Are jacks-of-all-trades successful entrepreneurs? Revisiting Lazear's theory of entrepreneurship

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify human capital factors that pertain both to setting up and successfully running a business. To achieve this objective, the authors apply and extend the theory of career choice offered by Lazear (2005) that explains individual selection into entrepreneurship.Design/methodology/approachThe authors hypothesise that individuals with broader educational and professional backgrounds are more likely to start a business and are more likely to run a business in the long term. The authors tested the hypotheses using unique data from 800 current entrepreneurs, 800 employees who were previously entrepreneurs and 842 employees with no entrepreneurial experience, by means of a logit regression with robust standard errors and extensive robustness checks.FindingsThe authors empirically show that individuals with more diverse educational and professional backgrounds tend to have both greater chances of starting a company, as well as a higher probability of entrepreneurial success. Surprisingly, having managerial experience proved to exert a negative influence on the likelihood of starting a business while having an insignificant impact on the odds of entrepreneurial success.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings are informative for those planning or pursuing an entrepreneurial career, but they are also relevant for the purpose of entrepreneurship education.Originality/valueThe author's extend the body of research supporting Lazear's (2005) theory by showing that broad education and professional experience not only contribute to a higher propensity to start a company but they are also success factors in business per se.

Household and entrepreneurial entry: an individual entrepreneurial capital perspective

“…, 2015; Blumberg and Pfann, 2016; Edelman et al. , 2016; Sahasranamam and Nandakumar, 2020; Kurczewska and Mackiewicz, 2020), but there is little literature exploring and tracing the origin of these individual capital. This paper puts forward an integrated concept of “individual entrepreneurial capital” and defines it as a capital element that includes social, human and financial capital that is conducive to individuals pursuing potential entrepreneurial opportunities, which helps to deepen the understanding of the impact of household on entrepreneurship.…”

Testing the EntreComp framework and its relation to start-up behaviour in seven European countries

“…The study of Reis et al (2021) describes this problematics well, as they identified up to 98 entrepreneurial competencies used in prior research. The problem is not simplified by the fact that entrepreneurship is associated with more diverse educational and professional backgrounds (Kurczewska and Mackiewicz, 2020). Lilleväli and Täks (2017) note that views on entrepreneurial competencies also vary according to the view taken on entrepreneurship education: a narrow approach focuses on entrepreneurship as business creation and management whereas the broad approach targets development and support of an entrepreneurial mindset, enabling value creation in different fields of life.…”

The secrets to successful entrepreneurship: how occupational experience shapes the creation and performance of start-ups

“…As Laffineur et al. (2020) state, career hardships and a lack of self-fulfilment drive workers towards entrepreneurship.Diverse work experiences will lead to an increase in willingness to start a business (Astebro and Thompson, 2011; Astebro and Yong, 2016; Kurczewska and Mackiewicz, 2020) because the breadth of functional work experience will favour the generation of new business ideas (Gabrielsson and Politis, 2012; Chen and Thompson, 2016). Krieger et al.…”