Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/24924 
Year of Publication: 
2006
Series/Report no.: 
Papers on Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy No. 2606
Publisher: 
Max Planck Institute of Economics, Jena
Abstract: 
We analyse the decision to become an entrepreneur by either taking over an established business or starting a new venture from scratch. A model is developed which predicts how several individual- and firm-specific characteristics influence entrepreneurs'entry mode. The new venture creation mode is associated with higher levels of schooling and wealth, whereas managerial experience, new venture start-up capital requirements and risk promote the takeover mode. Entrepreneurs whose parents run a family firm are predicted to invest the least in schooling, since schooling reduces search costs and these individuals have the lowest probability of needing to search for a business opportunity outside their family. A sample of data on entrepreneurs from the Netherlands provides broad support for the theory; implications for policy-makers concerned about the survival of family firms lacking within-family successors are discussed.
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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