Collaborative Research: Role of Intellectual Capital in Predicting Outcomes of Entrepreneurial Firms

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Entrepreneurial firms play an important role in employment generation, economic recovery, and bringing innovation to the marketplace. However, the discussion on the role played by the intellectual capital of the workforce employed by entrepreneurial firms has been limited. Is it the case that the entrepreneurs that succeed are different in their stock of intellectual capital and these differences are manifested and rewarded by the market very early on, or is it that their early advantages and location choices enable them to navigate market imperfections and shocks that hinder less lucky establishments? In this project, we study how the skill-level of entrepreneurial firms in the United States has changed over the past decade particularly in response to competitive shocks. The proposed project can inform what types of entrepreneurs succeed, the specific role played by founders' human capital, and how shocks such as increased competition and technological changes affect entrepreneurial firm outcomes. To understand the drivers of the stock of intellectual capital in entrepreneurial firms, we will assemble a longitudinal database on the skill profiles of entrepreneurial firms. The data will be sourced from establishment level micro-data from a panel of large-scale surveys conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the skills of employees of start-ups and incumbent firms in over 800 occupations in U.S. over 2005-2013. Using over 10 million establishment-occupation level observations, we will address three primary research questions. First, we will identify the change in the composition of skills of entrants over this period, and factors that are associated with these changes. Second, we will identify environmental shocks and their effects on the intellectual capital and competitiveness of entrepreneurial firms. Finally, we will examine the long-term consequences of founding intellectual capital on firms' subsequent intellectual capital and other outcomes.