Special Issue "Self-Employment Sustainability: Exploring the Long-Term Survival"

A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Antonio A. Golpe
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Guest Editor
Department of Address: Department of Economics, Plaza de la Merced, 11, University of Huelva, Huelva E 21002, Spain
Interests: entrepreneurship; self-employment; applied microeconometrics
Dr. Mónica Carmona
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Guest Editor
Department of Address: Department of Economics, Plaza de la Merced, 11, University of Huelva, Huelva E 21002, Spain
Interests: entrepreneurship; self-employment; applied microeconometrics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

A sizable number of new self-employment entrants survive a few years on the market. Independently of the previous status (unemployment, inactivity or paid-work) and regardless the initial for becoming entrepreneurs (necessity versus opportunity entrepreneurs or dependent versus independent self-employed workers), the decision to stay into self-employment or to move out of self-employment (for instance, return to paid-work) is a dynamic one on the basis of a continuous evaluation about the realized earnings and the potential earnings in paid-work. In this constant updating, changes in labour market dynamics and conditions, macroeconomic factors and the terms and conditions of incentives schemes for promoting entrepreneurship, have a pivotal role, can ultimately cause some unexpected effects (distortions) on these occupational decisions.

The extended conventional as a wisdom about the role of entrepreneurship as a key driver of economic growth, innovation, job creation and for promoting a sustainable society is at the heart of the portfolios of policies to promote entrepreneurship devised by governments and international organizations around the world. These interventions suppose a high cost for the taxpayer and can have expected and unintended effects not only in the short-term but also in the long-term,

This Special Issue will comprise a selection of papers presenting original contributions to the analysis of entry and post-entry dynamics and the study of the de determinants of self-employment survival, and policy evaluation cases. In this respect we will be interested not only in traditional entrepreneurship policies evaluations Long-run effects are not accurately captured by conventional evaluations, which are usually performed a few years after the policies are implemented, and so capture only short-term impacts, but also in their long-run effects. Papers selected for this Special Issue will be subject to a rigorous peer-review process with the aim of rapid and wide dissemination of research results, developments, and applications.

Dr. Antonio A. Golpe
Dr. Mónica Carmona
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • entrepreneurship
  • self-employment
  • applied microeconometrics
  • survival analysis
  • time series analysis
  • policy evaluation
  • persistence
  • resilience
  • hysteresis

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Article
Persistence in Self-Employment Rates before the Great Lockdown: The Case of the UK
Sustainability 2020, 12(16), 6429; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12166429 - 10 Aug 2020
Viewed by 543
Abstract
A growing body of empirical literature—both on the micro and macro scale—is devoted to exploring the existence of hysteresis—or at least persistence—in self-employment, i.e., whether policy, economic or external shocks have transitory or persistent effects on the probability of survival, and in turn, [...] Read more.
A growing body of empirical literature—both on the micro and macro scale—is devoted to exploring the existence of hysteresis—or at least persistence—in self-employment, i.e., whether policy, economic or external shocks have transitory or persistent effects on the probability of survival, and in turn, on the natural rate of self-employment. In aggregate time series studies, the usual method to address this issue has been to look for unit roots by using alternative tests or by using unobservable components models. In this research, we performed a battery of tests and competing approaches to check the robustness of our results with UK self-employment time series. The UK is a suitable case for study because the recent evolution of the UK self-employment rate figures shows a steady growth since the beginning of the millennium. This long-term rise in UK self-employment has attracted the attention of scholars, at least, before the Great Lockdown. We find evidence of hysteresis, while business cycle output variations significantly affect self-employment rates. The article discusses the implications of the findings. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Self-Employment Sustainability: Exploring the Long-Term Survival)
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Article
Business Survival and the Influence of Innovation on Entrepreneurs in Business Incubators
Sustainability 2020, 12(15), 6197; https://doi.org/10.3390/su12156197 - 31 Jul 2020
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 908
Abstract
One of the objectives of this article is to study how innovation influences the results of entrepreneurs located in business incubators. The other objective is to examine how the training of entrepreneurs contributes to creating companies with high sustainability rates over time that [...] Read more.
One of the objectives of this article is to study how innovation influences the results of entrepreneurs located in business incubators. The other objective is to examine how the training of entrepreneurs contributes to creating companies with high sustainability rates over time that are wealth generators in society. To achieve these objectives, entrepreneurs in business incubators in Spain were identified along with their level of training, their experience in business management, how much employment they have generated, their survival rate and the annual accounts (where economic, financial, and management information on the companies is collected). In turn, they were sent a questionnaire that allowed us to classify them by their degree of innovation. The techniques used are independent sample statistics that apply the Levene’s test, the analysis of the balance sheet, the income statements, and management indicators. This study concludes that, from the selected sample, 83.3% of the entrepreneurs established in business incubators in Spain have university training, and 64.2% prefer the branches of science, with 7.75 years of business experience, which favors business survival (100% in the seventh year of life) and the creation of qualified employment. All this favors the sustainability of the productive and business model which, being more intensive in knowledge and R&D, becomes more competitive in the market. On the other hand, there are no significant differences regarding the economic results, nor in the management indicators among the entrepreneurs of the incubators according to their degree of innovation. The value of research lies in the importance of studies on the relationship between innovation, training, and wealth-generating sustainability in incubators in today’s knowledge economy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Self-Employment Sustainability: Exploring the Long-Term Survival)
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