New business creation and economic development: a comparative analysis of the role of brokers in linking entrepreneurs to regional innovation systems

新企业创造与经济发展：经纪人在将企业家与区域创新系统联系起来方面的作用的比较分析

• 批准号: ES/K002538/1
• 负责人: Benito Giordano
• 金额: $ 6.41万
• 依托单位: University of Liverpool
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2012
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2012 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FK002538%2F1
• 关键词: New; business; creation; economic; development

It is widely recognised that entrepreneurship contributes to economic growth and new employment opportunities. Since David Birch's work in the late 1970s it has been accepted that the majority of new jobs are generated by small firms. Therefore, it is important to understand the impact of public sector funding and policy initiatives on the creation of new businesses and the growth of existing small firms. This research will examine this issue from both 'supply' and 'demand' perspectives. First, the intention is to focus on the nature of regional policy initiatives which provide support and brokerage services to encourage entrepreneurship and promote growth in established small firms. Second, the research will explore the challenges and difficulties that face entrepreneurs (especially graduates) and owner-managers in accessing resources from regional policy and funding initiatives. Hence, the research will be concerned to evaluate the extent to which regional policy is effective in promoting entrepreneurship and small firm growth. The work will have a comparative focus by comparing a number of city-regions in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. First, in the UK, the focus will be on Greater Merseyside in the Northwest which has achieved significant levels of regeneration since Liverpool became the European City Culture in 2008. There are, however, still areas of very high deprivation and the region is also notable for having low levels of business start-ups despite being the recipient of considerable amounts of European funding over the last 15 years. Second, the Leeds city-region in Yorkshire has had relatively higher levels of business start ups in a range of sectors although it has suffered during the recession along with other cities in northern England. On the continent, interviews will be carried out with EU officials and other relevant stakeholders in Brussels to analyse the ways in which European small firm and entrepreneurship policy is developed. In addition, a range of other case study regions will be studied; these include Wallonia, Belgium, which is a region that has undergone significant deindustrialisation since the 1960s but has received considerable European and domestic funding to try to encourage small firm entrepreneurship and innovation. Lombardy, northern Italy, on the other hand, is a dynamic region which performs consistently well on European innovation rankings even though in recent years the Italian economy has been in recession. This work will adopt an interdisciplinary approach by combining ideas from human geography, regional development and theories associated with entrepreneurship and the dynamics of SMEs. In carrying out the research it is intended to adopt a 'mixed methods' approach including critical discourse analysis of academic and policy documents; the analysis of secondary data (including ONS and Eurostat) and interviews with key actors within each of the city-regions. Those actors will include leading policy-makers as well as entrepreneurs and small firm owner-managers. In summary, this research will open-up the 'black-box' of regional development by adopting a comparative approach and by the collection of both quantitative and qualitative data. We are particularly interested to evaluate the role of those who act as 'brokers' between policy-makers and the small business communities. Existing studies of regional development are generally based on the analysis of econometric data which provide information of the outcomes but have little to say about the processes associated with policy interventions and particularly the ways in which entrepreneurs engage with and benefit (or not) from public sector support. Also, the comparative nature of the research means that the findings will be of interest to academics and policy makers alike.

人们普遍认为，创业有助于经济增长和创造新的就业机会。自从大卫伯奇在20世纪70年代后期的工作以来，人们已经接受了大多数新工作是由小公司创造的。因此，必须了解公共部门的供资和政策举措对创建新企业和现有小企业增长的影响。本研究将从“供给”和“需求”两个角度来探讨这一问题。首先，目的是侧重于区域政策倡议的性质，这些倡议提供支助和中介服务，以鼓励创业精神，促进已建立的小公司的增长。第二，研究将探讨企业家（特别是毕业生）和业主经理在从区域政策和筹资举措中获得资源时面临的挑战和困难。因此，本研究将关注评估区域政策在促进创业和小企业增长方面的有效程度。这项工作将通过比较英国和欧洲其他地方的一些城市地区来进行比较。首先，在英国，重点将放在西北部的大默西塞德郡，自2008年利物浦成为欧洲城市文化以来，该地区已经实现了显着的再生水平。然而，仍然有一些地区贫困程度很高，该地区的创业水平也很低，尽管在过去15年里接受了大量的欧洲资金。其次，约克郡的利兹城市地区在一系列行业中的创业水平相对较高，尽管它在经济衰退期间与北方的其他城市一起受到沿着。在欧洲大陆，将在布鲁塞尔与欧盟官员和其他相关利益攸关方进行访谈，以分析欧洲小公司和创业政策的制定方式。此外，还将研究一系列其他案例研究地区，其中包括比利时瓦隆，该地区自20世纪60年代以来经历了显著的去工业化，但已获得大量欧洲和国内资金，以鼓励小公司创业和创新。另一方面，意大利北方伦巴第是一个充满活力的地区，尽管近年来意大利经济陷入衰退，但在欧洲创新排名中一直表现良好。这项工作将采用跨学科的方法，将人文地理学、区域发展和与创业和中小企业动态有关的理论的思想结合起来。在进行研究时，打算采用“混合方法”的方法，包括对学术和政策文件进行批判性话语分析;分析二手数据（包括国家统计局和欧盟统计局），并与每个城市地区的主要行为者进行访谈。这些行动者将包括主要的决策者以及企业家和小公司的业主-管理者。总之，本研究将采用比较的方法，通过收集定量和定性的数据，打开区域发展的“黑匣子”。我们特别感兴趣的是评估那些作为政策制定者和小企业界之间的“经纪人”的作用。现有的区域发展研究一般都是基于对计量经济学数据的分析，这些数据提供了有关结果的信息，但很少涉及与政策干预有关的进程，特别是企业家参与公共部门支助并从中受益（或不从中受益）的方式。此外，研究的比较性质意味着研究结果将引起学术界和政策制定者的兴趣。