Attitude towards business activity risk: evidence using logit models for two groups of OECD countries

Abstract

PURPOSE – The low quality of current jobs around the world and their scarcity have led to the need to undertake. As a consequence of this, people have stopped being employees to becoming entrepreneurs. However, the specialized literature ensures that there are factors, attributed to people or not, that characterize this undertaking. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH – In this article, an approach is made to the issue of aversion to the risk of failure that a person faces when deciding to be, precisely, an entrepreneur. The information integrated by the reports of the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) served as input so that, through the non-linear models of logit probability, it is verified, during the period 2001-2016, if the factors education, experience, knowledge, skills, age, among others, directly influence a person to decide to start a business. FINDINGS – The results obtained made it possible to detect and compare the most distinctive factors in each of these groups. Finally, for each group of countries, statistically significant variables and odd ratios that increase the probability that a person feels aversion to the risk of failing when starting a new business were detected. ORIGINALITY/VALUE – This article shows that when knowing the significant factors, in the two groups of countries analyzed, to know the aversion to failure of a person when they have decided to start a business, it was found that there are no great differences between the two profiles found.