دانلود رایگان مقاله انگلیسی کارآفرینی مخرب در بخش کسب و کار کوچک: تقلب ورشکستگی در سوئد - اشپرینگر 2018

Abstract

Entrepreneurship will not always productive: Baumol (1990, 1993) distinguishes between productive, unproductive, and destructive entrepreneurial activities, and in the last two cases, new values are not created. Setting of from the notion of destructive entrepreneurship and the bankruptcy institute as framework for the empirical analysis, we use long aggregate series on bankruptcies and bankruptcy frauds in Sweden, 1830– 2010. We operationalize destructive entrepreneurship with bankruptcy frauds. The bankruptcy institute is not a pure cleansing mechanism; assets can be redistributed by criminal procedure. Thus, a form of destructive entrepreneurship can be conducted within this system. We link bankruptcy frauds to the selection mechanism—the aggregate bankruptcy volume—over time. We cannot establish any direct linkages between the bankruptcy volume and institutional changes. However, and in line with research on bankruptcy diffusion and diffusion of economic crimes, we find that bankruptcy frauds have significant, positive impacts on the bankruptcy volume. Therefore, our results indicate that increases in bankruptcy frauds, destructive entrepreneurship, would affect the economic system.

6 Conclusions and discussion

The bankruptcy institute is a mechanism for both selection and for the regulation of credit relationships (Claessens and Klapper 2005; Miller 1991; Schumpeter 1911). Within this system, entrepreneurial activities may be both productive, unproductive, and destructive (e.g., Akerlof et al. 1993; Croall 2001, 2004). In the present study, we have empirically operationalized destructive entrepreneurship (Baumol 1990, 1993) as bankruptcy frauds at the aggregate level across 180 years in Sweden. Past research has identified criminal activities as one form of destructive entrepreneurship (e.g., Douhan and Henrekson 2010). Obviously, bankruptcy fraud is one of several potential indicators that could be used. In practice, however, and since there are no universal definitions, comprehensive measures are often very difficult to construct. Thus, we are often confined to utilize data that measures fragments the supply and allocation of entrepreneurship (e.g., Bjørnskov and Foss 2008).

Baumol shows that not only destructive entrepreneurship has many different faces across historical periods, economies, and activities but also destructive entrepreneurship may also vary over time due to changes in the institutional environment. In this study, we have found no direct support for the hypothesis that the allocation across productive and destructive entrepreneurship is determined by institutions and institutional change. Specifically, our methodological strategy could not identify any particular years or periods that would coincide with major changes in the formal institutional framework for neither bankruptcy nor bankruptcy fraud. Yet, it seems unreasonable to conclude that this would be the case: past studies show that cross-country variations in bankruptcies can be explained by the legal framework (Claessens and Klapper 2005; Liu and Wilson 2002). However, the present study, as well as other results (Karlsson-Tuula 2006, 2011), has not been able to link distinct institutional changes to any profound variations the bankruptcy volume in Sweden. Future research and other data would be able to investigate these linkages more in detail.