Entrepreneurism in Puerto Rico: Job Creation and Entrepreneurial Development

Entrepreneurship had taken center stage in Puerto Rico Government efforts to curb the effects of the current economic recession as a means for economic growth through job creation. Puerto Rico native entrepreneurial industries and businesses are not creating jobs at a pace that can help grow the economy through job development. This quantitative cross-sectional correlational research was used to analyze demographic and business characteristics of Puerto Rican entrepreneurs in their capacity to explain entrepreneurs' expectations of increasing the number of jobs in 5 years. A dataset of 128 Puerto Rico entrepreneurs' demographic and business characteristics was extracted from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Puerto Rico Adult Population Survey (APS) 2007 database of 1,998 respondents. Bivariate statistical analyses and logistic regression were utilized to answer the study hypotheses and research questions. Crosstabs analyses results indicated statistically significant relationship exists only for business sector and the expectation of increasing or not the number of jobs, X2 (7, n = 127) = 22.345, p = .002. Logistic regression modeling results indicated only the demographic characteristic of age and business characteristics of business sector displayed prediction power over entrepreneurs looking to increase the number of jobs and those who do not, X2 (22, n = 91) = 37.933, p = .019. Descriptive and crosstabs statistics findings include absence of innovation in products or services and lack of business experience by Puerto Rican entrepreneurs, but 100% having at least some level of formal education. The lack of experienced entrepreneurs and the absence of innovation in products or services diminish the probabilities of developing local pools of wealth and job growth via entrepreneurial activities. Government and private sector business development programs should improve entrepreneurship training programs by including experiential learning, mentorship programs, and concentrate their entrepreneurial development efforts in assisting innovative, experienced entrepreneurs to increase the probabilities of economic growth through job creation. Recommendations for future research include researching the absence of innovation in products or services, researching relationships between level of education and jobs growth, and designing a follow up study with entrepreneurs of this dataset for verifying crosstabs and logistic regression statistics results.