis for shaping the knowledge, behavior, and orientation of young people, can influence the decision to pursue business ownership, and can foster an understanding and respect for entrepreneurial business leaders (Birdthistle 2008).…”

Opportunity Recognition/Identification

“…Entrepreneurship literature too established that prior start-up or entrepreneurial experiences of social entrepreneurs facilitated their opportunity identification and exploitation (Davidsson and Honig 2003;Madsen et al 2003;Farmer et al 2011;Westhead et al 2009). They learnt from their past experiences (Cope 2005;Corbett 2005).…”

“…In general, in entrepreneurship literature (Roberts 1991;Shane 2000;Madsen et al 2003) 'knowledge' has been used in a conservative sense. It refers to specialised information and skills of entrepreneurs acquired through their formal education and prior work experiences.…”

Learning of Immigrant Entrepreneurs: Local Tacit Business Knowledge

“…Context-generic human capital is a general learning capability and knowledge derived from formal education. Context-specific human capital denotes specific learning capabilities and knowledge derived from industrial experiences and skills (Madsen et al, 2003;Wang et al, 2009). Context-generic human capital supplies the intellectual basis for understanding general components of industrial knowledge; context-specific human capital allows for the articulation of local experiences and practices prior to internalisation (Bowman & Swart, 2007).…”

“…To assess their formal education, we ranked three level from primary school to postgraduate education to measure context-generic human capital (Lee & Tsang, 2001;Madsen et al, 2003). Context-specific human capital of prior specific-industry experiences was measured by a scale composed of working years in a similar industry before the current business, and working years in the same industry before starting the current business (Cronbach's alpha = 0.72) (Gelderen et al, 2006).…”