Religion attitudes and youth entrepreneurship performance

Abstract

This study aims to expand knowledge on the nexus between religious attitudes and entrepreneurship performance. Using an international sample of 1,162 European youth entrepreneurs collected in 2016 in eleven countries, we test the increasing effect of spiritual capital on business performance and its heterogeneity across religions. The results from the multivariate regression analyses show only modest effects of religious attitudes on youth entrepreneurship performance, measured by employment creation, the number of employees, income decile and perceived business growth. Still, we observe some heterogeneous effects concerning Roman Catholic, Jewish, Islamic and Hindu churches on some of the analysed variables. Despite the perceived limitations, we provide recommendations for future research, pointing out the need to further explore different types of religions concerning the entrepreneur’s performance, innovative behaviour and personal well-being.