Entrepreneurship in rural regions : The role of industry experience and home advantage for newly founded firms

• The aim of this paper is to assess the importance of industry experience and home advantage of entrepreneurs for the competitiveness of new firms in rural regions. We assume that spinoffs founded by local entrepreneurs are generally the most competitive form of entry, and show the highest comparative advantage in rural and peripheral regions. We use matched employer-employee data for Sweden to test the effect of industry experience and home advantage on firm survival, and job growth of surviving firms during the period 2004-2012. Our results suggest that industry experience is more important than home advantage for firm survival, but that firms in core areas do benefit from home advantage. Regarding job growth, home advantage seems to be more important than industry experience but with varying significance over the regional hierarchy. After controlling for survival, the positive effect on job growth of being locally embedded seems to be confined to entrepreneurs in more peripheral regions.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Social och ekonomisk geografi -- Ekonomisk geografi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Social and Economic Geography -- Economic Geography (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Entrepreneurship

spinoffs

home advantage

periphery

Social and Economic Geography

kulturgeografi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)