Comparative study of the productive and unproductive allocation of entrepreneurial efforts

McCormick, Marleen

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Description

Title

Comparative study of the productive and unproductive allocation of entrepreneurial efforts

Author(s)

McCormick, Marleen

Issue Date

2013-05-24T22:06:55Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Hoetker, Glenn P.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Bercovitz, Janet E.L.

Committee Member(s)

• Hoetker, Glenn P.
• Bucheli, Marcelo
• Clougherty, Joseph
• Mahoney, Joseph T.

Department of Study

Business Administration

Discipline

Business Administration

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Comparative
• entrepreneurship

Abstract

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.

Graduation Semester

2013-05

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Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2013 Marleen McCormick

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