Entrepreneurial Ventures from Technology-Based Universities: A Cross-National Comparison

Abstract:     
This dissertation examines the role of two different but critical factors in shaping entrepreneurial outcomes: individual level career history and the institutional context. The first essay investigates whether prior founding experience improves subsequent start-up firm performance. The second essay asks whether the 1999 Chinese Constitutional amendment increased entrepreneurship among individuals with higher (or lower) levels of human capital. The findings suggest that entrepreneurship among high quality individuals is driven less by the relaxation of constraints to entry and more by constraints to firm growth. The final essay chapter is a cross-country comparison of the MIT and Tsinghua datasets. There are some relatively subtle differences that in combination with the differences in the environment for entrepreneurial firms and the institutional history of China have led to vastly different outcomes for the entrepreneurial firms from MIT and Tsinghua.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 9

Keywords: entrepreneurship, innovation, institutions, policy, strategy

JEL Classification: B21, J21

working papers series