Kirzner (1997) and Shane and Venkataraman (2000) implied that opportunity discovery is solely regulated by the distribution of knowledge in social systems. We pursue a systematic analysis of how a prospective entrepreneur’s national context influences the innovativeness of his or her startup attempts. We develop a theoretical framework that explicates the effect of formal institutions on the degree of innovativeness of new firm entries in a given country. Formal institutions represent institutions that are codified in laws and regulations – e.g., a country’s intellectual property protection regime (Scott, 2001). We propose that such institutions not only influence what individuals search and see, but also, how they react to what they see (e.g., Hwang & Powell, 2005; Thornton, 1998). Therefore, different institutional environments should produce differentially innovative entrepreneurs. In this paper, thus, we contribute to a better understanding of the link between entrepreneurship and innovation by focusing on the cross-level moderating effects of countrylevel institutional attributes on the innovative dispositions of entrepreneurs across countries.
Autio, Erkko and Pathak, Saurav
"WHEN ARE ENTREPRENEURS INNOVATIVE? WHEN ARE INNOVATORS ENTREPRENEURIAL? (SUMMARY),"
Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research:
15, Article 5.
Available at: http://digitalknowledge.babson.edu/fer/vol31/iss15/5