Three essays on entrepreneurial entry, serial entrepreneurship, and labor turnover

This study explores two important aspects of entrepreneurship — liquidity constraints and serial entrepreneurs, with an additional analysis of occupational choice among wage workers. In the first essay, I revisit the question of whether entrepreneurs face liquidity constraints in business formation. The principle challenge is that wealth is correlated with unobserved ability, and adequate instruments are often difficult to identify. This paper uses the son's birth order as an instrument for household wealth. I exploit the data available in the Korean Labor and Income Panel Study, and find evidence of liquidity constraints associated with self-employment in South Korea. The second essay develops and tests a model that explains entry into serial entrepreneurship and the performance of serial entrepreneurs as the result of selection on innate ability. The model supposes that agents establish businesses with imperfect information about their entrepreneurial ability and the profitability of business ideas. Agents continually observe signals with which they update their beliefs, and this process eventually determines their next business choice. Selection on ability induces a positive correlation between entrepreneurial experience (measured by previous business earnings and founding experience) and serial business formation, as well as its subsequent performance. The predictions in the model are tested using panel data from the NLSY79. The analysis permits a distinction to be made between selection on innate ability and learning by doing. Motivated by previous empirical findings that white-collar workers had higher turnover rates than blue-collar workers during firm expansion, the third essay further examines job turnover among workers with or without specific skills. I present a search-matching model, which predicts that when firm growth is driven by technological advance, workers whose skills are specific to the obsolete technology show a higher tendency to separate from their jobs. This hypothesis is tested with data from the PSID. I find supportive evidence that in the context of technological change, having an occupation requiring specific skills, such as computer specialists or engineers, increases the odds of job separation by nearly eight percent. ^

Exploring the goals, content, and methods of entrepreneurship professors: A multiple case study

Along with the accumulation of evidence supporting the role of entrepreneurship in economic development (Acs & Armington, 2006; Kuratko, 2005, Reynolds, 2007), governments have persisted in encouraging people to become entrepreneurs (Acs & Stough, 2008; Brannback & Carsrud, 2008). These efforts have tried to reproduce the conditions under which entrepreneurship emerges. One of these conditions is to develop entrepreneurial skills among students and scientists (Fan & Foo, 2004). Entrepreneurship education within higher education has experienced a remarkable expansion in the last 20 years (Green, 2008). To develop entrepreneurial skills among students, scholars have proposed different teaching approaches. However, no clear relationship has been demonstrated between entrepreneurship education, learning outcomes, and business creation (Hostager & Decker, 1999). Despite policy makers demands for more accountability from educational institutions (Klimoski, 2007) and entrepreneurship instructors demands for consistency about what should be taught and how (Maidment, 2009), the appropriate content for entrepreneurship programs remains under constant discussion (Solomon, 2007). Entrepreneurship education is still in its infancy, professors propose diverse teaching goals and radically different teaching methods. This represents an obstacle to development of foundational and consistent curricula across the board (Cone, 2008). Entrepreneurship education is in need of a better conceptualization of the learning outcomes pursued in order to develop consistent curriculum. Many schools do not have enough qualified faculty to meet the growing student demand and a consistent curriculum is needed for faculty development. Entrepreneurship instructors and their teaching practices are of interest because they have a role in producing the entrepreneurs needed to grow the economy. This study was designed to understand instructors’ perspectives and actions related to their teaching. The sample studied consisted of eight college and university entrepreneurship instructors. Cases met predetermined criteria of importance followed maximum variation strategies. Results suggest that teaching content were consistent across participants while different teaching goals were identified: some instructors inspire and develop general skills of students while others envision the creation of a real business as the major outcome of their course. A relationship between methods reported by instructors and their disciplinary background, teaching perspective, and entrepreneurial experience was found.

Revisiting Entrepreneurship Education Literature: Implications for Learning and Teaching Entrepreneurship

Courses and programs about entrepreneurship show so much variation that it is hard to identify typical teaching strategies. Although diversity is good, consistency is needed because the value of entrepreneurship education has not been established. A literature review on teaching and learning in entrepreneurship was conducted; three challenges were identified.

Political strategy, leadership, and policy entrepreneurship in Japanese defense policy and politics: A comparison of three prime ministerships

Since the end of the Cold War, Japan's defense policy and politics has gone through significant changes. Throughout the post cold war period, US-Japan alliance managers, politicians with differing visions and preferences, scholars, think tanks, and the actions of foreign governments have all played significant roles in influencing these changes. Along with these actors, the Japanese prime minister has played an important, if sometimes subtle, role in the realm of defense policy and politics. Japanese prime ministers, though significantly weaker than many heads of state, nevertheless play an important role in policy by empowering different actors (bureaucratic actors, independent commissions, or civil actors), through personal diplomacy, through agenda-setting, and through symbolic acts of state. The power of the prime minister to influence policy processes, however, has frequently varied by prime minister. My dissertation investigates how different political strategies and entrepreneurial insights by the prime minister have influenced defense policy and politics since the end of the Cold War. In addition, it seeks to explain how the quality of political strategy and entrepreneurial insight employed by different prime ministers was important in the success of different approaches to defense. My dissertation employs a comparative case study approach to examine how different prime ministerial strategies have mattered in the realm of Japanese defense policy and politics. Three prime ministers have been chosen: Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro (1996-1998); Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro (2001-2006); and Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio (2009-2010). These prime ministers have been chosen to provide maximum contrast on issues of policy preference, cabinet management, choice of partners, and overall strategy. As my dissertation finds, the quality of political strategy has been an important aspect of Japan's defense transformation. Successful strategies have frequently used the knowledge and accumulated personal networks of bureaucrats, supplemented bureaucratic initiatives with top-down personal diplomacy, and used a revitalized US-Japan strategic relationship as a political resource for a stronger prime ministership. Though alternative approaches, such as those that have looked to displace the influence of bureaucrats and the US in defense policy, have been less successful, this dissertation also finds theoretical evidence that alternatives may exist.

Political Strategy, Leadership, and Policy Entrepreneurship in Japanese Defense Policy and Politics: A Comparison of Three Prime Ministerships

Since the end of the Cold War, Japan’s defense policy and politics has gone through significant changes. Throughout the post cold war period, US-Japan alliance managers, politicians with differing visions and preferences, scholars, think tanks, and the actions of foreign governments have all played significant roles in influencing these changes. Along with these actors, the Japanese prime minister has played an important, if sometimes subtle, role in the realm of defense policy and politics. Japanese prime ministers, though significantly weaker than many heads of state, nevertheless play an important role in policy by empowering different actors (bureaucratic actors, independent commissions, or civil actors), through personal diplomacy, through agenda-setting, and through symbolic acts of state. The power of the prime minister to influence policy processes, however, has frequently varied by prime minister. My dissertation investigates how different political strategies and entrepreneurial insights by the prime minister have influenced defense policy and politics since the end of the Cold War. In addition, it seeks to explain how the quality of political strategy and entrepreneurial insight employed by different prime ministers was important in the success of different approaches to defense. My dissertation employs a comparative case study approach to examine how different prime ministerial strategies have mattered in the realm of Japanese defense policy and politics. Three prime ministers have been chosen: Prime Minister Hashimoto Ryutaro (1996-1998); Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro (2001-2006); and Prime Minister Hatoyama Yukio (2009-2010). These prime ministers have been chosen to provide maximum contrast on issues of policy preference, cabinet management, choice of partners, and overall strategy. As my dissertation finds, the quality of political strategy has been an important aspect of Japan’s defense transformation. Successful strategies have frequently used the knowledge and accumulated personal networks of bureaucrats, supplemented bureaucratic initiatives with top-down personal diplomacy, and used a revitalized US-Japan strategic relationship as a political resource for a stronger prime ministership. Though alternative approaches, such as those that have looked to displace the influence of bureaucrats and the US in defense policy, have been less successful, this dissertation also finds theoretical evidence that alternatives may exist.