Entrepreneurs are often envisioned as small private start-up firms operating against all odds. Here, we investigate how in the context of the Triple Helix various entrepreneurs form communities and drive institutional and technological change. To theoretically shape a socialized view of entrepreneurship, we use the Triple Helix approach. Our empirical basis is a highly regulated sector driven b...

Many scholars see entrepreneurs as action-oriented individuals who use rules of thumb and other mental heuristics to make decisions, but who do little systematic planning and analysis. We argue that what distinguishes successful from unsuccessful entrepreneurs is precisely that the former vary their decisionmaking styles, sometimes relying on heuristics and sometimes relying on systematic analy...

This article reports the results of a study aimed at identifying the information needs and uses of the informal sector in Uganda. The demographic and business characteristics of these entrepreneurs are highlighted and empirically tested with regard to their information needs. This study has largely employed qualitative research methodologies, such as the critical incidence technique for intervi...

We study a model of entrepreneurs who compete for venture capital (VC) funding in a setting where the VC can only finance the best entrepreneurs because of limited capital. With asymmetric information, VCs can only assess entrepreneurs by the progress of development, which, in equilibrium, reveals the quality of the new technology. Using an asymptotic analysis, we prove that in attractive indus...

This paper explains why seemingly irrational overconfident behavior can persist. Information aggregation is poor in groups in which most individuals herd. By ignoring the herd, the actions of overconfident individuals (“entrepreneurs”) convey their private information. However, entrepreneurs make mistakes and thus die more frequently. The socially optimal proportion of entrepreneurs trades off ...

This paper explains why seemingly irrational overconfident behavior can persist. Information aggregation is poor in groups in which most individuals herd. By ignoring the herd, the actions of overconfident individuals (“entrepreneurs”) convey their private information. However, entrepreneurs make mistakes and thus die more frequently. The socially optimal proportion of entrepreneurs trades off ...

Weanalyze the Pareto optimal contracts between lenders and borrowers in a model with asymmetric information. The model generalizes the RothschildStiglitz pure adverse selection problem by including moral hazard. Entrepreneurs with unequal “abilities" borrow to finance alternative investment projects which differ in degree of risk and productivity.We determine the endogenous distribution of proj...

Despite attempts to induce regional competitiveness in industrial manufactures, poor productivity performances continue to plague the ability of African entrepreneurs to compete successfully in international markets. While many plausible explanations can be put forward to explain this failing, we argue in this paper that an analysis of the social and institutional context within which these ent...