Home Sweet Home: Entrepreneurs' Location Choices and the Performance of Their Ve

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Home Sweet Home: Entrepreneurs' Location Choices and the Performance of Their Ventures Michael S. Dahl and Olav Sorenson


Abstract

Entrepreneurs, even more than employees, tend to locate in regions in which they have deep roots (“home” regions). Here, we examine the performance implications of these choices. Whereas one might expect entrepreneurs to perform better in these regions because of their richer endowments of regionally embedded social capital, they might also perform worse if their location choices rather reflect a preference for spending time with family and friends. We examine this question using comprehensive data on Danish start-ups. Ventures perform better — survive longer and generate greater annual profits and cash flows when located in regions in which their founders have lived longer. This effect appears substantial, similar in size to the value of prior experience in the industry (i.e., to being a spin off).

现任教于耶鲁大学管理学院的Olav Sorenson一向以巧用数据闻名，这篇即将发表于Management Science的文章(附件1)又是另一佐证。第一作者丹麦人Dahl(http://msdahl.com/)近年来也有不少好的文章(包括一篇关于Employee stress的，详见他的主页)问世。当然他们依托的是丹麦著名的IDA数据 (Integrated Database for Labour Market Research)，精确到丹麦的每家每户。

执教于斯坦福的Jesper B. Sørensen也有文章来自于该数据库(ASQ, 2007: Bureaucracy and Entrepreneurship: Workplace Effects on Entrepreneurial Entry，附件2)。