 How the founders’ general and specific human capital drives export activities of start-upsResearch Policy, 2016, vol. 45, issue 5, 1014-1030 Abstract: At first glance, a typical start-up does not seem to have the required capabilities to enter foreign markets. Nevertheless, 26% of the firms of a representative sample of Swiss start-ups already perform export activities three years after their foundation, and the firms with export activities generate 39% of their sales abroad on average. Previous studies identified the founders’ human capital as an important driver of early internationalization. In this paper, however, we find that differences exist in the effect of the founders’ general and specific human capital. While the founders’ general human capital affects both export propensity and intensity, their export-specific experience only affects export propensity but not intensity. Furthermore, we find evidence that the effect of general human capital is more persistent than the effect of specific human capital. Keywords: Export; Start-up; Founder characteristics; Human capital (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:respol:v:45:y:2016:i:5:p:1014-1030 DOI: 10.1016/j.respol.2016.02.010 Access Statistics for this article Research Policy is currently edited by M. Bell, B. Martin, W.E. Steinmueller, A. Arora, M. Callon, M. Kenney, S. Kuhlmann, Keun Lee and F. Murray More articles in Research Policy from Elsevier |
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