Paul D. Reynolds

• PhD
• Professor at Aston University

Given that replication studies are important for theory building, theory testing, knowledge accumulation, and domain legitimacy, we attempted to replicate 19 seminal studies of new venture emergence that used PSED-type data; only six attempts were successful. Our humbling experience highlights how changes at the author, journal, and institutional l...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [GEM] research program was developed to provide cross country comparisons of adult participation in business creation. The initial data was assembled as a pretest of five countries in 1998 and by 109 countries had been involved by 2017. The initial design for the GEM initiative was based on the first US Panel Stu...

Corrected errors in age variables in Swedish data set.

Revised to correct error in Swedish start-up team age data.

This study examines start-up speed, or the time between when a nascent entrepreneur enters the venturing process and exits by creating a new firm or quitting. Time is an important feature of the entrepreneurship processes because it is linked to the reduction of societal costs associated with start-up efforts that remain in hopeless "pending" state...

There are conflicting predictions in the literature about the relationship between FDI and entrepreneurship. This paper explores how foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows, measured by lagged cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A), affect entrepreneurial entry in the host economy. We have constructed a micro-panel of more than two thousand in...

There are a number of ways to determine the birth date of a new firm. These include the date of a start-up venture’s initial transactions, initial registry listing, initial labor input, and initial profits. Utilizing the responses from the second Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) cohort, it appears that different criteria for a firm’s...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [GEM] research program was developed to provide comparisons among countries related to participation of adults in the firm creation process. The initial data was assembled as a pretest of five countries in 1998 and by 2012 over 100 countries had been involved in the program. The initial design for the GEM initiat...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [GEM] research program was developed to provide comparisons among countries related to participation of adults in the firm creation process. The initial data was assembled as a pretest of five countries in 1998 and by 2012 over 100 countries had been involved in the program. The initial design for the GEM initiat...

Why are some entrepreneurs able to start a new firm more quickly than others in the venture creation process? Drawing on pecking order and agency theory, this study investigates how start-up capital structure influences the time to either new firm founding or quitting the start-up process. The temporal aspect of the start-up process is one that is...

Globally, hundreds of millions enter the firm creation process every year. About a third will actually develop a profitable new firm. Understanding how these successful efforts reach initial profits has been a major challenge for entrepreneurial scholars. A recently developed research protocol has involved systematic collection of data on the start...

The substantial diversity among countries in the level of business creation is accompanied by a high level of year-to-year consistency for individual countries. It would appear that the national value structures are relatively stable over time, are related to a wide range of national characteristics, and have a major impact on the readiness of indi...

Despite the extensive research on firm creation, there is little theoretical or operational agreement on the definition of a new firm birth. Assessments of the impact of different criteria for a firm birth (initial transactions, initial registry listing, initial labor input, and initial profits) utilized a comprehensive description of the firm crea...

In any cohort of new firms a small proportion of high growth firms provide the majority of the new jobs. While many assume that these are net new jobs, evidence that regions with more high potential firms have greater regional job growth has been difficult to obtain. A unique data set was assembled for six two-year periods (1976-78 to 1986-88) to t...

Despite the importance of a need for a more robust understanding of the new venture start-up process, there continues to be a disparity in the understanding of the critical pathway antecedents of start-up outcomes. Furthermore, research in nascent start-up outcomes rarely investigates the temporal dynamics associated with start-up outcomes. Therefo...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [GEM] research program was developed to provide comparisons among countries related to participation of adults in the firm creation process. The initial data was assembled as a pretest of five countries in 1998 and by 2010 over 83 countries had been involved in the program. The initial design for the GEM initiati...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [GEM] research program was developed to provide comparisons among countries related to participation of adults in the firm creation process. The initial data was assembled as a pretest of five countries in 1998 and by 2010 over 83 countries had been involved in the program. The initial design for the GEM initiati...

The UK PSED pretest was designed to illustrate the types of information that could be developed in a large scale effort, determine the operational feasibility of the data collection paradigm, establish the cost estimates associated with data collection, and provide an example of the benefits of implementing the project. A small amount of funds were...

Our research investigates how state-sponsored social protection is associated with undertaking the initial steps to start businesses in knowledge-intensive sectors. We define social protection as policies to protect individuals against economic risk. Although research generally shows a negative link between coordinated market economies and business...

Over 100 million of the 1.8 billion midlife adults living on less than $15 a day are attempting to create new firms. Another 110 million are managing new ventures. This is almost half of the global total of 450 million individuals involved with 350 million start-ups and new ventures. They are responsible for almost half of all new firms and one-thi...

The prevalence of individuals actively involved in business creation among 75 countries varies from one in thirty (Japan, Belgium, France) to one in three (Peru, Uganda). Predictive models reflecting five national aspects - economic, structural, centralized control, population potential for entrepreneurship, and cultural support - are able to accou...

The sequence, amounts, and timing of informal and formal support for emerging firms, as well as the impact on start-up outcomes, continue to be a central issue. Tracking reports from a national representative sample of nascent enterprises indicates that average amount of informal support is $48,000: formal support, provided after the nascent enterp...

This paper compares the impact of institutions on individual decisions to become entrepreneurs in the form of new business start-ups by males and females across 55 developed and developing economies between 2001 and 2006. We hypothesise that women are less likely to undertake entrepreneurial activity in countries where the rule of law is weaker and...

Understanding the origins of new businesses—the firm creation process—has been dramatically affected by the development of longitudinal studies of business start-ups. Several projects have been implemented to track the development of new firms, from the emergence of a business idea and organization of a start-up team through the birth of an operati...

There are at least 200 million people around the world involved in business ­creation. Another 200 million are owners or managers of new firms less than a few years old. These estimates were developed by the Global Entrepreneur Monitor (GEM) research program that covered 75 countries, about 80% of the world population. The true global total of peop...

The Chinese Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (CPSED)1 is the first large-scale longitudinal study of new firm formation in China, and is based on a representative sample of nascent entrepreneurs (NEs) in eight urban areas. The primary purpose of the CPSED project is to uncover the factors that initiate, hinder, and facilitate the emergence a...

This study aims to discover relationships using a resource-based view of entrepreneurship and the social value creation characteristics of 70 social entrepreneurs. This study builds on existing research that commercial and social entrepreneurs share similar operational processes by providing empirical support for these relationships from a sample o...

The purpose of this chapter is to offer some ideas and evidence about the processes of organization formation. We look at the founding of independent for-profit businesses for insights into the nature of organization formation, in general, realizing that other kinds of organizations, such as voluntary organizations, non-profit organizations, and go...

The first US Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics [PSED I] is the most comprehensive assessment of the firm creation process yet completed. Based on a representative sample of those actively involved in business creation, analysis begins with the consideration of 75 factors that may affect the decision of adults to get involved in the creation o...

PSED II began in 2005 with the selection of a cohort of 1,214 nascent entrepreneurs chosen from a representative sample of 31,845 adults. The first 12 month follow-up interviews were completed with 80% of the original cohort. The project is designed to replicate, with appropriate methodological improvements, PSED I. The PSED provides a unique, unpr...

A substantial portion of this material was initially published in the 2008 The Small Business Economy: A Report to the President (Reynolds and Curtin 2009). The final section on the analysis of outcomes, however, is completely new and is presented here for the first time.

Business creation is a widespread and basic feature of all market economies. Contributions to job creation, new goods and services, a broader range of work opportunities, enhanced productivity, and economic growth benefit all nations and their citizens. The scope, importance, and contributions of business creation suggest there is considerable meri...

New businesses are significant contributors to the growth and productivity of the U.S. Economy. Their importance warrants ongoing research efforts to develop relevant data sources with which to explore the dynamics of the business creation process.1 while a number of datasets are representative of the U.S. Business population, only one-the Panel St...

It has long been known that the level of entrepreneurship, indicated as the percentage of incorporated and unincorporated nascent businesses relative to the labor force differs strongly across countries. This variance is related to differences in levels of economic development (Wennekers et al. 2005), but also to diverging demographic, cultural, an...

One of the challenges of organizational scholarship is defining when an organization begins to exist. Although the literature often borrows analogies from the biological realm, there is growing recognition that firm conception, gestation, and birth are complex constructs when applied to organizations. In this paper we take advantage of the rich dat...

While new firm creation is an important feature of modern economies, research on major aspects of the early stages of the business life course is hampered by the length and complexity of the process. Conceptual complexity is reflected in the difficulty of developing simple, precise measures of initiating the firm gestation process, or conception, a...

Two current longitudinal studies in advanced countries, PSED II in the US and CAUSEE in Australia, have attempted to harmonize the major features of the research design. A comparison of the initial screening and first detailed interviews indicates a higher participation in new firm creation in the U.S. Similar types of persons are involved in both...

The study of firm creation is becoming a focal point of business research, education, practice, and policymaking. Currently, it is estimated that 12 million people in the United States are involved in business start-ups; the phenomenon is embedded in the American culture—and in many others around the world. The Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynami...

The use of human population surveys to estimate the prevalence of nascent entrepreneurs has become a major feature of both longitudinal studies of the firm creation process, such as the US Panel Studies of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) research program, as well as cross-national comparisons, as reflected in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GE...

The Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence (CAUSEE) is the largest study of new firm formations ever undertaken in Australia . In a nutshell, CAUSEE aims to uncover the factors that initiate, hinder and facilitate the process of emergence and development of new, independent firms. Through contacts with a random sample of 30,000...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [GEM] research program was developed to provide comparisons among countries related to participation of adults in the firm creation process. The project was initiated with four objectives: 1) to develop reliable procedures for assessing differences in the national level of new firm creation, a critical component...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research program was developed to provide harmonized comparisons among countries related to the level of participation in entrepreneurial activities. Download the slides at: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper=1028027 Download the audio file at: http://papers.ssrn.com/paper=1028836

The Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II offers a nationally-representative database for the United States to offer systematic, reliable, and generalizable data on the business formation process. It includes information on the proportion and characteristics of the adult population attempting to start new businesses, the kinds of activities na...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) research program was developed to provide harmonized comparisons among countries related to the level of participation in entrepreneurial activities.

The Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II offers a nationally-representative database for the United States to offer systematic, reliable, and generalizable data on the business formation process. It includes information on the proportion and characteristics of the adult population attempting to start new businesses, the kinds of activities na...

The Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II offers a nationally-representative database for the United States to offer systematic, reliable, and generalizable data on the business formation process. It includes information on the proportion and characteristics of the adult population attempting to start new businesses, the kinds of activities na...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [GEM] research program was developed to provide harmonized comparisons among countries related to the level of participation in entrepreneurial activities. The initial data was assembled as a pretest of five countries in 1998; by 2003, more than forty countries and three sub-national regions were involved in the...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor [GEM] research program was developed to provide harmonized comparisons among countries related to the level of participation in entrepreneurial activities. The initial data was assembled as a pretest of five countries in 1998; by 2003, more than forty countries and three sub-national regions were involved in the...

The U.S. economy is highly dynamic: businesses open and close, workers switch jobs and start new enterprises, and innovative technologies redefine the workplace and enhance productivity. With globalization markets have also become more interconnected. Measuring business activity in this rapidly evolving environment increasingly requires tracking co...

Reliable procedures for the measurement of organizational culture are necessary if the ideas developed in popular and scholarly literature are to be tested. A review of recent writings was the basis for defining 14 aspects of organizational culture. A questionnaire developed to capture these aspects was completed by those working in a diverse colle...

PSED II began in 2005 with the selection of a cohort of 1,214 nascent entrepreneurs chosen from a representative sample of 31,845 adults. The first 12 month follow-up interviews were completed with 80% of the original cohort. The project is designed to replicate, with appropriate methodological improvements, PSED I. The PSED provides a unique, unpr...

This research effort has and will continue to provide two major contributions. The first is a significant resource for advancing scholarly understanding of the firm creation process, as reflected by the attention to the initial data set, the growth in similar projects in other countries, and the unique information on firms that is not available in...

Entrepreneurship is among the most vibrant and important parts of the economy, and this important contribution to understanding its dynamics provides the first assessment of changes over time in U.S. entrepreneurial activity. It is uniquely based on measures of participation of adults in new firm creation and gives a systematic overview of basic pa...

Knowledge of the timing and sequence of start-up teams' delegation of business functions in growing entrepreneurial ventures has significant implications for understanding those ventures' need for human resource development (HRD) interventions at different stages of their development. As a first step in exploring the evolution of functional differe...

Combining insights from organizational ecology and social network theory, we examine how the structure of relations among organizational populations affects differences in rates of foundings across geographic locales. We hypothesize that symbiotic and commensalistic interpopulation relations function as channels of information about entrepreneurial...

High growth new firms are of considerable interest, in no small part due to their disproportionate contribution to overall job growth; among the 13 million nascent entrepreneurs present in the US in 2001, the 675,000 that aspire to provide 50 or more jobs five years after the firm birth would account for 40% of all new firm jobs. Estimating the imp...

Based upon two strands of literature, this paper hypothesizes a U-shaped relationship between a country's rate of entrepreneurial dynamics and its level of economic development. This would imply a different scope for entrepreneurship policy across subsequent stages of development. Regressing GEM's 2002 data for nascent entrepreneurship in 36 countr...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor research program was designed as a comprehensive assessment of the role of entrepreneurship in national economic growth. The conceptual model reflected in a wide range of factors associated with national variations in entrepreneurial activity and the major contextual features. Empirical tests of the many relation...

This is the acceptance speech by Paul D. Reynolds upon receiving the 2004 International Award for Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research. The award is sponsored by the Swedish Foundation for Small Business Research (FSF) and the Swedish Business Development Agency (NUTEK). In this speech Reynolds reflects on his contribution to entrepreneursh...

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor research program was designed as a comprehensive assessment of the role of entrepreneurship in national economic growth. The conceptual model reflected in a wide range of factors associated with national variations in entrepreneurial activity and the major contextual features. Empirical tests of the many relation...

This handbook reports on the creation andresults of the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) that wasconducted by the Entrepreneurship Research Consortium (ERC), founded in 1995.The PSED was created to develop a representative portrait of entrepreneurialactivity in the United States.A panel of nascent entrepreneurs wascreated, along with...

This paper aims at explaining cross-country variation in nascent entrepreneurship. Regression analysis is applied using various explanatory variables derived from three different approaches. We make use of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor database, including nascent entrepreneurship rates for 36 countries in 2002 as well as variables from standa...

The Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) is a national longitudinal sample of 64,622 U.S. households that were contacted to find individuals who were actively engaged in starting new businesses. The PSED includes information on: the proportion and characteristics of the adult population involved in attempts to start new businesses, the ki...

Business start-up activities B usiness start-up activities are events, behaviors, and the accomplishments of individuals that lead to the emergence of new businesses. The value of studying business start-up activities is based on a number of assumptions. First, without the organization creation activities of individuals, there are no organizations....