A Sampling of CIBER-Funded Research

Fall 2006

Entrepreneurial Entry in a Climate of Trust and Support

Phillip Kim, assistant professor of management and human resources, UW-Madison

Previous research on entrepreneurial entry has focused primarily on individual-level attributes, such as demographic characteristics, prior experience and network location. This study will explore how societal-level attributes such as social trust, associational environments, quality of legal institutions and public provision of sill investments encourage the formation of new businesses. It will develop a multi-national database that integrates country-level measures on social capital and legal institutions with individual-level measures on entrepreneurial activity. The research team will then conduct analyses to test their predictions that individuals are more likely to start new businesses in a climate of high generalized trust and supportive institutions. Finally, the project will explore how regional differences in these societal-level characteristics account for variations in entrepreneurial entry across countries.