High-Growth Aspiration Entrepreneurship: A Multi-Country Analysis Using GEM Data

High-growth aspiration entrepreneurship has attracted significant attention in the literature (Hermans et al., 2015; Lim et al., 2015). This paper examines the impact of individual characteristics, institutional factors and country-level control variables on high-growth aspiration entrepreneurship. The focus is on the employment growth aspirations of newly established ventures in both developed and developing economies. The individual characteristics data are obtained from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), covering 62 countries (divided into innovation-driven and efficiency-driven economies) over a nine-year period (2005-2013). Multilevel estimation technique, which accounts for the hierarchical nature of the data, is used to examine employment growth aspirations. As an alternative method, a dichotomous choice model (probit) is also applied to estimate factors influencing firms’ high job growth aspirations. The results indicate that most of the individual characteristics have a positive and significant effect on employment growth aspiration. Specifically, entrepreneur’s education, household income, social networks, perceived capabilities and opportunities are significant determinants of growth aspirations. The paper also finds that employment growth aspiration is gender sensitive, with male entrepreneurs being more likely to have high growth aspiration. Small-size governments, ease of doing business and sound ‘rule of law’ are found to influence growth aspirations of young firms positively, while higher levels of corruption have a negative impact on growth aspirations. Entrepreneurial growth aspirations are also found to benefit from specifically designed government programmes. Finally, the study suggests that the effect of both individual characteristics and the institutional settings varies according to the stage of a country’s economic development and that the individual characteristics moderate the impact of institutional quality