GEM research: achievements and challenges

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THE GEM RESEARCH:

ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES

Claudia Álvarez [email protected]

Departamento de Economía de la Empresa Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona

Edifici B 08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallés) - Barcelona Tel. 935811209 / Fax. 935812555

David Urbano [email protected]

Departamento de Economía de la Empresa Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona

Edifici B 08193 Bellaterra (Cerdanyola del Vallés) - Barcelona Tel. 935811209 / Fax. 935812555

José Ernesto Amorós

[email protected]

School of Business and Economics

Univesridad del Desarrollo

Av. Plaza 700, Las Condes. Santiago, Chile.

Tel 56(2) 3279438 / Fax 3279241

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THE GEM RESEARCH: ACHIEVEMENTS AND CHALLENGES

ABSTRACT

This paper analyzes the content and the evolution of research based on the GEM Project

(Global Entrepreneurship Monitor). With this aim, we conducted a rigorous search of the

published articles in journals included in the Thomson Reuters´ Social Sciences Citation

Index®, through an exploratory analysis focused in the articles that have used GEM data. The

main findings of the study show that the institutional approach is the most commonly used

conceptual framework. Also, although there are still few academic publications using GEM

data, the number of articles is increasing in terms of opportunities for future research lines.

Key Words: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), literature review, institutional

approach, SSCI.

JEL Classification: L26, B25, M13, O57

1. INTRODUCTION

Given the need for endogenous development strategies for countries and regions,

entrepreneurship emerges as one of the main mechanisms for social and economic growth

(Audretsch and Keilbach 2004, Wennekers et al. 1999 and 2005, van Stel et al. 2005). As a

result, there is a growing interest in the different public and private initiatives to promote

entrepreneurial activity, as well as in the academic community for further analysis of this

phenomenon.

Seeking to provide internationally comparable data on entrepreneurial activity (Reynolds et al.

1999, Reynolds et al. 2005), researchers at Babson College (USA) and London Business

School (UK) created in 1999 the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), The purpose of

GEM project was to use empirical data to assess the level of entrepreneurial activity across

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countries, to understand how entrepreneurial activity varies over time, and to understand why

some countries are more entrepreneurial than other. In addition to that, GEM researchers

sought to explore the relationship between entrepreneurial activity and economic growth and

identify which public policies boost entrepreneurship.

Between 1999 and 2009, approximately one million people have been surveyed and eleven

thousand experts interviewed in association with GEM project1

This paper aim to explore the content and evolution of research based on the GEM project,

identifying topics, unit of analysis, and statistical techniques, as well as the authors and articles

with greater impact. A search of SSCI articles that used GEM data was conducted and analyzed

using the Journal Citation Report (JCR)

. The number of academic

papers that use the GEM database is growing. Despite the growing numbers of people using

and collaborating with the GEM project, few systematic reviews of GEM based research was

found on the literature published on the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Considering the

incremental scientific research using GEM data set, it is important to provide an overview of

research using GEM data and systematize finding in search of future research needs.

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This work is aligned with the research of Acs et al. (2009), Alvarez and Urbano (2010)

Amorós, Bosma and Levie (2010) and Urbano et al. (2010) who have analyzed the relevant

scientific articles that use GEM databases to produce knowledge. The structure of this article is

as follow: first, a conceptual framework for the analysis of published research on the GEM is

presented. Second, we describe the methodology used to analyze the research and present the

results of this study. Finally, highlight achievements and challenges for GEM research.

.

1. GEM Project has the adult population survey and expert interviews, as primary sources of data collection (in addition to primary information on macroeconomic variables and other similar). Until 2009 there had been 1,038,746 adult surveys and 11,160 expert interviews. 2 Both SCCI and JRC are part of Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge SM (formerly ISI Web of Knowledge) that is an unified research platform for find, analyze, and share information in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. More information at: http://wokinfo.com/

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2. GENERAL FRAMEWORK: INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH AND NEW

VENTURES CREATION.

From a general perspective, the research in the field of entrepreneurship3

This paper takes these approaches putting focus on sociological approach as first analysis

criterion. Specifically, we consider the Institutional Economic Theory (North 1990 and 2005)

applied to the analysis of new business creation (Diaz et al. 2005; Urbano 2006; Veciana and

Urbano 2008). In this context, institutional factors are the driver-conditions for

entrepreneurship, distinguishing between formal factors (public agencies and policies to

support business start-ups, procedures and costs to start a business, etc.) and informal factors

(entrepreneurs networks, entrepreneurship role-models, attitudes toward entrepreneurship,

etc.). To compare the results with the institutional approach, we will also consider the

economic approach.

has been placed

under three broad approaches: (a) The economic approach, where researchers emphasize

aspects of economic rationality and, broadly argue that new venture creation is due mainly to

economic issues (Audretsch and Thurik 2001, Audretsch and Keilbach 2004, Parker 2004;

Wennekers et al. 2005, among others). (b)The psychological approach posits that individual

factors or psychological traits determine entrepreneurial activity (McClelland 1961, Collins et

al. 1964; Carsrud and Johnson 1989, among others). (c) The sociological and institutional

approach argues that the socio-cultural environment determines the decision to start a business

(Shapero and Sokol 1982, Aldrich and Zimmer 1986, Berger 1991, Busenitz et al. 2000;

Steyaert and Katz 2004; Manolova et al. 2008; among others).

In the specific area of entrepreneurship and environmental factors, Gnyawali and Fogel (1994)

consider five dimensions that influence entrepreneurial activity: a) government policies and

3 While entrepreneurship as a discipline is a relative new field several authors have made significant theoretical and empirical contributions in recent decades being only some of them Gartner 1985; Brockhaus 1987; Johannisson 1988; Bygrave y Hofer 1991; Gnyawali y Fogel 1994; Shane y Venkataraman 2000; Verheul et al. 2001; Busenitz et al. 2003; Davidsson 2003; Steyaert y Hjorth 2006 and others.

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procedures, b) social and economic environment, c) knowledge and entrepreneurial skills, d)

financial assistance for new ventures4

Governmental policies and procedures are governmental actions that can influence some

market mechanisms. These can help the market to work more efficiently by removing market

imperfections and rigid administrative regulations. Social conditions, they can be defined as

social attitudes conducive to entrepreneurial activity, such as the presence of experienced

entrepreneurs and successful role models. The economic conditions are related to the

proportion of small businesses and their dynamism, economic growth and diversity of

economic activities. Knowledge and entrepreneurial skills are the skills needed to start a new

company. These skills are acquired through training and education, and may focus on skill

improvement about business plan development, or about business management in general.

Entrepreneurs also require both financial (funding to launch their business, diversify the risk

for start, growth and expansion), and non-financial assistance (support for market research,

prepare the business plan, contacts and networks with other entrepreneurs, etc.).

, e) non-financial assistance.

If North’s (1990, 2005) Institutional Economic Theory and Gnyawali and Fogel´s (1994)

theory is intertwined (see Figure 1), we can see that government policies and procedures,

knowledge and entrepreneurial skills, and financial and no financial assistance are related to

formal factors, while social conditions relate to the informal factors. Similarly, economic

conditions can be addressed within the economic approach to business creation.

[Insert Figure 1]

3. METHODOLOGY

In literature reviews, defining the criteria for selecting the articles that will be analyzed is a

challenge, however, the use of SSCI for sampling has gained consensus recently. The SSCI

standard also makes it possible to analyze the impact factor of related articles using JCR5

4.Although Fogel and Gnyawali (1994) provide the social and economic conditions together, in this work have been considered separately in order to adapt the conceptual framework used.

.

5 This approach has been used by authors like Davidsson and Wiklund (2001), Dean et al. (2007), van Praag and Versloot (2007) and Brush et al. (2008) among other.

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Following this criterion, we conducted a search of articles using SSCI Web of Knowledge tool

and look for the fields of title, abstract and text of the article following these key words: GEM,

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, GEM and Entrepreneurship, GEM data. Our first round

includes the highest impact index in “Business”, according to JCR (Academy of Management

Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Administrative

Science Quarterly), but no items were found that use the GEM database.

We also searched specially entrepreneurship and small business management journals

(Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice,

International Small Business Journal, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Small

Business Management, and Small Business Economics6

This gave a total of 69 articles of which 62 are strictly empirical, 4 are introductions to special

issues dedicated to the GEM project and 3 on methodological issues and descriptive of GEM

project.

). There were 48 articles on journals

related to Entrepreneurship, but there were no articles in the Journal of Small Business

Management. Finally, we made an extensive search throughout the SSCI restricting the search

to the areas of economics, business and the other topics related to business management and

found other 21 articles that met the selection criteria described above. From the results we

select the articles that use GEM data in the empirical section either by drawing on the GEM´s

database directly, or on reports published by the GEM Global, national or regional teams. We

included articles that present the methodology of the GEM, and introductions to special issues

related to scientific research using data from GEM. Likewise, we dismissed some works that

only use GEM data to compare results with other investigations or to contextualize some

frameworks, but did not use GEM data to construct empirical variables.

After the selection process we proceeded with an exploratory study of the research topic,

theoretical or empirical, and the different methodologies used (level of analysis, statistical

techniques, data source used). In addition, we identified the impact of these articles with the

6 The impact factor according JCR 2009 is the next: Academy of Management Review (7.867), Academy of Management Journal (6.483), Strategic Management Journal (4.464), Administrative Science Quarterly (3.842), Journal of Business Venturing (2.260), Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice (1.704), Small Business Economics (1.380), International Small Business Journal (1.347), Journal of Small Business Management (1.088), Entrepreneurship & Regional Development (1.020).

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number of citations in the SSCI, the number of authors per article, the authors’ highlights and

the most active in publishing.

Finally we did a correspondence analysis to describe the relationship between two nominal

variables (economic approach / institutional vs. journal, level of analysis and statistical

technique). Correspondence analysis has similarity with contingency tables, and also provides

measures and tests of association, but the tables cannot plot any relationship between variables,

as it does correspondence analysis.

4. RESULTS: THE ACADEMIC RESEARCH AT GEM PROJECT

4.1 Qualitative analysis

As stated above, this paper takes as conceptual framework the institutional approach.

Specifically, we classified the articles according to the environmental factors proposed by

Gnyawali and Fogel (1994), and adapted to North´s (1990, 2005) institutional approach (see

Figure 2). Table 1 shows the subject classification, excluding the theoretical articles and those

dedicated to methodological aspects.

[Insert Figure 2]

Table 1 shows that most empirical work are related to social conditions (44%), followed by

economic conditions with 29% on entrepreneurship financial and non-financial assistance

(11%), government policies and procedures (8%), formal and informal institutional factors

(5%) and finally, knowledge and entrepreneurial skills (3%)7

[Insert Table 1]

.

7 Considering the strict definition of knowledge and entrepreneurial skills given by Gnyawali and Fogel (1994), few items that can be classified in this dimension, because although many studies consider the perceptions of entrepreneurial skills, these authors included in this dimension formal aspects of education and training, while the

perceptual aspects were included in social conditions.

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With regard to social conditions, 44% are works directly related to the role of institutions, such

as Aidis et al. (2008) that explore how institutions and networks have influenced the

(under)development of entrepreneurship in Russia. Anokhin and Schulze (2008) argue that

corruption undermines confidence in the institutions required to develop entrepreneurial and

innovative new business. Kwon and Arenius (2010) examine the effects of social capital on the

perception of entrepreneurial opportunities. Pinillos and Reyes (2009) analyzed the relationship

between cultural dimension (individualist-collectivist orientation) and entrepreneurial activity.

Tominc and Rebernik (2007) explain the factors that influence entrepreneurial activities in

post-socialist countries. Vaillant and Lafuente (2007) evaluated the impact of different

institutional environments on rural vs. urban entrepreneurship. Other examples like Bjørnskov

and Foss (2008) relates institutional indicators of economic freedom and entrepreneurial

activities, while De Clercq et al. (2010) discuss the propensity of international start-ups

businesses and their relationship with the institutional environment.

Other authors like Arenius and Minniti (2005) investigate variables related to the individual

decision to be an entrepreneur, using socio-demographic characteristics (age, gender,

education), economic (household income, employment status) and perception variables

(opportunities recognition, fear of failure, entrepreneurial skils and abilities.). Using perception

variables, Arenius and De Clercq (2005) argue that entrepreneurship is conditioned by the

opportunities perception that also depends on the entrepreneur's social networks. Finally

Koelling (2008) uses perception variables of to explain the degree of innovation entrepreneurs.

The results of the previous articles have been used in other line that examines variables related

to the decision to be an entrepreneur in specific groups like women entrepreneurs and ethnic

entrepreneurs. On women entrepreneurs, Rebernik and Tominc (2004) analyzed the differences

between female and male entrepreneurs in Croatia and Slovenia; Arenius and Kovalainen

(2006) explore women's preferences for self-employment in the Nordic Countries, Baughn et

al. (2006) evaluated the impact of specific norms supporting women entrepreneurs and Verheul

et al. (2006) find that entrepreneurial activity rates of men and women are influenced by the

same factors and in the same direction, but some of them have a differential impact on women.

Also, Minniti and Nardone (2007) suggest that perceptual variables explain the gender

differences regarding the decision to start a business and these differences are universal and are

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not conditioned by socioeconomic circumstances and context. Langowitz and Minniti (2007)

also show that the perception variables are determinants of entrepreneurial activity by gender,

but women have less favorable perceptions about themselves and the environment. Wagner

(2007) investigates which variables are related to gender differences in entrepreneurship,

emphasizing the fear of failure (which is higher in women) as the main reason for not starting a

new business. Thompson et al. (2009) explore the characteristics of self-employed women who

manage their home-based businesses. On the ethnic entrepreneurs, Koelling and Minniti (2006)

study the variables related to rates of entrepreneurship in black and white Americans, while

Levie (2007) assesses the effect of ethnic origin on the propensity to be entrepreneur in the

United Kingdom.

In the dimension related to economic conditions (29%) we found several authors who analyzed

the relationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth, one of the main objectives of

the GEM project. For example, van Stel et al. (2005) and Wong et al. (2005) show the

influence of entrepreneurship on economic growth, finding that this relationship depends more

on countries´ total per-capita income that national levels of innovation. Wennekers et al.

(2005), using an econometric model, determine a U-curve relationship between economic

development and the rate of start-ups. Valliere and Peterson (2009) present an extension of the

economic growth model developed by Wong et al. (2005), which reflects differences in the

economic effects of entrepreneurship by opportunity and necessity, both in emerging countries

as in developed ones. Acs and Amorós (2008) and Larroulet and Couyomdjian (2009) studied

the relationship between entrepreneurship, competitiveness and economic growth with

emphasis on Latin America. Frederick and Monsen (2009) explain why New Zealand only

exhibits a moderate level of economic development despite its high level of entrepreneurship

actitity. Acs and Varga (2005) identify the relationship between variations in entrepreneurial

activity of countries and the spatial structure of economies with the dissemination of

knowledge, and economic growth. Bosma and Schutjens (2007) analyze entrepreneurship in

different regions of Europe, Rocha and Sternberg (2005) explore the impact of clusters and

agglomerations on new business creation in the Germany regions. Similarly, Acs et al. (2007)

conducted a study comparing Ireland and Hungary, and found significant differences in terms

of entrepreneurial activity and level of development, while Hessels et al. (2008) analyzed

whether socioeconomic variables can explain the impact of entrepreneurial motivations.

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Hessels and van Stel (2009) analyze the relationship between new business and country

economic growth rate, taking into account the guidance international-oriented new ventures.

Other economic conditions studied are the size of the regional economy (Naude et al. 2008)

and FDI (De Clercq et al. 2008).

The authors that analyzed government policies and procedures (8%) have focused on the

relationship between regulation and entrepreneurial activity, studying aspects such as enty

regulation and labor regulation (van Stel et al. 2007), working time and legal practices

(Stephen et al. 2009), costs to start a business (Ho and Wong 2007) and the degree of economic

freedom (McMullen et al. 2008). Some of results of this type of research indicate that the

regulation affected differently the opportunity versus necessity-based entrepreneurship (Ho and

Wong 2007, van Stel et al. 2007, McMullen et al. 2008). Finally, Du and Vertinsky (2009)

focus on the relationship between ownership structure and legal system of countries.

Issues related to financial assistance (11%) have been studied by authors like Maula et al.

(2005) and Szerb et al. (2007), focusing on the determinants of informal investment and

demographic and perceptual variables (age, gender, education, entrepreneurial skills and

abilities, household income, employment status, perception of opportunities, fear of failure,

networks). Szerb et al. (2007) put focus on specific countries such as Croatia, Hungary and

Slovenia. Roper and Scott (2009) analyzed the impact of gender on the perceptions about

difficulties to accessing funding and the decision to start a new business. The results show that

women preceive more financial barriers than men and that in turn negatively affects the

perception of their intentions to be entrepreneurs. Amorós et al. (2008) analyzed the case of

formal and informal new venture finance in Chile based on business angels data and official

statistics of Chile. Finally Levie and Lerner (2009) compare between family and nonfamily

businesses in the UK regard their financial and human resources.

With regard to knowledge and entrepreneurial skills (3%), De Clercq and Arenius (2006)

related knowledge (as a result of formal education) and have knowledge of other entrepreneurs,

with the probability of starting a new business. Levie and Autio (2008) show the impact of

formal education and entrepreneurship training in entrepreneurial activity.

If we relate Gnyawali and Fogel (1994) work with the approach of North (1990 and 2005), our

analysis shows that informal factors (social conditions) and formal factors (policies and

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procedures of governance, financial assistance and non-financial, knowledge and

entrepreneurial skills) are the main grounded frameworks on the considered papers (69%),

while only 31% of the studies are based on the strictly economic approach. Thus, at least based

on these preliminary results, it appears that there is some preponderance in the analysis of

environmental factors, a fact that confirms the trend that is taking place in recent years in the

entrepreneurship literature.

With regard to non-empirical articles, three methodological articles were found (Acs et al.

2008b, Reynolds et al. 2005, Reynolds 2008) and four introductions to special issues (Acs et

al. 2008a; Acs and Amorós 2008a; Acs and Szerb 2007; Sternberg and Wennekers 2005). On

the methodological ones, Reynolds et al. (2005) presented and described the conceptual model

of GEM, its features and implementation from 1998 to 2003. Acs et al. (2008b) compare GEM

data with information about entrepreneurship from the World Bank (World Bank Group

Entrepreneurship SurveyWBGES). Finally, Reynolds (2008) analyzes the impact of changes in

the formulation of survey questions to the adult population either in the same language or in

different languages over time, and the rates of entrepreneurial activity in the United States. The

results show that the rates of new entrepreneurs remain constant between 1998 and 2006. As a

conclusion based on these works we can said that although the GEM´s methodology has been

working since the onset of the project including several improvements that have been made

year-by year and reported in the various Global Reports (see Bosma and Levie, 2010), there are

few academic papers on the methodological aspects of GEM model and GEM methodology.

Related to introductions to special issues dedicated to GEM, three correspond to the journal

Small Business Economics. The first focuses on the variation in entrepreneurial activity in

developed countries (Sternberg and Wennekers 2005). The second describes the advances on

the relationship between entrepreneurial activities, economic growth and public policies,

including developed and transition countries (Acs and Szerb 2007), while the third examines

the relationship between levels of economic development and entrepreneurship activity

including developed, transition and developing countries (Acs et al. 2008a). The other special

issue is for the Chilean Journals Estudios de Economía where Acs and Amorós (2008a) repeats

the development of entrepreneurship and link stages of economic development of countries

with different characteristics of entrepreneurial activities in developed and emerging countries.

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Both Acs et al. (2008a) and Acs and Amorós (2008a) emphasize that there is not much

progress as far as theoretical studies related to the GEM, probably due to the relative initial

phase of the “life cycle” of the GEM project (relative to the production of an academic

outputs). These arguments suggest that as GEM matures, there will be more publications in

high-impact journals, including literature reviews and articles related to the extensions of the

GEM model8

.

4.2 Quantitative analysis

As mentioned earlier in the methodology, there were no articles in major journals in the area of

“Business” according to the JCR impact factor. This might be considered an important

opportunity for research and also a future indicator of consolidation of GEM based research.

No doubt the journal that has a key role on the drive of GEM-based research is Small Business

Economics, with 51% of the articles, followed with 6% in International Small Business

Journal, 6% in Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 4% in Entrepreneurship Theory &

Practice, 4% Journal of Business Venturing and 3% European Planning Studies. 19% are split

between several journals. A particular case is Estudios de Economía that has 7% of the articles,

but it continued a special issue related to GEM topics and so future publications might not be

recurring. It is interesting to note that none article using the GEM dataset were found in the

Journal of Small Business Management (JSBM), even though it had an impact factor of 1.088

in 2009 which is considered high. In adition to that, JSBM focuses on small business

management and entrepreneurship.

The results indicate that the special issues published on Small Business Economics determine

the number of articles per year. However, considering that the largest number of articles (19) is

in 2008, this indicates a growing trend in using GEM data even without special issues.

Importantly, although the GEM Project began in 1999, the first articles on JCR were in 2004 in

8 For information about GEM model evolution see the GEM Global Report 2008 (Bosma et al. 2009).

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Small Business Economics, European Planning Studies and Drustvena Istrazivanja (see Table

2).

[Insert Table 2]

Depending on the level of analysis, based on the criteria stated by Sternberg and Wennekers

(2005), the articles were classified as micro if empirical work made use of individual data from

the GEM database, meso if he was referring to regions and macro when it came to data related

to whole countries. The results indicate that the work has focused on the analysis of

entrepreneurial activity from a micro perspective (45%) and macro (45%), while only 10% at

the regional level (see Table 3).

[Insert Table 3]

As expected by the level of analysis (micro) and the nature of the GEM data (binary responses,

1/0), the statistical techniques used in empirical works are logit models, probit, tobit with 40%,

you followed by multiple linear regression analysis associated with the macro level, with 35%

panel data (11%) and other techniques (13%) (see Table 4). There were no items that make use

of qualitative methods, an aspect which can also point to emerging future research.

[Insert Table 4]

Related to the unit of analysis, it is possible to identify several types of dependent variables.

Most of the articles (72%), both at micro and macro, make use of dependent variables related

to entrepreneurial activity. They were followed by studies that use dependent variables related

to economic issues, especially growth and economic development (10%) and the works that

attempt to explain the perception of opportunities and motivation to be entrepreneur (10%).

Finally, the remaining 8% used some financial aspect as the dependent variable.

As already mentioned, the GEM project has two main sources of data: the adult population

survey (APS) and the national expert survey (NES). It is interesting to note that 95% of the

articles uses the APS and a by consequence only 5% use the information provided by national

experts, supplemented by APS data. Thus, it is clear that the information provided by experts is

an untapped opportunity in future publications.

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Most of the articles have two authors (57%), 30% with three authors, 6% have four or more

authors and 7% have a single author. Likewise, the average number of authors per article is

2.42. These results highlight the importance of research teams working on the individual.

To approximate the activity of the national teams were classified items according to the

country for each of the authors9

[Insert Table 5]

. The three countries with more items is the United States

(17.4%) followed by Netherlands (15%), and the UK (13.8%). As seen in Table 5 there is a

clear predominance of authors from European universities and institutions that is consistent

with the greater number of participating countries of this continent. But considering that

between 2001 and 2009 have participated in the GEM Project 76 countries, we can say that the

number of countries with scientific publications is still very low. Note also that despite the high

participation of Latin American countries in GEM project (13 countries), there are only

publications from Chile. This fact can be regarded as a niche research for Latin American

scientific community.

To analyze the impact of the articles made use of the appointments according to the SSCI.

Results indicate that the most cited article (56 citations) is Reynolds et al. (2005) which

described the GEM´s methodology and the project development. This is followed with 35 cites

by Wennekers et al. (2005) which shows a U-shaped relationship between entrepreneurial

activity and level of economic development. Below are Arenius and Minniti (2005) and van

Stel et al. (2005) with 34 and 33 citations each. Table 6 presents the 15 most cited papers10

[Insert Table 6]

.

Furthermore, the authors that published more articles are Acs, Arenius with seven, Thurik and

van Stel with six articles and Autio, Minniti and Hessels with four aticles (see Table 7).

9 The country of the author refers to the country associated with the first affiliation institution in was developing his scientific activity at the time of publication and not the country of origin or residence. 10 With more years of publishing, the articles have more chances of being cited compared with others recently published. Therefore, it is often calculated an index of citations weighted by the number of years of publication. In this sense, this work has not considered this index because of the results do not vary with respect to those presented in Table 6 (since the horizon-period between 2005 and 2009 - is quite small).

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[Insert Table 7]

In order to complement the above results graphical representations of contingency tables were

developed (correspondence analysis11

As presented in the section related to the conceptual framework, this work is regarded to the

institutional approach. Nevertheless, the economic approach of new business creation is

considered, for purposes of comparison. In this sense, initially examined whether it was

possible to establish a statistically significant association between the different journals and

approaches (institutional / economic), however the significance level of χ

). These correspondences allow associations and

similarities evident in the publications that make use of the GEM database.

2

Subsequently we explored the relationship between the level of analysis and approaches

(institutional / economic). The results indicate that the χ

indicates that the

relationship is not significant. Nevertheless, it is important to note that the economic approach

is mainly used by Small Business Economics in 12 of the 64 empirical articles and an article on

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development. The remaining articles focus on the analysis of

environmental factors.

2

We also found a statistically significant association of 0.01 (χ 2 of 26.25 with 12 degrees of

freedom) between the statistical techniques used in the articles and approaches (institutional /

is 28.35 with 8 degrees of freedom,

significant at 0.00, and therefore concluded that there is a statistical association between the

level of analysis and focus. The graphical representation helps to visualize this relationship.

Figure 3 presents the scatter diagram biespacial between the level of analysis and approaches.

For each variable on the graph the distances between the categories points reflect the

relationship between the categories with similar ones represented close to each other. Figure 3

shows that informal institutional factors are associated with a micro level of analysis, while the

formal institutional factors and the economic approach are associated with a macro level of

analysis.

11 Correspondence analysis is a data analysis technique that allows the graphic representation of two or more qualitative variables, showing the interdependence between variables in a manner similar to principal component analysis (Hoffman and Franke 1986).

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economic), with a clearly relationship between the formal and informal institutional factors

with logistical techniques and the economic approach with the use of regression analysis (see

Figure 4). Finally the Figure 5 characterizes a tridimensional representation of the resrech

using the journals like cutting points. If well this “close-neighbor” confirms some clear

relations between some statistical techniques, type of approaches and level, possible future

lines of research will be analyze the macro vision of the institutional approach and, using the

GEM data for further micro view of the economic approach and try to “fill the empty spaces”.

[Insert Figure 3] [Insert Figure 4] [Insert Figure 5]

5. CONCLUSIONS

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project is currently the largest study of

entrepreneurial activity in the world started in 1999 with 10 countries and on the latest research

from 2009 involved 54 countries (Bosma and Levie 2010). It has also managed to consolidate a

team of more than 200 academics and researchers who produces the annual national and

regional reports, explores specific themes (women entrepreneurs, high-growth new ventures,

financing of new ventures, entrepreneurship education and training, social entrepreneurship,

etc.) and allows access to harmonized information on the entrepreneurial phenomenon, which

facilitates international comparisons. In addition, national reports provide an important basis

for the design of government policies related to enhance the entrepreneurship activity in their

respective countries. Furthermore, would highlight the academic and scientific spirit of the

project related with the increased number of publications based on GEM data. As we mention

this research is growing stronger and gradually achieving greater globally legitimacy in the

field of entrepreneurship.

In this paper we have analyzed articles that use GEM data, published in journals indexed by

SCCI. We note that there are not articles in major publications in the area of "Business",

showing a possible challenge to consolidate research on the GEM. In this sense there are

“apparent barriers” in this type of journals related to general entrepreneurship topics and

specific using GEM data. However, this trend is expected to be invested in the coming years

due to the strength and positioning that are taking the discipline of entrepreneurship in the

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academy, along with the availability of data provided by the project, a necessary condition for

develop a high-quality empirical work.

On the other hand, the total number of articles arising from GEM research is still small,

considering that the first data appeared in 1999. While the first publications are from 2004, our

analysis indicate that the number of articles per year tends to increase.

Special mention to the journal which stimulates GEM research: Small Business Economics,

characterized by a strong economic focus, consistent with the objective of the GEM. However,

in light of the conceptual framework used, the most investigated issue is related to factors

relating to the institutional approach either informal factors (44%), formal factors (22%) and

both approaches (5%) compared to 29% using the strictly economic approach. In this

connection, apart from the social conditions of the environment of entrepreneurship, several

authors discuss the government's policies and procedures, financial assistance and expertise

and entrepreneurial skills. Surely, this interest is due to the impact that increasingly,

governments have in the design of policies to promote entrepreneurship, which require

rigorous empirical evidence for proper planning and implementation.

As well there are some methodological work, which presents the GEM model and compared

their results with other measures of entrepreneurial activity, the theoretical studies are scarce

and limited to the description of the project, focusing on the introductions to special issues.

More specifically, the level of analysis considered, 45% items point to a micro perspective

from logistic regression techniques, compared with a macro perspective (45%) from linear

regressions. In this context, the regional analysis entrepreneurial activity could be considered

as a possible line of future research. In turn, the results show the limited use of information

from national experts, making it, together with the absence of qualitative work (case studies),

another challenge for researchers who are part of the GEM.

Referring to the analysis of authors and articles, as might be expected, the most cited article is

the one that introduces and describes the model of the GEM (Reynolds et al. 2005), followed

by the article by Wennekers et al. (2005). We believe that both articles have had a strong

influence on the development entrepreneurship discipline, one like a milestone of the project

18

the second like a starting point on the discussion related to the use of GEM data. For its part,

the authors are more articles are Acs, Arenius, van Stel, Thurik, Autio, Hessels and Minniti.

.

The average number of authors per article is 2.42, indicating the prevalence of research teams

working over on individual efforts. This aspect confirms the new dynamics of research that

encourage teamwork and complementarily of its members over individualism of the past.

However, the results indicate that the 76 countries that have participated in at least one year on

GEM Project, only 24 of them have an author with at least one article, but only five (USA, UK,

Netherlands, Spain and Germany) account for more than 50% of the publications. In this sense,

it would require that different national teams go beyond the phase of implementation of the

project and increasing the scientific exploitation of the results and hence publications on good

impact journals (Urbano et al. 2010). This is a “natural evolution” of the GEM project that

could evolve not only high quality reports but also the publication of high quality academic

articles. In addition, another consideration for future research, especially by the scientific

community in emerging countries, could be the analysis of the entrepreneurship dynamics in

their own cultural context and applying the institutional approach. For example there is a high

participation of Latin American countries in GEM but little involvement in publications.

As a final conclusion, we want to underline the significant progress that has been made in

GEM research, positioning the database as one of the most significant source of reference, used

in leading high-impact journals in the entrepreneurship area according JCR. Nevertheless,

academic progress in social sciences, beyond the field of entrepreneurship, via the

strengthening and promoting the use of GEM database, especially in other JCR high-impact

journals.

19

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25

Table 1. Approach and Topics of the Analyzed Articles

Approach and topic Articles

Author and year of publication No %

INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH

Informal Factors

Social conditions 27 44%

Aidis et al. 2008, Anokhin and Schulze 2009, Arenius and De Clercq 2005, Arenius and Ehrstedt 2008, Arenius and Kovalainen 2006, Arenius and Minniti 2005, Baughn et al. 2006, Bjørnskov and Foss 2008, De Clercq et al. 2010, Driga et al. 2009, Fernandez et al. 2009, Koellinger 2008, Koellinger and Minniti 2006, Koellinger et al. 2007, Kwon and Arenius 2010, Lafuente et al. 2007, Langowitz and Minniti 2007, Levie 2007, Minniti and Nardone 2007, Pinillos and Reyes 2010, Terjesen and Szerb 2008, Thompson et al. 2009, Tominc and Rebernik 2004, Tominc and Rebernik 2007, Uhlaner and Thurik 2007, Vaillant and Lafuente 2007, Wagner 2007.

INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH

Formal Factors

Government Policies and Procedures

5 8% Du and Vertinsky 2010, Ho and Wong 2007, McMullen et al. 2008, Stephen et al. 2009, van Stel et al. 2007

Financial and no financial assistance

7 11% Amoros et al. 2008, Jones-Evans and Thompson 2009, Levie and Lerner 2009, Maula et al. 2005, Naude et al. 2008, Roper and Scott 2009, Szerb et al. 2007.

Entrepreneurial and business skills

2 3% De Clercq and Arenius 2006, Levie and Autio 2008.

INSTITUTIONAL APPROACH

Formal and Informal Factors 3 5% Bowen and De Clercq 2008; Schott and Jensen 2008;

Verheul et al. 2006.

ECONOMIC APPROACH

Economic Conditions 18 29%

Acs and Amoros 2008b, Acs and Varga 2005, Acs et al. 2007, Bergmann and Sternberg 2007, Bosma and Schutjens 2007, De Clercq et al. 2008, Frederick and Monsen 2010, Hessels and van Stel 2010, Hessels et al. 2008, Larroulet and Couyoumdjian 2009, Peterson and Valliere 2008, Rocha 2004, Rocha and Sternberg 2005, Sternberg and Litzenberger 2004, Valliere and Peterson 2009, van Stel et al. 2005, Wennekers et al. 2005, Wong et al. 2005

Total 62 100%

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Table 2. Journals and Published Articles per Year

Journal 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Total

No %

Entrepreneurship & Regional Development 1 1 1 1 4 6%

Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice 1 1 1 3 4%

Estudios de Economía 5 5 7%

European Planning Studies 1 1 2 3%

International Small Business Journal 2 2 4 6%

Journal of Business Venturing 1 1 1 3 4%

Journal of Small Business Management - -

Small Business Economics 1 10 1 10 8 1 4 35 51%

Others 1 4 3 4 1 13 19%

Total No 3 10 5 16 19 10 6 69 100%

% 4% 14% 7% 23% 28% 14% 9% 100%

Table 3. Level of Analysis

Level of analysis Article

Author and year of publication No %

Micro (individuals) 28 45%

Acs et al. 2007, Aidis et al. 2008, Arenius and De Clercq 2005, Arenius and Kovalainen 2006, Arenius and Minniti 2005, Bergmann and Sternberg 2007, De Clercq and Arenius 2006, De Clercq et al. 2010, Driga et al. 2009, Du and Vertinsky 2010, Fernandez et al. 2009, Koellinger 2008, Koellinger and Minniti 2006, Koellinger et al. 2007, Kwon and Arenius 2010, Lafuente et al. 2007, Langowitz and Minniti 2007, Levie 2007, Levie and Lerner 2009, Maula et al. 2005, Minniti and Nardone 2007, Roper and Scott 2009, Szerb et al. 2007, Terjesen and Szerb 2008, Thompson et al. 2009, Tominc and Rebernik 2007, Vaillant and Lafuente 2007, Wagner 2007.

Meso (region) 6 10% Bosma and Schutjens 2007, Jones-Evans and Thompson 2009, Naude et al. 2008, Rocha 2004, Rocha and Sternberg 2005, Sternberg and Litzenberger 2004.

Macro (country) 28 45%

Acs and Amoros 2008b, Acs and Varga 2005, Amorós et al. 2008, Anokhin and Schulze 2009, Arenius and Ehrstedt 2008, Baughn et al. 2006, Bjørnskov and Foss 2008, Bowen and De Clercq 2008, De Clercq et al. 2008, Frederick and Monsen 2010, Hessels and van Stel 2010, Hessels et al. 2008, Ho and Wong 2007, Larroulet and Couyoumdjian 2009, Levie and Autio 2008, McMullen et al. 2008, Peterson and Valliere 2008, Pinillos and Reyes 2010, Schott and Jensen 2008, Stephen et al. 2009, Tominc and Rebernik 2004, Uhlaner and Thurik 2007, Valliere and Peterson 2009, van Stel et al. 2005, van Stel et al. 2007, Verheul et al. 2006, Wennekers et al. 2005, Wong et al. 2005

Total 62 100

27

Table 4. Main Statistical Technique used on the Analyzed Articles

Technique Articles

Author and year of publication No %

Regresión lineal múltilple 22 35%

Anokhin and Schulze 2009, Baughn et al. 2006, Bjørnskov and Foss 2008, De Clercq et al. 2008, Frederick and Monsen 2010, Hessels and van Stel 2010, Hessels et al. 2008, Ho and Wong 2007, Levie and Autio 2008, McMullen et al. 2008, Peterson and Valliere 2008, Pinillos and Reyes 2010, Schott and Jensen 2008, Sternberg and Litzenberger 2004, Terjesen and Szerb 2008, Uhlaner and Thurik 2007, Valliere and Peterson 2009, van Stel et al. 2005, van Stel et al. 2007, Verheul et al. 2006, Wennekers et al. 2005, Wong et al. 2005

Logit, probit, tobit model 25 40%

Aidis et al. 2008, Arenius and De Clercq 2005, Arenius and Kovalainen 2006, Arenius and Minniti 2005, Bergmann and Sternberg 2007, Bowen and De Clercq 2008, De Clercq and Arenius 2006, De Clercq et al. 2010, Driga et al. 2009, Fernandez et al. 2009, Koellinger 2008, Koellinger and Minniti 2006, Koellinger et al. 2007, Kwon and Arenius 2010, Lafuente et al. 2007, Langowitz and Minniti 2007, Levie 2007, Levie and Lerner 2009, Maula et al. 2005, Naude et al. 2008, Roper and Scott 2009, Szerb et al. 2007, Thompson et al. 2009, Vaillant and Lafuente 2007, Wagner 2007.

Panel data 7 11% Acs and Amoros 2008b, Acs and Varga 2005, Acs et al. 2008b, Du and Vertinsky 2010, Rocha 2004, Rocha and Sternberg 2005, Stephen et al. 2009.

Others 8 13%

Acs et al. 2007, Amorós et al. 2008, Arenius and Ehrstedt 2008, Jones-Evans and Thompson 2009, Larroulet and Couyoumdjian 2009, Minniti and Nardone 2007, Tominc and Rebernik 2004, Tominc and Rebernik 2007.

Total 62 100

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Table 5. Published Articles by Authors´ Country of Academic Affiliation.

Country Author1 Author2 Author3 Author4 or more

TOTAL/ Country %

USA 16 9 3 1 29 17.4% the Netherlands 9 10 6 25 15.0% United Kingdom 10 6 2 5 23 13.8% Spain 4 5 4 13 7.8% Germany 6 5 1 12 7.2% Canada 5 4 9 5.4% Switzerland 4 2 2 8 4.8% Chile 2 4 1 7 4.2% Finland 3 3 1 7 4.2% Hungary 1 4 2 7 4.2% Denmark 2 2 4 2.4% Singapur 2 2 4 2.4% Slovenia 2 2 4 2.4% Australia 1 2 3 1.8% Romania 1 1 2 1.2% South Africa 1 1 2 1.2% Belgium 1 1 0.6% China 1 1 0.6% Hong Kong 1 1 0.6% Ireland 1 1 0.6% Israel 1 1 0.6% Italy 1 1 0.6% Kuwait 1 1 0.6% New Zealand 1 1 0.6% Total 69 64 25 9 167 100%

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Table 6. Most Cited Articles

No Article Citations in SSCI*

No %

1 Reynolds et al. 2005 56 12%

2 Wennekers et al. 2005 35 8%

3 Arenius and Minniti 2005 34 8%

4 van Stel et al. 2005 33 7%

5 Arenius and De Clercq 2005 25 6%

6 Wong et al. 2005 24 5%

7 Sternberg and Wennekers 2005 20 4%

8 Acs and Varga 2005 19 4%

9 Sternberg and Litzenberger 2004 17 4%

10 Koellinger et al. 2007 15 3%

11 Rocha and Sternberg 2005 14 3%

12 Rocha 2004 14 3%

13 van Stel et al. 2007 12 3%

14 Bowen and De Clercq 2008 12 3%

15 Langowitz and Minniti 2007 10 2%

* SSCI: Social Sciences Citation Index

Table 7. Main authors by number of published articles

No Autores Artículos No Autores Artículos

1 Acs, Zoltan 7 10 Amorós, José Ernesto 3

2 Arenius, Pia 7 11 De Clercq, Dirk 3

3 Thurik, Roy 6 12 Koellinger, Philipp 3

4 van Stel, André 6 13 Lafuente, Esteban 3

5 Autio, Erkko 4 14 Levie, Jonathan 3

6 Hessels, Jolanda 4 15 Reynolds, Paul 3

7 Minniti, Maria 4 16 Terjesen, Siri 3

8 Sternberg, Rolf 4 17 Vaillant, Yancy 3

9 Szerb, Laszlo 4

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Figure 1. Environmental factors for entrepreneurship and institutional approach

INFORMAL FACTORS

ENTREPRENEURIALACTIVITY

FORMALFACTORS

- Government policies & procedures - Entrepreneurial & Business skills- Financial assistance- Non-financial assistance

- Social factors

INSTITUTIONALAPPROACH

ECONOMIC APPROACH - Economic factors

Source: Self-elaboration

Figure 2. Environmental factors for entrepreneurship and the articles based on the GEM

Opportunity

Entrepreneurial & business

skills

ABILITY TO ENTERPRISE

PROPENSITY TO ENTERPRISE

Socio-economicfactors

LIKELIHOOD TO ENTERPRISE

Financial &Non-financial

assistance

ENTREPRENEURIAL ACTIVITY

Government policies & procedures

Social factors (44%)

Economic factors

(29%)

(8%)

(11%)

(3%)

Source: Adapted from Gnyawali and Fogel (1994)

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Figure 3. Approach versus level of analysis

Figure 4. Approach versus Statistical Technique

32

Figure 5. Tridimensional Representation of Approach, Statistical Technique and Level of Analysis.