Education, Training and Networking for Entrepreneurship in ...

The response to each question can be coded on
a scale from 1 to 3 for increasing innovativeness
(the first question is coded 1 for ”none”, 2
for ”some” and 3 for ”all”; the second question
is coded 1 for ”many”, 2 for ”few” and 3 for ”no
others”; and the third question is coded 1 for
”longer than five years”, 2 for ”between one to
five years” and 3 for ”less than a year”). The
responses to the three questions are correlated
positively, so innovativeness on one question
tends to go hand in hand with innovativeness
on another question. Therefore a reasonably
good overall measure of an entrepreneur’s innovativeness
is the average of the three responses
given by the entrepreneur. This measure
of innovativeness ranges from 1 to 3. Entrepreneurs
with an average of at least 2 shall be
called innovative, and entrepreneurs with an
average below 2 are called less innovative.
Here we first examine the relationship between
innovativeness and education, then examine
the relationship between innovativeness and
training, then the relationship between innovativeness
and competency, and then the relationship
between innovativeness and networking.
Such a relationship is first examined while ignoring
other conditions that may impact the relationship.
Going beyond this limitation in a
more elaborate analysis, we then examine how
innovativeness is related to all four conditions
simultaneously, and estimate the effect of each
condition, while holding the other conditions
constant.
Innovativeness and education
Innovativeness is related to education, Table
10.1. Entrepreneurs with long education are
most innovative, on average, while entrepreneurs
with vocational training are least innovative,
which is not surprising (differences among
educational groups are statistically significant,
the probability-value is 0.001 in the chi-square
test for the cross-tabulation, and the p-value is
0.0001 in the anova F-test comparing the mean
values of innovativeness, listed at the bottom of
the table).
Innovativeness and training
Is innovativeness related to training? We would
expect that training enhances innovativeness.
The evidence, however, does not demonstrate
this, Table 10.2. Our sample is small (because
training was measured only in 2008), so small
that it can hardly reveal any difference between
the trained and the untrained entrepreneurs.
Table 10.2
Innovativeness of entrepreneurs, by their
training
Denmark 2008
Trained Untrained
Innovative 36 % 37 %
Less innovative 64 % 63 %
Sum 100 % 100 %
Mean innovativeness 1,6 1,5
N entrepreneurs 45 121
Table 10.1
Innovativeness of entrepreneurs, by their education
Denmark 2003-08
Vocational Short higher Medium higher Long higher Neither
education education education education vocational
nor higher
education
Innovative 32 % 37 % 41 % 43 % 39 %
Less innovative 68 % 63 % 59 % 57 % 61 %
Sum 100 % 100 % 100 % 100 % 100%
Mean innovativeness 1.5 1.6 1.7 1.7 1.6
N entrepreneurs 632 171 447 543 292
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