COUNTRY ENTREPRENEURIAL PROFILES: ASSESSING THE INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEVELS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP ACROSS COUNTRIES

Abstract

Up to now, the focus in comparative international entrepreneurship has been on individual-level indicators of entrepreneurial activity, such as nascent entrepreneurship and small business ownership. However, measuring only the individual component of entrepreneurship appears conceptually incomplete, as it leaves out other important ones, the most obvious being the organizational component. Countries may have different entrepreneurship profiles, depending on the allocation of entrepreneurial endeavors across various levels and dimensions. To augment the content validity of current measurements, this paper aims to integrate and compare individual and organizational indicators of entrepreneurial activity in 22 member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The inclusion of corporate entrepreneurship indicators, derived from the entrepreneurial orientation concept, modified substantially the country rankings based only on small business ownership rates. A significant negative relationship was found between individual and corporate indicators.