Principal Topic

This paper describes how individuals were selected as nascent entrepreneurs in the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED). The paper begins with the 64,622 people in the original random digit dialing telephone survey, and ends with the 1,216 people who constitute the final sample.

Method

The PSED is a longitudinal data set of individuals in the process of starting businesses that were identified from a random digit dialing telephone survey of 64,622 adults in the United States who are 18 years of age, or older. Two items determined whether respondents might qualify as nascent entrepreneurs: (1) Are you, alone or with others, now trying to start a new business? (2) Are you, alone or with others, now starting a new business or new venture for your employer? All of these individuals were considered candidates for the full nascent entrepreneur interview if: (1) They expected to be owners or part owners of the new firm. (2) They had been active in trying to start the new firm in the past 12 months. (3) The effort was still in the start-up or gestation phase and was not a new firm. Four questions were used to determine whether these nascent entrepreneurs satisfied the third criterion: Whether they (a) had received money, income, or fees in the past three months; (b) had positive monthly cash flow in the previous three months; (c) whether business expenses included owner’s salary; and (d) when business expenses included an owner’s salary. Three SPSS syntax files were constructed to clean the original data sets (the so-called “21” data sets), and to create an operational definition of autonomy distinguishing enterprises with no outside ownership (full independence, n = 715) from startup efforts with possible ownership by other businesses (partial autonomy, n = 102) and from the comparison group of people not starting businesses (n = 399).

Results and Implications

Scholars using the PSED, and these three SPSS syntax files to identify nascent entrepreneurs, should study this paper.

CONTACT: Kelly G. Shaver, Psychology Department, College of William & Mary, P.O. Box 8795 Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795; (T) 757-221-3885; (F) 757-221-3896; kgshav@attglobal.net