Individual-Level Resources and New Business Activity: The Contingent Role of Institutional Context

This study considers the relationship between people's access to resources and their likelihood to start a new business, and particularly how this relationship might be moderated by formal and informal institutions. Individual-level resources might be more potent for new business creation in countries with financial and educational systems that are more oriented toward entrepreneurship, higher levels of trust, and cultures that are less hierarchical and conservative. The hypotheses are tested by undertaking random-effects multilevel analyses of a multi-source data set that spans a 5-year time period (20032007). The study's findings offer important implications for research and practice.