Entrepreneurship is a booming topic. More and more entrepreneurs set out to launch their own startups to eventually turn them into unicorns one day. But what makes people choose a risky, unsafe alternative over a safe, waged employment? I digged into personal motives, social and cultural aspects to fully understand the drivers of entrepreneurship. To get empirical evidence, a study among startup founders from TU Munich was conducted.
Chapter 1 will therefore describe the nature of HTSOs, differentiate their nature from non-technology start-ups and further highlight their importance in securing economic progress. After getting an understanding of the topic’s importance to the business community and why exactly such specific foundations are subject of this thesis, the focus in Chapter 2 shifts from an institutional to a personal level.
Chapter 2 will investigate different theories which explain how an individual’s characteristics and personality are shaped throughout the course of life. This is important to get an understanding of the core subject of this thesis, the individuals who have come-up with promising innovations and founded their own spin-off. Research on start-ups and their founders is relatively new compared to traditional fields of studies, but has already contributed remarkable insights into founder characteristics, personality traits of founders and success factors of start-ups in general.
Chapter 3 is dedicated to the empirical section of this thesis, describing the methodology of the survey and conducting a descriptive analysis of the survey findings. In a second step, the results are discussed and elaborated on in more detail.
Table of Contents
List of figures
List of tables
List of abbreviations
1 INTRODUCTION
2 HIGH-TECH SPIN-OFFS
2.1 Classification of High-Tech Spin-Offs
2.1.1 Definition of High-Tech
2.1.2 Definition of High-Tech Spin-Offs
2.2 Parent Organization’s Relevance
2.2.1 Setting an Impetus for Entrepreneurship
2.2.2 Power of Reputation
2.3 From Storehouse to Factory of Knowledge
3 FOUNDER CHARACTERISTICS
3.1 Trait Theory
3.1.1 Need for Achievement
3.1.2 Locus-of-Control
3.1.3 Effectuation
3.1.4 Tolerance of Ambiguity
3.2 Socio Cultural Theory
3.2.1 Social Capital
3.2.2 Cultural Capital
3.3 Human Capital
3.4 Entrepreneurial Human Capital
4 EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
4.1 Methodology
4.2 Descriptive Analysis
4.2.1 Demographic Characteristics
4.2.2 Venture Characteristics
4.2.3 Entrepreneurial Characteristics
4.2.4 The average High-Tech Spin-Off Founder
4.3 Discussion
4.3.1 Impact of Self-Efficacy on Perceived Success
4.3.2 Impact of Previous Founding Experience on Perceived Success
4.3.3 Impact of Human Capital on Perceived Success
5 CONCLUSION
References
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