From potential to real entrepreneurship

"Not everyone who plans to set up a firm succeeds in doing so. This paper focuses on the phase before a firm is founded, the pre-nascent stage of the entrepreneurship process. Based upon cross-sectional data from the German section of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), the specific aim of this paper is to shed some light on the selection that takes place during the entrepreneurial process and to explain empirically demographic and cognitive characteristics and differences between latent nascent entrepreneurs, nascent entrepreneurs and young entrepreneurs. The results clearly reveal that there are both significant differences between and common determinants of the three phases of the entrepreneurial process. Education, the readiness to take risks, and role models are very important determinants during all phases. However, the regional environment and the age of the entrepreneur have quite a differentiating impact during the entrepreneurial process." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))