Análisis de los factores de éxito en el proceso de creación de empresas. Impacto en la supervivencia y en su capacidad de innovación

Resumen

This thesis is addressed to the study of entrepreneurship. The election of this issue in the management literature is due to two factors. The first one of them is a desire on my part to know what is that leads people to undertake a business, that is, a vocational motivation. The second one is a factor that is related to one of the main concerns of Spanish population, the unemployment (CIS, 2016). In this way, entrepreneurship is a solution to combat unemployment for two reasons: through the undertaking of an activity a person goes into the market place and the second one, the small ventures are one of the main sources of employment (Baptista and Thurik, 2007). Given the relevance of entrepreneurs, a deeper understanding of the factors that can shape and drive entrepreneurial activity is necessary (Engle, Schlaegel and Dimitriadi, 2011). Accordingly, it is important to know which factors can foster entrepreneurship. Understanding how the environment, the economy and institutions in a given country can affect entrepreneurship is paramount because, according to the literature, entrepreneurial activity can vary significantly across countries and over time (Verheul, Wennekers, Audretsch and Thurik, 2001). In response to the need for a better understanding of the drivers of entrepreneurship, the first objective of this thesis is to analyse how the environment affects entrepreneurship. After this first aim is addressed, the second objective of this thesis is to identify the characteristics that affect the survival of entrepreneurial ventures. The motivation for setting this second aim stems from the findings of multiple studies, which show that the survival rates of new ventures are higher than those of established ventures (Brüderl and Schussler, 1990). The literature usually focuses on three groups of explanatory factors that affect the survival and success of new ventures: environmental aspects, venture characteristics and entrepreneurial factors (Schutjens and Wever, 2000). One of the most important issues to determine the success of ventures is the economy—in other words, the effect of the environment. This dissertation therefore explores how changes in a country’s economy affect the success of new ventures. Given the turbulence of Western economies in recent years, understanding how variations in GDP and employment can alter the survival of new ventures is important. Nevertheless, the literature fails to deliver a consensus on how a shrinking GDP affects the survival of new ventures (Baptista and Thurik, 2007; Baptista and Torres , 2006; Brünjes and Revilla Díez, 2013). Thus, economic conditions matter, yet how they matter remains an open question. The evidence points to a positive relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth. In fact, most of the entrepreneurship literature shows that in periods of economic crisis, new ventures are more likely to fail (Baptista and Thurik, 2007; Baptista and Torres, 2006). Some studies, however, report that the effect of economic crises on the survival of new ventures may be positive rather than negative (Brünjes and Revilla Díez, 2013). Consequently, one of the aims of this thesis is to analyse the survival of new ventures during periods of economic crisis to determine the effect on new venture survival. In addition to analysing how the economic conditions affect the survival of ventures, this dissertation also presents the factors that influence survival rates depending on whether the new business is a social or business venture. The decision to study this question is justified by the considerable attention that social ventures are receiving from entrepreneurship scholars (Drayton, 2002; Mair and Martí, 2006; Peredo and McLean, 2006; Zahra, Gedajlovic, Neubaum and Shulman, 2009). In fact, the two entrepreneurship journals with the highest impact factors (Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice and the Journal of Business Venturing) have dedicated special issues to social entrepreneurship. Furthermore, leading universities like Harvard, Duke and Oxford run specific programs on social entrepreneurship (Nicholls, 2010). Following these examples, many other universities around the world have undertaken similar initiatives. Besides being a key topic in the literature, social entrepreneurship has also been cited as a major contributor to society (Alvord, Brown and Letts, 2002; Drayton, 2002; Mair and Martí, 2006; Peredo and McLean, 2006; Zahra, Gedajlovic, Neubaum and Shulman, 2009). Likewise, in the United Kingdom, data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) show that 3.2% of people in the working age population are social entrepreneurs (Santos, 2009), however, in USA this percentage rises to 3.9%. In summary, the two main goals of this thesis are to determine how the environment influences entrepreneurship and to identify the characteristics that affect the survival of new ventures.