Founders' human capital and the performance of UK new technology based firms

Panagiotis Ganotakis*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

This paper investigates the role of entrepreneurs' general and specific human capital on the performance of UK new technology based firms using a resource based approach to the entrepreneurship theory. The effect of entrepreneurial human capital on the performance of NTBFs is investigated using data derived from a survey of 412 firms operating in both high-tech manufacturing and the services sectors. According to the resource based theory it is found that specific human capital is more important for the performance of NTBFs in relation to general. More specifically individual entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial teams with high levels of formal business education, commercial, managerial or same sector experience are found to have created better performing NTBFs. Finally it is found that the performance of a NTBF can improve through the combination of heterogeneous but complementary skills, including, for example, technical education and commercial experience or managerial technical and managerial commercial experience.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)495-515
Number of pages21
JournalSmall Business Economics
Volume39
Issue number2
Early online date24 Oct 2010
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2012

Keywords

  • entrepreneurship
  • human capital
  • new technology based firms
  • performance

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