Do Business Demographics Matter to Nascent Venture Performance? A Longitudinal Evidence from the Kauffman Firm Survey.

Authors

  • Augustine Yao Dzathor Grambling State University (College of Business)

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18533/ijbsr.v3i8.239

Keywords:

Business demographics, nascent venture performance, Kauffman Firm Survey, trait theory, resource-based view

Abstract

Scant literature exists on impact of organizational demographics on nascent venture performance. Business demographics were looked at through the lenses of organizational traits, resource-based view and population ecology theories. The combined as well as the  individual longitudinal impact of five business demographics (nature of product, primary location of business, number of active owner-operators, business legal status and technological orientation) on nascent venture performance was examined. 754 out of the 863 businesses that survived cleaning of the first four years of the Kauffman Firm Survey (KFS) dataset were retained in the analysis sample to maintain the original sample stratification of the data set. Results of multiple regression revealed that business demographics globally had significant effect on nascent venture performance in year-2 and year-4 of first four years of existence of the cohort of businesses studied. Three of the individual business demographics indicators, namely: nature of product, business legal status and technological orientation also had significant but inconsistent effects on nascent venture performance across the four years under study. The study threw light on the longitudinal effects of business demographics on nascent venture performance and drew attention to the fact that business demographics can theoretically be envisioned through the lenses of trait theory, resource based view and population ecology theory.

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2013-08-31

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