IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/stratm/v7y1986i4p361-376.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of new firms: Births, deaths and job generation

Author

Listed:
  • Sue Birley

Abstract

The contribution of both new and small firms towards economic recovery is now universally accepted as significant. What is still unclear, however, is the extent of that contribution, particularly with regard to the new firm. Despite this, governments at all levels, federal, state and county, have designed strategies for fostering entrepreneurial activity. With little specific knowledge of the target population, these strategies have been either general in nature or based on economic theory, and, as a consequence, little is known about whether they have been effective in affecting the natural process, and in what geographic locations. This research studied the whole population of new firms started in St. Joseph County, Indiana, between 1977 and 1982. It was concerned with both birth and death patterns, and the net jobs generated. The results confirmed the general findings of others that new firms play a significant role in job generation. Over the period, the number of jobs created by a new firm was a consistent 2.9 per cent of the total number of jobs in the industrial sectors studied. Moreover, this exceeded the 1.75 per cent of jobs lost through firms withdrawing from the labour market. Within this, activity in both firms and jobs was found to be centred in only a few SIC categories, and the results of this research suggest that simple tests of volatility and gain will help to focus strategic plans for aid on those sectors where the natural process is already generating the most new jobs.

Suggested Citation

  • Sue Birley, 1986. "The role of new firms: Births, deaths and job generation," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(4), pages 361-376, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:stratm:v:7:y:1986:i:4:p:361-376
    DOI: 10.1002/smj.4250070406
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/smj.4250070406
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/smj.4250070406?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sarah Lasso & Emerson Mainardes & Fabio Motoki, 2019. "Why do entrepreneurs open tech startups? A comparative study between Brazilian and foreign enterprises," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 233-255, March.
    2. Lee, Seung-Hyun & Yamakawa, Yasuhiro & Peng, Mike W. & Barney, Jay B., 2011. "How do bankruptcy laws affect entrepreneurship development around the world?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 505-520, September.
    3. Stephan F. Gohmann & Bradley K. Hobbs & Myra McCrickard, 2008. "Economic Freedom and Service Industry Growth in the United States," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 32(5), pages 855-874, September.
    4. Cisneros, Luis & Deschamps, Bérangère & Chirita, Gabriel M. & Geindre, Sébastien, 2022. "Successful family firm succession: Transferring external social capital to a shared-leadership team of siblings," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 13(3).
    5. Christopher Boudreaux, 2019. "When does privatization spur entrepreneurial performance? The moderating effect of institutional quality in an emerging market," Papers 1901.03356, arXiv.org.
    6. Watkins, Dennis A. & Allen, Thomas G., 0. "Rural Revitalization: Role Of And Policies For Entrepreneurship," Increasing Understanding of Public Problems and Policies, Farm Foundation.
    7. R. Duane Ireland & Philip M. Van Auken, 1987. "Entrepreneurship and Small Business Research: An Historical Typology and Directions for Future Research," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 11(4), pages 9-20, April.
    8. Lichtenstein, Benyamin B. & Carter, Nancy M. & Dooley, Kevin J. & Gartner, William B., 2007. "Complexity dynamics of nascent entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 236-261, March.
    9. James R. Lumpkin & R. Duane Ireland, 1988. "Screening Practices of New Business Incubators: The Evaluation of Critical Success Factors," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 12(4), pages 59-81, April.
    10. Md Arifuzzaman, 2020. "Environmental and Individual Determinants of Entrepreneurial Growth," International Journal of Science and Business, IJSAB International, vol. 4(8), pages 113-126.
    11. Murphy, Gregory B., 2002. "The effects of organizational sampling frame selection," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 237-252, May.
    12. Boudreaux, Christopher, 2019. "Do private enterprises outperform state enterprises in an emerging market? The importance of institutional context in entrepreneurship," MPRA Paper 93039, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Cole, Ismail M., 2000. "Spatial Differences in Manufacturing Firm Births and Deaths and Local Economic Conditions: Evidence from Pennsylvania," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 30(2), pages 215-236, Fall.
    14. Jennifer L. Woolley & Renee M. Rottner, 2008. "Innovation Policy and Nanotechnology Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 32(5), pages 791-811, September.
    15. Rafik Abdesselam & Malia Kedjar & Patricia Renou-Maissant, 2024. "What are the drivers of eco-innovation? Empirical evidence from French start-ups," Post-Print hal-04304153, HAL.
    16. Vincenzo Maggioni & Mario Sorrentino & Mary Williams, 1999. "Mixed Consequences of Government Aid for New Venture Creation: Evidence from Italy," Journal of Management & Governance, Springer;Accademia Italiana di Economia Aziendale (AIDEA), vol. 3(3), pages 287-305, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:stratm:v:7:y:1986:i:4:p:361-376. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/0143-2095 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.