When is your experience valuable? Occupation-industry transitions and self-employment success
(2018) In Journal of Evolutionary Economics 28(2). p.265-286- Abstract
The literature on employee spinoffs has, for a long time, stressed the importance of industry-specific skills and experiences in explaining the success of new firms. We argue that employees also develop skills that are associated with their occupation within an industry, and that success as an entrepreneur, therefore, is also contingent on the relation between the entrepreneurs’ previous occupation and the industry in which they operate as self-employed. Using matched employer-employee data, we develop a measure, occupational spin-offs, that accounts for this relation. An occupational spin-off is defined as a start-up in the most common industry, given the previous occupation of the founder. We then show that entrepreneurs starting... (More)
The literature on employee spinoffs has, for a long time, stressed the importance of industry-specific skills and experiences in explaining the success of new firms. We argue that employees also develop skills that are associated with their occupation within an industry, and that success as an entrepreneur, therefore, is also contingent on the relation between the entrepreneurs’ previous occupation and the industry in which they operate as self-employed. Using matched employer-employee data, we develop a measure, occupational spin-offs, that accounts for this relation. An occupational spin-off is defined as a start-up in the most common industry, given the previous occupation of the founder. We then show that entrepreneurs starting occupational spinoffs enjoy above average income from self-employment and have longer spells as business owners.
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- author
- Koster, Sierdjan and Andersson, Martin LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2018-04
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Entrepreneurship, Experience, Human capital, Occupational choice, Self-employment, Skills, Spin-offs
- in
- Journal of Evolutionary Economics
- volume
- 28
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 265 - 286
- publisher
- Springer
- external identifiers
-
- pmid:29606804
- scopus:85027839591
- ISSN
- 0936-9937
- DOI
- 10.1007/s00191-017-0528-2
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- c961d488-14b4-4a7e-a0f7-fed237eb1a37
- date added to LUP
- 2017-09-07 08:22:47
- date last changed
- 2025-01-07 20:28:58
@article{c961d488-14b4-4a7e-a0f7-fed237eb1a37,
abstract = {{<p>The literature on employee spinoffs has, for a long time, stressed the importance of industry-specific skills and experiences in explaining the success of new firms. We argue that employees also develop skills that are associated with their occupation within an industry, and that success as an entrepreneur, therefore, is also contingent on the relation between the entrepreneurs’ previous occupation and the industry in which they operate as self-employed. Using matched employer-employee data, we develop a measure, occupational spin-offs, that accounts for this relation. An occupational spin-off is defined as a start-up in the most common industry, given the previous occupation of the founder. We then show that entrepreneurs starting occupational spinoffs enjoy above average income from self-employment and have longer spells as business owners.</p>}},
author = {{Koster, Sierdjan and Andersson, Martin}},
issn = {{0936-9937}},
keywords = {{Entrepreneurship; Experience; Human capital; Occupational choice; Self-employment; Skills; Spin-offs}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{265--286}},
publisher = {{Springer}},
series = {{Journal of Evolutionary Economics}},
title = {{When is your experience valuable? Occupation-industry transitions and self-employment success}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00191-017-0528-2}},
doi = {{10.1007/s00191-017-0528-2}},
volume = {{28}},
year = {{2018}},
}