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Contribution Details

Type Journal Article
Scope Discipline-based scholarship
Title The disposition to become an entrepreneur and the jacks-of-all-trades in social and human capital
Organization Unit
Authors
  • Uschi Backes-Gellner
  • Petra Moog
Item Subtype Original Work
Refereed Yes
Status Published in final form
Language
  • English
Journal Title Journal of Socio-Economics
Publisher Elsevier
Geographical Reach international
ISSN 1053-5357
Volume 47
Page Range 55 - 72
Date 2013
Abstract Text This paper studies how an individual's composition of human and social capital affects his or her disposition to become an entrepreneur. Our theoretical analysis is an extension of Lazear's (2005) jack-of-all-trades theory in combination with the idea of bricolage of experiences and their effectuation in the disposition to become an entrepreneur. Our primary conclusion is that it is not individuals with a higher level of human or social capital but rather individuals with a more balanced and combined portfolio of human capital, social capital and experiences that are more disposed than others to become entrepreneurs. We use survey data from a sample of more than 2000 German students to test this hypothesis and find that the jacks-of-all-trades, i.e., individuals who are more balancing and combining different skills rather than specializing in a few, are more likely to become entrepreneurs. On the other hand, the masters-of-one, i.e., the specialists, are better off being employees and rightly prefer to do so.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1016/j.socec.2013.08.008
Other Identification Number merlin-id:8597
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