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Traditionally, entrepreneurs build long-term companies that generate profits by selling goods and services. Nowadays, entrepreneurs are building companies solely to sell them to larger corporations to profit from early 'exits' due to the glorifying media characteristic. Based on an Israeli case study, this article examines how media outlets portray the 'exit' catchphrase. An analysis of semi-structured interviews with Israeli tech journalists and a thematic analysis of news articles is used to identify the three main narratives appearing in the media for encouraging exits: High-tech entrepreneur (individual), company (entity), and the industry (macro point of view). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although entrepreneurial exit can be regarded as a career choice, we lack an in-depth understanding of the psychological mechanism driving entrepreneurs to have this intention. Based on the integration of person-environment fit theory and conservation of resources theory, we illustrated a moderated mediation model to explore how misfit between entrepreneurs and their entrepreneurship affects entrepreneurs' intention to exit their current business. We used three-wave data from 287 owner-manager entrepreneurs to test the hypotheses. Our results indicated that person-entrepreneurship misfit was positively related to entrepreneurial burnout, which was in turn associated with entrepreneurial exit intention. Furthermore, we found that the entrepreneurial exit plan strengthened the effect of entrepreneurial burnout on entrepreneurial exit intention and the indirect effect of person-entrepreneurship misfit on entrepreneurial exit intention. This study expands fit/misfit and entrepreneurial exit literature by providing new insight into the psychological mechanism of person-entrepreneurship misfit on entrepreneurial exit intention from the perspective of the conservation of resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: Venture capital funds have a limited lifecycle. As the fund ages, venture capitalists (VCs) are motivated to promote venture exit discussions with the venture board. We investigate the impact of VCs' exit pressure on the hazard of four types of venture exit (IPO, high-value M&A, low-value M&A, and liquidation), considering how VCs' exit pressure influences board collaboration. We find that while the VCs' exit pressure does not affect the hazard of IPOs, the pressure significantly increases the hazard of M&A and liquidation. Achieving important milestones does not reduce the impact of exit pressure on the hazard of low-value M&A and liquidation. Independent directors moderate the impact of the VC's exit pressure, increasing the hazard of high-value M&A and lessening the hazard of liquidation. Managerial Summary: We investigate whether VCs' exit pressure due to an approaching deadline for fund liquidation influences the time to venture exit and how board composition affects the relationship between VCs' exit pressure and venture exit. Data from a sample of 219 VC-backed U.S. surgical device ventures founded during 1989-2014 suggest that VCs' exit pressure decreases the time to M&A (both high-value and lowvalue M&A) and liquidation. Boards with more independent directors facilitate high-value M&A and delay liquidation. VCs' exit pressure does not affect the time to IPO. These results provide evidence of the impact of the venture capital fund's finite life on investees other than the VCs and confirm the crucial role of independent directors in managing VCs' exit pressure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research Summary: Venture capital funds have a limited lifecycle. As the fund ages, venture capitalists (VCs) are motivated to promote venture exit discussions with the venture board. We investigate the impact of VCs' exit pressure on the hazard of four types of venture exit (IPO, high‐value M&A, low‐value M&A, and liquidation), considering how VCs' exit pressure influences board collaboration. We find that while the VCs' exit pressure does not affect the hazard of IPOs, the pressure significantly increases the hazard of M&A and liquidation. Achieving important milestones does not reduce the impact of exit pressure on the hazard of low‐value M&A and liquidation. Independent directors moderate the impact of the VC's exit pressure, increasing the hazard of high‐value M&A and lessening the hazard of liquidation. Managerial Summary: We investigate whether VCs' exit pressure due to an approaching deadline for fund liquidation influences the time to venture exit and how board composition affects the relationship between VCs' exit pressure and venture exit. Data from a sample of 219 VC‐backed U.S. surgical device ventures founded during 1989–2014 suggest that VCs' exit pressure decreases the time to M&A (both high‐value and low‐value M&A) and liquidation. Boards with more independent directors facilitate high‐value M&A and delay liquidation. VCs' exit pressure does not affect the time to IPO. These results provide evidence of the impact of the venture capital fund's finite life on investees other than the VCs and confirm the crucial role of independent directors in managing VCs' exit pressure. Video Abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the influence that industry has on organizational outcomes, there remains a shortage of research regarding the interaction between an entrepreneur's human capital (prior startup experience) and venture credit risk on new venture exit. Using data from the Kauffman firm survey, for ventures in high-tech industries, relative to ventures in low-tech industries, the decline in performance is stronger for founders who founded a greater number of businesses prior to the current venture or for those who have startup experience in the current industry. The differences in survival between high-tech and low-tech ventures is negligible when founders have more start up experience in the same industry. Furthermore, ventures in high-tech sectors with high credit risk have a greater performance decline relative to those in low-tech industries with high credit risk, and ventures in low-tech sectors with higher perceived competitive advantage have higher odds of failure. The findings add to our understanding of the influence of technology regimes on the limited efficacy of entrepreneurial human capital and stronger effects of credit risk on venture survival and performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we analyse entrepreneurial exit from an institutional lens and consider high-growth aspiration initiatives. We elaborate on the idea that institutions that are market-supporting reduce exit, while the level of high-growth aspiration entrepreneurship increases it. More importantly, we show that the existence of strong market-supporting institutions in a country decreases the positive relationship between the level of high-growth aspiration entrepreneurship and exit. We employ panel data of 74 countries for the years 2007–2017. Model estimations confirm our hypotheses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Firm entry and exit flows in the retailing and consumer services may be viewed as market equilibrating processes. Local markets with considerable market room and high unemployment may be thought of having high subsequent entry rates and possibly low exit rates. We examine this relationship and obtain empirical results for a range of industries in 563 Belgian municipalities. We show that, over a three-year period, (net) entry is positively affected by the presence of local 'market room'. We find a significant 'unemployment push' effect on entry in some industries, but also a significantly positive effect of unemployment on exit. This pattern possibly indicates a 'revolving door regime' in areas marked by unemployment where new entrants leave the market relatively soon after entry, or only crowd out local competitors without creating additional employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper empirically investigates the forces that shape the post-entry exit probability of entrepreneurial start-ups, with an emphasis on the impact of incumbents' strategic behavior in financial markets. We find that entrepreneurial start-ups in highly competitive industries are more likely to exit and that leverage compounds this exit risk. However, the latter result only holds when potential adverse selection and moral hazard problems in financial markets are large at start-up. Under these circumstances, competitors can negatively influence creditors' perceptions on entrepreneurial quality or behavior through aggressive strategic actions to impede future financing and induce the start-up's exit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Hoetker and Agarwal (Academy of Management Journal, 50(2), 446–469, 2007), research on knowledge transfers related to business closures is scarce. This paper intends to fill the knowledge gap on the transition to entrepreneurship after a business closure. This paper studies which employees are most likely to start an entrepreneurial venture after being affected by a displacement. Furthermore, following, e.g., Hyttinen and Maliranta (Scandinavian Journal of Economics, 110(1), 1–21, 2008) and Sørensen (Administrative Science Quarterly, 52, 387–412, 2007), this study investigates the link between former workplace characteristics, such as the size and age of the former workplace, and the transition into entrepreneurship. In the second part of the analysis, the performance of the entrepreneurial ventures started by employees after displacement is explored as it relates to survival, employment, and profitability. The empirical setting employs an employer-employee-matched dataset coving all displaced employees in Sweden during 2001–2010. The empirical findings suggest that employees displaced from smaller firms are more likely to transition to entrepreneurship. Employing a Cox proportional hazard model to study the survival of these companies shows that new firms generated by displaced employees from small establishments are more viable. Furthermore, individuals who took part in labor market polices have a higher probability of becoming entrepreneurs, although these firms tend to show lower survival rates, which indicates that these transitions are necessity-based. As for the performance of the business, the empirical findings suggest modest growth in terms of employment, turnover, and operating profit for the vast majority of entrepreneurial ventures started after displacement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an entrepreneurial ecosystem, the failure rate of startups is extremely high at 90%, and every startup that fails becomes an orphan. This phenomenon leads to higher costs of failure for the entrepreneurs in the ecosystem. Failed startups have many lessons to offer to the ecosystem and offer guidance to the potential entrepreneur, and this area is not fully explored compared to the literature on successful startups. We use a case based method distinguishing a failed startup and a successful startup, studying the entrepreneurial characteristics and firm level factors which cause the failures, in the technology startup ecosystem of Bangalore. We study one of the modes of exit adopted by failed startup entrepreneurs and draw key lessons on causes that culminate in failures. We have identified that factors such as the time to minimum viable product cycle, time for revenue realization, founders' complementary skillsets, age of founders with their domain expertise, personality type of founders, attitude towards financial independence and willingness to avail mentorship at critical stages, will decisively differentiate failed startups from the successful ones. Accordingly, implications have been derived for potential entrepreneurs for reducing the cost of failures in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extant research offers limited and inconclusive findings on the effects of early exporting by new ventures. This longitudinal study examines such effects, taking into consideration the roles of competition and adaptation in international venturing and exiting. The findings alert us to the potentially negative impact of early exporting on exit. Despite the deterrent effect of exporter competition, those new ventures that engage in early international venturing are impelled to keep strategically alert and expedite their learning process, therefore prospering in the highly competitive environment. By attracting foreign investors, new ventures will be able to start exporting early, and endorsed by the knowledge advantages associated with foreign partners the rapid entrants have better continuation chances. At the same time, early exporting in a relatively less competitive environment or without foreign ownership will lead to higher exit likelihood. By highlighting the polarizing effects of early exporting in the life cycle of new ventures, this study reconciles the difference between the process model and theories on international entrepreneurship to some extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research advances our understanding of the manifestation of tensions and ethical issues in entrepreneurial finance. In doing so, we offer an overview of ethics in entrepreneurship and finance, delineating the curious paucity of research at their intersection. Using twelve vignettes, we put forward the asymmetries between entrepreneurs and investors and discuss a set of ethical problems that arise among key actors centring on the dynamics of venture partner entry and exit, applying the multiple-lens ethical perspective to analyse these issues. This analysis culminates in the introduction of a general classification scheme for ethical problems across venture partners. Our analysis highlights the moral dimension inherent in the entry and exit of venture partners and the importance of considering moral judgement, as well as intention in future analysis of any decision-making. Our study also points to the moral responsibility in finance, especially to the mutual moral responsibilities of investors and entrepreneurs. By integrating ethics into finance, this research also demonstrates that in the case of venture partner exit, an ethical approach and decent governance go beyond compliance to the law. We conclude with implications for practitioners, specifically with some proposals for a solution to the problem of blocked and forced exit. Together, we make several contributions to the literature by integrating ethics, finance and entrepreneurship, and we call for future research to stimulate a growing body of research within this presently overlooked area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research summary: Exit delay is an important problem for entrepreneurs and managers alike, yet relatively little is known about its causes. We conduct a laboratory experiment in which optimal exit is well defined, and in which a treatment group with equity stakes-the actual cash flows of a firm and decision rights over its continuation-is compared to a control group whose compensation is based solely on its assessment of the firm's profitability. While treatment group participants make exit decisions that are nearly optimal given their beliefs, their beliefs are significantly distorted relative to the control group. The pattern of distortion is consistent with confirmatory bias and motivated reasoning. A fundamental finding of our study is that incentives may not only affect behavior, but belief formation as well. Managerial summary: Managers and entrepreneurs frequently destroy significant value by failing to shut down underperforming businesses in a timely manner. To address this problem, we must understand the mechanisms causing exit delay. We examine behavioral mechanisms causing delay through a laboratory experiment in which subjects make decisions about when to exit a failing venture. We find that 'equity stakes'-receiving the firm's cash flows and having decision rights over exit-cause participants to discount negative performance information, retain overly optimistic beliefs, and delay exit. By contrast, participants without these high-powered incentives exit nearly optimally. Our findings suggest ways to reduce exit delay in managerial settings, including implementing automated decision rules, removing equity-based compensation, and recruiting managers less susceptible to knowledge overconfidence, a trait associated with exit delay. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This lecture is the story of an intellectual journey, that of elaborating a new-Schumpeterian-theory of economic growth. A theory where (i) growth is generated by innovative entrepreneurs; (ii) entrepreneurial investments respond to incentives that are themselves shaped by economic policies and institutions; (iii) new innovations replace old technologies: in other words, growth involves creative destruction and therefore involves a permanent conflict between incumbents and new entrants. First, we motivate and then lay out the Schumpeterian paradigm and point to a set of empirical predictions which distinguish this paradigm from other growth models. Second, we raise four debates on which the Schumpeterian approach sheds new light: the middle income trap, secular stagnation, the recent rise in top income inequality, and firm dynamics. Third and last, we show how the paradigm can be used to think (or rethink) about growth policy design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the career dynamics of high-tech entrepreneurs by analyzing the exit choice of entrepreneurs: to act as a business angel, to found another firm, or to become dependently employed. Our detailed data from CrunchBase indicate that founders are more likely to stick with entrepreneurship as a serial entrepreneur or as an angel investor in cases where the founder had prior experience either in founding other startups or working for a startup, or had a 'jack-of-all-trades' education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on entrepreneurial exit has established itself as a more recognized component of the entrepreneurial process and a distinctive domain of entrepreneurship research. Despite the progress made, there still exists important topics within entrepreneurial exit where scholarly understanding is scant. This special issue discusses new and open topics of research on entrepreneurial exit. Three papers examine three such topics including pricing intentions of exiting entrepreneurs, exit considerations among angel investors, and the relationship between exit and failure in new ventures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds a model of firm dynamics to study the consequences of "Limited re-entry" for macroeconomic dynamics. In the literature, exit has typically been modeled as a permanent decision whereby it is not possible for an exiting plant or firm to "re-enter" in the future. This paper relaxes this assumption by assuming that the exit decision is not permanent, but that an exiting producer still has a "limited" ability to re-enter. The model, reasonably calibrated, indicates that limited re-entry has made business cycles more volatile and persistent, and has contributed to the slow recovery following the 2007-09 recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a comprehensive study on the dynamics of nascent business owners using a unique longitudinal matched employer-employee dataset. We follow over 157,000 individuals who leave paid employment and become business owners during the period 1992-2007. The contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we analyze both entry and exit, identifying and characterizing different profiles of individuals leaving paid employment to become business owners, and distinguishing exits by dissolution from exits by ownership transfer. Second, we provide new evidence on how particular experiences in the labor market and entry modes shape the post-entry dynamics of nascent business owners. By differentiating between different entry and exit routes, this paper provides new evidence on different human capital patterns among nascent business owners and on key determinants of entrepreneurial survival. Our results suggest that different exit modes can be predicted by business owners' entry route. Furthermore, different exit modes exhibit different duration dependence patterns according to the entry mode. Additionally, the paper shows that businesses started after a displacement episode are not necessarily less successful. Those individuals entering entrepreneurship after being displaced due to previous employer closure are found to persist longer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that internationalization of innovation and the related spillovers can also affect the likelihood of firm entry and exit into an industry. By making use of firm-level panel data from China over the period 2005 to 2007, this paper examines the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) in research and development (R&D) and the related linkages on entry and exit likelihoods of domestic firms in (i) transport equipment and (ii) electrical machinery and equipment manufacturing industries. In order to evaluate the region-of-origin effect, this paper also separately examines the impact of FDI in R&D originating from (i) all countries except Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan and (ii) Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Furthermore, the impact of FDI in R&D on entry and exit of Chinese firms in the two industries is examined by splitting the data into large and small firms within the two industries. The results of the pooled probit regression reveal that FDI in R&D and the related spillovers can have a significant impact on the likelihood of entry and exit of domestic firms in transport equipment and electric machinery and equipment industries. The empirical analysis also suggests that the impact of changes in FDI in R&D and the related spillovers varies across firm size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the survival performance of new technology-based firms (NTBFs) over the business cycle and compare them against other entrepreneurial firms. Our data comprise the entire population of entrepreneurial firms entering the Swedish economy from 1991 to 2002, which we follow until 2007. Discrete-time duration models are employed to investigate whether the business cycle impacts differently on the survival likelihood of NTBFs vis-à-vis other entrepreneurial firms. Our main findings are three. First, NTBFs generally experience a lower hazard rate compared to other entrepreneurial firms, which is interpreted as a sign of their high 'quality.' Second, all entrepreneurial firms are sensitive to and follow a pro-cyclical pattern of survival likelihood over the business cycle. Three, when comparing NTBFs with the broader group of other entrepreneurial firms, we find that NTBFs are more sensitive to business cycle fluctuations. The above results come with a qualification, though. The sensitivity during the business cycle mainly pertains to self-employed NTBFs. Also, NTBFs' higher survivability is only linked to not being characterized as self-employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to examine to what extent different venture capital firms contribute to the likelihood that the portfolio company in which they invested will realize a trade sale. We use arguments from learning theory to hypothesize the relationship between vicarious, experiential and congenital learning of the venture capital (VC) firm and the trade sale hazard of its portfolio companies. Based on our analysis of 206 VC-backed UK start-ups, we find that both trade sale experience of the VC and learning from syndicate partners with trade sale experience significantly increase the trade sale hazard. The routines and procedures learned from experienced syndicate partners complement experience accumulated through trial and error. Congenital trade sale experience of the investment managers on the contrary has no significant influence on the acquisition hazard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether and how a recent entrepreneurial exit relates to subsequent engagement. We discriminate between six levels of engagement including none, potential, intentional, nascent, young and established entrepreneurship. We use individual-level data for 24 countries that participated in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor during 2004, 2005 and 2006 (some 350,000 observations). Our findings indeed show that a recent exit decreases the probability of undertaking no entrepreneurial activity, whereas it substantially increases the probabilities of being involved in all other engagement levels. Investigating the conditions under which an exit increases engagement in entrepreneurial activities, we find that the probability of entrepreneurial engagement after exit is higher for males, for persons who know an entrepreneur and for persons with a low fear of failure. Educational attainment does not seem to be relevant. Moreover, there exists large cross-country variation in the probability of entrepreneurial engagement after exit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study shows that the survival rate of new plants depends on their spatial location. A panel dataset of French plants, observed between 1993 and 2002, provides annual samples of more than 300,000 new plants, each plant being defined as rural, peri-urban, urban or located in the Paris region. A survival model is developed, introducing the location variable alongside the usual survival determinants, such as size, industry and period. Estimation results clearly show that it is easier to create a new plant in urban areas, particularly in the Paris region, but less difficult to survive in rural ones. Agglomeration forces may explain the first result, and the intensity of local competition variable, the second. However, even once the local competition effect is controlled, rural new plants still exhibit significantly higher survival rates. The entrepreneurial theory of opportunity may help to understand such a result. The density of population, activities and information offer more opportunities to start an activity, but also to quit it once it has been created. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the impact of globalisation, by means of growing international trade, on firm entry and exit at the industry level. The analysis is carried on the manufacturing industries of eight European countries, over the period 1997-2003. Our main findings suggest important entry-discouraging effects in the short run, following increased trade exposure. Using panel estimation techniques, the empirical evidence points to less creative replacement entry in industries characterised by substantial import intensity, and strong selection and higher entry barriers in industries characterised by higher openness through the export channel. The negative effects of trade openness are milder if the increasing trade exposure concerns intra-industry trade, coupled mainly with international sourcing of intermediates within the industry. The latter effects also show up in the model explaining the exit of firms, which we estimate jointly with entry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives an empirical analysis of determinants of new-firm survival in the manufacturing sector of Baden-Wuerttemberg (Germany) from 1981 to 1994. The analysis focuses on firm- and industry-specific determinants of new-firm survival. A possible effect of regional agglomeration and of the business cycle is also tested, albeit in a very general manner. From a methodical point of view parametric and semiparametric duration models are used. Grouped duration models are estimated taking into account the problem of ties. Moreover, the problem of unobserved heterogeneity is considered which has so far been neglected in numerous studies. The empirical analyses show with respect to industry-specific effects that the risk of new-firm failure is the larger the larger an industry’ s minimum efficient scale is, the worse the sectoral demand-conditions are, the more narrow the market is, the higher dynamics of foundation within an industry are. The liability of smallness-hypothesis is confirmed for German manufacturing while with respect to firm age the results favour the liability of adolescence-hypothesis instead of a pure liability of newness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In offering an answer to the question, "Who exits and why?", I introduce a model relating the decision to remain in, or exit from an industry, to conditions of demand and the underlying technology. In particular, I argue that two elements of technology are important - the role of scale economies in an industry and the extent to which the underlying technological information conditions can be characterized by either an entrepreneurial or a routinized regime. Based on the evidence from over 300 U.S. manufacturing industries, I conclude that the process of firm selection and industry evolution tends to conform either to the model of the revolving door, where the bulk of exiting businesses are new entrants, or else the metaphor of the forest, where incumbent establishments tend to be displaced by new entrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]