From poverty to prosperity: innovation as a key factor in new venture survival

This article advances our understanding of the relationship between poverty and entrepreneurship by studying the survival of new ventures founded by entrepreneurs in poverty contexts. Specifically, it underscores the crucial role of innovation as a key determinant of venture survival. Using a logit analysis on a dataset of 14,280 new ventures from France, our findings reveal that firms created by entrepreneurs in poverty contexts are less likely to survive than those established by other entrepreneurs. However, the survival probability increases significantly only for entrepreneurs in poverty contexts who found their businesses based on an innovation. Our study contributes to the entrepreneurship literature by offering new insights that challenge the prevailing view, which associates innovation and venture survival exclusively with mainstream entrepreneurs.