The role of information availability: A longitudinal analysis of technology entrepreneurship

• Published in: Technological forecasting & social change Vol. 170; p. 120910
• Main Authors: Yeganegi, Sepideh, Laplume, André O., Dass, Parshotam
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Elsevier Inc 01.09.2021; Elsevier B.V; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: Analysis; Availability; Business schools; Businesspeople; Cross-country analysis; Educational attainment; Educational research; Entrepreneurs; Entrepreneurship; Expenditures; Foreign investment; Foreign investments; GDP; Gross Domestic Product; Incentives; Information availability; Information management; Information technology; Intellectual property; Intellectual property law; Intellectual property rights; Property rights; R&D; Research & development; Research & development expenditures; Search process; Technology assessment; Technology entrepreneurship; Information availability; Intellectual property rights; Technology entrepreneurship; Cross-country analysis
• ISSN: 0040-1625; 1873-5509
• DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2021.120910

•Technology entrepreneurship depends upon access to the latest information.•Information availability boosts opportunity recognition and recombination.•Information availability is associated with higher rates of technology entrepreneurship.•Intellectual property rights strengthen the relationship between information availability and technology entrepreneurship. The rapid spread of digital technologies has fostered an assumption that all entrepreneurs have equal and easy access to knowledge stocks irrespective of their context. We challenge this assumption by examining the contextual influence of information availability and argue that technology entrepreneurship involves a search process reliant on timely access to ideational components. We hypothesize that in contexts where information is more readily available, potential technology entrepreneurs are at an advantage, resulting in higher rates of technology entrepreneurship. Even after controlling for other important factors, such as polity, educational attainment, research and development spending, foreign direct investment, and gross domestic product growth, our results show a positive relationship between information availability and the proportion of entrepreneurs who pursue technology-based ventures instead of low-tech ventures. We further find that the effect of information availability on technology entrepreneurship increases in the presence of stronger intellectual property rights, suggesting that information availability enhances technology entrepreneurship more readily in contexts with incentives for innovation disclosure.