Who chooses to become an entrepreneur? The Jacks-of-all-Trades in Social and Human Capital

Uschi Backes-Gellner and Petra Moog ()
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Petra Moog: University of Siegen

No 76, Working Papers from University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU)

Abstract: This paper studies willingness to become an entrepreneur depending on an individual’s composition of human and social capital. Our theoretical analysis is an extension of Lazear’s (2005) jack-of-all-trades theory. Our primary implication is that it is not individuals with a higher level of human or social capital but rather individuals with a more balanced portfolio of human and social capital that are more willing than others to become entrepreneurs. We use survey data from a sample of more than 2000 German students to test this hypothesis and find that the jacks-of-all-trades, i.e. the more balanced individuals are more likely to become entrepreneurs. On the other hand, the Masters-in-One, i.e. the specialists, are better off being an employee and rightly prefer to be so.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; Jack-of-all-trades theory; Social capital (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 L26 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 37 pages
Date: 2007-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ent and nep-hrm
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iso:wpaper:0076

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