| Despite the importance of a need for a more robust understanding of the new venture start-up process, there continues to be a disparity in the understanding of critical pathway antecedents and start-up outcomes, such as new firm founding or disbanding. The objective of this dissertation research is to address several key start-up antecedents including the nascent entrepreneur's perception of environmental uncertainty and risk tolerance, which I label an entrepreneur's prospecting profile. Additionally, I explore how preferences for various sources of start-up capital impact the timing to a start-up outcome (founding or disbanding). Applying two separate models, this dissertation first investigates how a founder's prospecting profile influences their selection of start-up capital sources using random coefficient regression modeling. Secondly, this dissertation analyzes how variations in start-up capital structure impact the timing to start-up outcomes using competing risk event history analysis. A more robust start-up outcome model is thus developed. Analysis was completed with two longitudinal data sets providing a representative sample of the business creation process; Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics I and II. |
