Founders’ education, social capital, and their interplay in the intensity of new-venture internationalization

ABSTRACT

While research acknowledges the benefits of founders’ education and social capital for the international intensity of new ventures, the interplay between the two is less understood. Are the effects of education and social capital simply additive or do they create synergies to boost international performance in new ventures? By integrating the theories of human capital, absorptive capacity, and social-network perspectives, I argue that education amplifies the effect of formal social capital but diminishes the effect of informal social capital in affecting new ventures’ international intensity. GEM data on newly founded new ventures from 61 countries support the interaction hypotheses. Implications for entrepreneurship theory and practice are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• International entrepreneurship
• education
• social capital
• international intensity

Notes

¹ More details on these comprehensive data quality control procedures to minimize measurement error and non-response bias can be found in Bosma (2013) and at https://www.gemconsortium.org/.

² Specifically, 95% is inserted if the variable is coded 1; 82% if coded 2; 62% if coded 3; 37% if coded 4; 17% if coded 5; 5% if coded 6; and 0% if coded 7.