Nachgründungsdynamik neugegründeter Unternehmen in Berlin im interregionalen Vergleich

The process of survival and the development of start-ups is one of the core issues of entrepreneurship research. From the “entrepreneur’s” point of view it is essential to know both, the factors determining the businesses’ chances to survive and the factors influencing its success or failure. By using the multivariate analysis method, this study examines the effects of interaction between business and environmental related factors of success as well as between strategic decisions and the business success. In an interregional comparison this study focuses on the empirical analysis of surviving and success chances of start-ups in Berlin. The regions taking part in the study are “Berlin-Brandenburg”, Munique/“Upper-Bavaria”, Hamburg, Frankfurt and Cologne. In the first part of this work the main features of company formationand co-operation sciences are presented. The following core part contains a theoretical and an empirical part. The theoretical part features several theoretical contributions essential to this topic (including different approaches of the new institutions economics, management theory and interorganization theory). Out of these theories, factors determining the success and the failure of start-ups in the mentioned regions are developed. Eventually a hypothesis is formulated regarding their possible effect on the company’s performance and integrated in a highly differentiated overall model. This model serves as the framework for the following empirical study. The factors determining the potential success of a start-up are: 1. Factors which are related directly to the business (how the company was founded, which legal frame did it choose, how big was its starting capital, how many people were employed at the moment of the foundation, and how big was the turnover after the first year), 2. Environmental related factors (Characterisation of a lack of resources in the company’s environment, the industrial sector, structural market data, quantity of support through commercial services, public administration, memberships and other sources of information), 3. Variables of strategic decisions, co-operative relationships (intensity of the relationships, who were the co-operation partners, how was the organisational structure of the co-operation, what was the content of the cooperation and finally which were the competitive advantages resulting out of these co-operations). The success of a business is measured regarding the number of employees and the development of the turnover of the company. The empirical part starts with the identification of factors influencing the success of a start-up. Here, factors of the business environment and the existing co-operations are most important. In the second part the interaction of these potential success factors are analysed using the method of multivariate analysis. The third main focus of the empirical study is on the multivariate analysis of regional differences after the start-up has taken place and the analysis of its influencing factors. The results of this empirical analysis are demonstrated and conclusions are drawn resulting in practical suggestions for business politics, new start-ups and the entrepreneurship research and co-operation sciences. Christa Etter (2003): Nachgrundungsdynamik neugegrundeter Unternehmen in Berlin im interregionalen Vergleich, Dissertation, FU Berlin 5