Preconditions for innovative entrepreneurship in Mexico

Abstract

This dissertation was written as a compendium of three articles: Article 1. Opportunity Motivation and Growth Aspirations of Mexican Entrepreneurs: The Moderating Role of the Household Income Framed in the Theory of Planned Behavior, the second article analyzes the entrepreneurial growth aspirations in efficiency-driven economies and examines the interaction effect of household income on the relationship between opportunity entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial growth aspirations. We propose a growth aspirations model using GEM (Global Entrepreneurship Monitor) data, with two explanatory variables: increased wealth and independence, and a moderating variable (household income). Hypotheses were validated with the use of hierarchical regression, and we find that that opportunity motivation is positively related to the entrepreneurial intention to expand entrepreneurial business activities. A second interesting finding of this study is that the independent effects model infers that growth aspirations are significantly related to household income.

Article 2. Product Newness, Low Competition, Recent Technology, and Export Orientation as Predictors for Entrepreneurial Growth This study examines the contribution of how product newness, low competition, recent technology, and export orientation affect entrepreneurial growth aspirations moderated by financial capital. Based on a Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) sample of 512 Mexican new entrepreneurs, we use a hierarchical regression model to study the independent and interaction effects between these variables, and we apply a Chow breakpoint test and a CUSUMSQ (cumulative sum of squares of recursive residuals) test to analyze structural change and robustness. Our results suggest that achieving higher educational levels, acquiring recent technology, and product newness slightly increase the entrepreneurial growth ambition of the firm, and that financial capital positively moderates the impact of product newness and recent technology on growth aspirations. Besides this, we show that the interaction effect of financial capital with low competition and export activity on their growth aspirations is not crucial, and business angels tend to finance, primarily when the firm exports new products and services are facing a reduced number of competitors.

Article 3. Regional Efficiency Index for New Venture Creation and Job Generation This paper proposes an approach to the Resource-Based Theory within regions in which the configuration and composition of their resources may be used to describe their ability to generate entrepreneurial activity. The Mexican States were used as examples in this case in which the Resource-Based Theory was applied, in combination with the Data Envelopment Analysis, to construct a composite index that measured the efficiency of the Mexican States in their use of resources that the literature has shown as influential in new firm formation and employment creation. The index was then studied with a cluster analysis from the weights of resources to determine those that are the most important. The differences found between states and groups of states suggest that the effects of individual and specific resources on entrepreneurial efficiency are significant.