QUT Launches Nationwide Entrepreneurs Study
30 April 2007 at 11:55 am
What makes Australian entrepreneurs tick? It’s a question that Queensland University of Technology business researchers intend to answer with a four-year study that will map the progress of 800 emerging businesses across Australia.
The $455,000 Australian Research Council-funded study is the largest study of business start-ups and entrepreneurship ever undertaken in Australia and will be led by QUT’s Professor Per Davidsson of the Brisbane Graduate School of Business.
Professor Davidsson said the study, named the Comprehensive Australian Study of Entrepreneurial Emergence (CAUSEE), was unusual in that it would monitor the entrepreneurial process in real time.
Professor Davidsson says previous studies have mostly studied start-ups that have actually become operational firms. This study will avoid the bias of hindsight, memory decay and rationalisation after the fact.
The research will look at two types of start-ups: those that have already been identified as promising and those that are starting out from scratch.
A random sample of business start-ups will be chosen through a screening interview and will be compared with a group of "high potential" start-ups identified by research institutions and business incubators.
Professor Davidsson says towards the end of the four years it should be possible to assess which ventures become growing and/or highly profitable firms rather than merely surviving, subsistence-type businesses.
He said the research would look at solo versus team founders and experienced versus novice founders and the advantages, if any, of locating a business start-up within a cluster of like business.
He says a comparison with US and other Australian states, the effects of market structure, technology and proximity to critical resources will be investigated.
This will include investigating the impact of patent protection, contact networks and the importance of complementary assets in the Australian business environment.
He says the CAUSEE project was expected to yield findings relevant to policy-makers and business founders in terms of intervention or assistance points for budding businesses.
Demonstrating support and commitment to industry research, entrepreneurship and business innovation, BDO Kendalls’ and the National Australia Bank have partnered to sponsor the CAUSEE project.
Professor Davidsson says the support of these two major companies puts the research team a step closer to realising the full potential of the CAUSEE project.
For more information email the research team on causee@qut.edu.au or call 07 3138 7547
