Author: Gisela Ammetller Montes
Programme: Doctoral Programme on the Information and Knowledge Society
Language: Catalan
Supervisors: Dr Inma Rodríguez Ardura and Dr Josep Lladós i Masllorens
Faculty / Institute: Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3)
Subjects: Operations and Organization, Business Administration and Management, Advertising, Public Relations, Mass Media
Key words: Business start-up, Business support services, Entrepreneurial behaviour, Consumer behaviour, Marketing
Area of knowledge: Business Organization
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Summary
The main objective of this research consists of understanding entrepreneurs' behaviour regarding the programs and services which stimulate business creation and growth. More specifically, it desires to understand the needs of entrepreneurs with respect to business creation and growth, their attitudes towards business support products, the role and influence of business incubation environments on their consumption, and to obtain a comprehensive view of the elements intervening in the entrepreneurs' decision-making process regarding the adoption and use of business support products.
The starting point is that the consumption decision process or entrepreneurs' use of support services is analogous to those developed by consumers and organizations when consuming goods and services. Particularly, this work addresses the behaviour of the entrepreneur in a new business incubation environment, considering the entrepreneur as the consumer of a particular product type: the goods and services for business creation and growth.
The empirical analysis is nurtured by a survey, carried out in several waves between July 2005 and January 2006, addressed to the firms of the environment of Barcelona Activa, the local development agency of the Barcelona City Council. A questionnaire was distributed to 256 people, and 136 make up the representative sample of entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs maintain a close contact with the institution and regularly participate in and make use of its support programs and services.
Through a structural equation model with Bayesian estimation it is empirically verified that it is possible to model entrepreneurs' consumption behaviour from a consumer behaviour model. Further, factorial analysis, cluster analysis, and contingency analysis are used to study entrepreneurs' needs and attitudes. Results show that both the adequacy of programs and services to the needs of entrepreneurs and the achievement of higher levels of satisfaction are more frequent among entrepreneurs with no previous start-up experience and among younger firms. In addition, higher levels of use do not always imply more positive attitudes. Finally, the importance of the incubation environment for the consumption of business support products is confirmed through variance analysis.