Comparative study of the productive and unproductive allocation of entrepreneurial efforts

Entrepreneurs drive economic prosperity in a country when they produce value through innovation. But, not all entrepreneurship is productive - entrepreneurs can channel their energies towards unproductive (rent-shifting) activities ranging from unregistered businesses to criminal enterprise. The core proposition of this dissertation is that a country’s socio-cultural values and norms determine the likelihood of an individual undertaking entrepreneurial activity of any type while rules and regulations shift entrepreneurial activity toward productive or unproductive behavior. This dissertation integrates the socio-cultural literature with the rules and regulations literature to explain the amount of productive and unproductive entrepreneurship in a country by predicting both the total supply of entrepreneurial activity in a country and its allocation into productive and unproductive applications. In this dissertation, I investigate why the amount of productive and unproductive entrepreneurship varies across countries by analyzing the amount of entrepreneurship and its allocation in 25 countries between 2004 and 2008. My findings show that pro-entrepreneurial socio-cultural values drive both productive and unproductive entrepreneurship and that the most favorable mix of entrepreneurship actually derives not from the most well-defined property rights, most lenient bankruptcy laws for the entrepreneur, most open trade policies nor most flexible labor markets, but rather from moderate levels of those rules and regulations.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Business Administration

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2013

Author dc:creator

• McCormick, Marleen

Contributors dc:contributor

• Hoetker, Glenn P.
• Bercovitz, Janet E.L.
• Bucheli, Marcelo
• Clougherty, Joseph
• Mahoney, Joseph T.

• Comparative
• entrepreneurship

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2013 Marleen McCormick

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/44297

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/44297