nep-ent New Economics Papers
on Entrepreneurship
Issue of 2024‒05‒06
two papers chosen by
Marcus Dejardin, Université de Namur


  1. The influence of role models on women's entrepreneurial intention and behaviour By Seyberth, Lilo; Overwien, Anja
  2. Digital adoption during COVID-19: Cross-country evidence from microdata By Flavio Calvino; Chiara Criscuolo; Antonio Ughi

  1. By: Seyberth, Lilo; Overwien, Anja
    Abstract: Unternehmertum ist eine wichtige wirtschaftliche Quelle für jedes Land. Allerdings ist der Anteil weiblicher Unternehmer immer noch gering und in den meisten Ländern besteht eine Kluft zwischen den Geschlechtern im Unternehmertum, was bedeutet, dass Wachstumspotential ungenutzt bleibt. Wir stützen uns auf frühere Erkenntnisse in der Literatur des (Frauen-)‌Unternehmertums, bauen auf der Theorie des sozialen Lernens (Bandura 1973) auf und argumentieren, dass Vorbilder positiv mit dem Ziel einer Person verbunden sind, Unternehmerin zu werden. Um das aktuelle Verständnis der Förderung von Unternehmertum durch Vorbilder zu erweitern, unterscheiden wir verschiedene Arten von Vorbildern. Wir gehen davon aus, dass unterschiedliche Vorbilder unterschiedliche Auswirkungen auf die unternehmerische Absicht und das unternehmerische Verhalten von Studentinnen haben. Um diese Hypothesen empirisch zu untersuchen, stützen wir uns auf Querschnittsbefragungsdaten von 2.237 Studierenden aus 127 Hochschulen in Deutschland. Unsere Ergebnisse legen nahe, dass unternehmerische Vorbilder dazu beitragen können, Geschlechterunterschiede zu verringern, und unterstreichen die Bedeutung unternehmerischer Vorbilder sowohl für die Absicht von Frauen, Unternehmerinnen zu werden, als auch dafür, dass sie dies tatsächlich umsetzen. Bei der Untersuchung verschiedener Vorbildtypen stellen wir außerdem fest, dass es einen größeren Effekt gibt, wenn unternehmerische Vorbilder innerhalb der Familie vorhanden sind, insbesondere bei engeren familiären Bindungen.
    Abstract: Entrepreneurship is an important economic source for any country. However, the share of female entrepreneurs is still low with an entrepreneurial gender gap in most countries, meaning growth potential remains untapped. Relying on previous findings in the (women) entrepreneurship literature, we build on social learning theory (Bandura 1973) and argue that role models positively relate to an individual's aim to become an entrepreneur. To broaden the current understanding of role models' promotion of entrepreneurship, we distinguish different types of role models. We hypothesize that different role models have different effects on female students' entrepreneurial intention and behaviour. To investigate these hypotheses empirically, we rely on cross-sectional survey data of 2, 237 students from 127 higher education institutions in Germany. Our findings suggest that entrepreneurial role models can help reduce gender gaps, highlighting the importance of entrepreneurial role models for the intention of women to become entrepreneurs as well as them actually doing so. Investigating different role model types, we further find a larger effect for having entrepreneurial role models within the family, especially closer familial ties.
    Keywords: Entrepreneurship, Gender, Germany, Role Models, Social Learning Theory
    JEL: D91 J16 L26 M13
    Date: 2024
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:umiodp:289597&r=ent
  2. By: Flavio Calvino; Chiara Criscuolo; Antonio Ughi
    Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented global economic downturn, affecting productivity, business dynamics, and digital technology adoption. Using a comprehensive commercial database from Spiceworks Ziff Davis, this study analyses the firm-level drivers of digitalisation during the pandemic across 20 European countries. The findings show that a considerable share of firms introduced new digital technologies during the COVID-19 crisis. Notably, firms that were larger, more digitalised, and more productive before the pandemic were more likely to introduce new digital technologies in 2020 and 2021. Additionally, firms with pre-existing complementary technologies had a higher likelihood of adopting digital applications that gained momentum during the pandemic (such as digital commerce, collaborative software, cloud, and analytics). These patterns may increase polarisation among the best-performing firms and the rest of the business population. Public policy can play a key role in fostering an inclusive digital transformation in the post-pandemic era.
    Keywords: COVID-19, Digitalisation, Productivity, Technology adoption
    JEL: O33 D22
    Date: 2024–04–24
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:oec:stiaaa:2024/03-en&r=ent

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