Bachelorscriptie Final version
Study:
Bèta Gamma, major: Business Administrations
How can the Dutch government facilitate an environment that stimulates more opportunity driven entrepreneurship?
Made by: Marco Barsoum Under the guidance of:
Willem Dorresteijn Date: 26-06-2017
Statement of originality
This document is written by Student Marco Barsoum who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Abstract
Opportunity entrepreneurship in comparison to necessity entrepreneurship has been found to have better results, not only for the success rate of the entrepreneurs but also for national economic development. Therefore it is interesting for a country to know in what way they can facilitate an environment that stimulates opportunity
entrepreneurship. This thesis does a case study in the Netherlands to see in what way the dutch government can provide this environment. As the Netherlands has a more sophisticated economy the opportunities in the Netherlands find their origin in innovation. Through a literature study based on nine factors, also known as the Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions (EFCs), from the GEM model, the current state in the Netherlands is depicted. Subsequently, it provides recommendations on how the dutch government could stimulate opportunity entrepreneurship more.
Content
1.0 Introduction 2.0 Literature study
2.1 Opportunity vs Necessity
2.2 Opportunity entrepreneurship in The Netherlands. 2.3 Theoretical framework 3.0 Methodology 4.0 Results 4.1 Entrepreneurial Financial 4.2 Government Policies 4.3 Government Programs 4.4 Education & Training 4.5 R&D Transfer
4.6 Commercial & Legal Infrastructure 4.7 Internal Market Openness
4.8 Access to Physical Infrastructure 4.9 Cultural & Social Norms.
5.0 Discussion
5.1 Recommendations 5.1 Relevance of this article 5.2 Possibilities for future research 6.0 Conclusions
1.0 Introduction
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) made a distinction between two types of entrepreneurship in 2001: opportunity entrepreneurship and necessity
entrepreneurship. In this distinction, opportunity is defined as starting a business ‘to take advantage of a business opportunity’ and necessity as starting a business ‘because you have no better choices for work’(Reynolds, 2002). Ever since this distinction was made, many researches have been done about the differences between these two drivers for entrepreneurship.
Most of these researches come to the same conclusion: opportunity entrepreneurship has better results than necessity entrepreneurship. For example, one research finds that necessity driven entrepreneurship creates businesses that “grow more slowly, and are more likely to fail” (Thompson, 2011). An other research finds that even when necessity driven entrepreneurship (financially) succeeds, it could still leave the entrepreneur unsatisfied. This study, that was done by Block and Koellinger (2009) shows that the process leading to a decision has an impact on the later satisfaction with the outcome of that decision. Therefore, when people start a business out of necessity and their financial returns are sufficient, they can still be unsatisfied
because, for example, they were forced to become an entrepreneur after a long time of unemployment. Firms like these will not be sustainable as the founders might find a job and put their own business aside. Furthermore, Acs and Varga found, in a large cross-national study of 11 countries, that necessity entrepreneurship either has little influence or sometimes even has a negative effect on national economic growth (2005).
To sum up, necessity entrepreneurship is more likely to fail, and even when it succeeds on the short term to give the founders sufficient financial returns, it can leave them unsatisfied. Which in its turn can have consequences for the long term sustainability of the firm. Next to this, it often has little or even negative influence on the economic development of a country.
Opportunity entrepreneurship on the other hand has been found to be positively linked to economic development (Acs and Varga, 2005). This is also supported by findings of Pereira, who explains that whereas ‘Necessity entrepreneurs create jobs for
themselves, opportunity entrepreneurs address market needs and create jobs for others as well’ (2011). This appeal to the market needs and the creation of jobs are
clear factors that support the claim that opportunity entrepreneurship has a positive influence on the economic development of a country.
It is an important insight that opportunity entrepreneurship has been found to be more often successful than necessity entrepreneurship because failing entrepreneurship is a worldwide epidemic in the 21st century. Over 90% of startups fail within 3 years
counting from the moment they started (Marmer, Herrmann., et. al., 2011). A good way to decrease the amount of failed startups would be to increase the amount of opportunity driven start ups as they are more likely to succeed. Thus, in order to find tangible answers to the question ‘how this could be accomplished’, so that potentially startups end up having a higher success rate, this Thesis will do a case study. It will describe the current situation in the Netherlands, and examine what governmental improvements can be made in order to facilitate the right environment for opportunity entrepreneurship. For the purpose of being able to make recommendations it is
narrowed down to just one country. The Netherlands is chosen in this case because the writer of this thesis lives there and therefore can easily get information about it. Next to that, the dutch government is considered as relatively transparent.
Therefore,the possibility that this research gets stuck due to a lack of information is minimized.
In conclusion, based on researches it can be said that an increase of opportunity entrepreneurship would be beneficial for a country. Opportunity seems to be the most valuable driver with regards to the overall economical growth of a country. Therefore, this thesis will discuss what needs to be done within the Netherlands in order to increase the amount of opportunity driven entrepreneurship.
The aim of this thesis will be to find out the answer to the following research question:‘How can the dutch government facilitate an environment that stimulates
more opportunity driven entrepreneurship?’. The thesis therefore will be structured as
follows. First of all, the literature review, to give an overview of the researches that have been done about the subject of the research question. This literature review will start broad but develop to a very specific theoretical framework for this research. Chapter 3 is about the methodology. Chapter 4 will be about the results. In this chapter the current situation in the Netherlands will be described. The next chapter is the discussion, chapter 5. This chapter will supply recommendations for the dutch government, criticize on what could have been done differently in this research, discuss the relevance of this thesis, and do suggestions for future research. The subsequent chapter will be number 6 which is about the conclusion and lastly there will be the reference list of this thesis.
2.0 Literature review
2.1 Opportunity vs Necessity entrepreneurship
This thesis will make use of certain definitions based on earlier research, which have been cited regularly by other researches. This is to make sure that this thesis uses definitions that are widely accepted and common to most readers.
The GEM has defined opportunity entrepreneurship as starting a business ‘to take advantage of a business opportunity’ (GEM, 2001). This definition will be used as the
general definition in this thesis. Unclear in this definition however, is what is understood under the term ‘opportunity’. Looking at the current dutch state of
economical development could say more about what opportunities can be found in its market. The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report has made a distinction between different stages of economic development resulting in the
following three classifications: factor-driven, efficiency-driven and innovation-driven. This classification in phases of economic development is based on the level of GDP per capita and the extent to which countries are factor-driven in terms of the shares of exports of primary goods in total exports. According to the GEM executive report of 2009, the Netherlands has an innovation-driven economy. In innovation-driven countries the opportunities for entrepreneurs lay in production of new, unique goods and services that are created via sophisticated, and often pioneering, methods
(Bosman & Levie, 2009). The most multidisciplinary found definition of Innovation, which is broadly accepted, is: ‘The multi-stage process whereby organizations transform ideas into new/improved products, service or processes, in order to advance, compete and differentiate themselves successfully in their marketplace’ (Baregheh, Rowley, Sambrook, 2009). Whenever there is a need to refer to innovation in this thesis, this definition will be used.
The GEM is, in general, currently the biggest and most trustworthy collector of data about entrepreneurship. They publish many articles that, on a regular basis are, referred to by other researchers. The 2001 article by Reynolds for example was cited 963 times on 10/05/2017. Therefore, they will often be used as a reference in this thesis. They have done research to the Netherlands as well. However, whereas they have looked at the combination of settled large firms and entrepreneurial activity combined to measure economic growth, this research will be way more specific and focussed. Focussed on getting information on the entrepreneurial activities only, and specific by only looking at the Netherlands. Furthermore, the goal of this thesis is to find out how to stimulate more opportunity driven entrepreneurship. Therefore, in an innovation-driven economy as the Netherlands this can be done best by looking at how innovative entrepreneurship can be stimulated.
2.2 Entrepreneurship in the Netherlands
There has been done research before about entrepreneurship in the Netherlands. A study by Wennekers in 1999 was about the revival of entrepreneurship in the Netherlands in the mid-1980’s. During the period ‘between 1972 and 1978 the number of entrepreneurs declined in an absolute sense’ because of the economical crisis. However, in the mid-1980s the amount of startups started to increase in several Western countries and especially the Netherlands had a strong increase. It illustrates that the dutch entrepreneurial activity was in an upwards movement(Wennekers, 1999). According to the World Economic Forum this upwards trend continued and
has resulted in the dutch economy becoming the number 5 of the globally most competitive economies list (Hanouz, 2015). This is also confirmed by the
development in the Total Entrepreneurial Activity (TEA) in the Netherlands. The TEA of the Netherlands in 2002 was 4.62% (GEM, 2002). The TEA of the
Netherlands in 2016 however was 11.0%. (GEM, 2017) Which means that the total amount of people in the Netherlands that pursues an entrepreneurial career has become way more than it used to be. The dutch Chamber of Commerce says the following about startups in the Netherlands. ‘There are in 2016 a record amount of starters (129.456), but there are also more closedowns of startups (129.456) than the past five years’ (KVK, 2016). So while there are more startups the amount of failing startups raises along. Existing literature shows that startups succeed more often when they are opportunity driven. There has never been done research in the Netherlands before about in what way opportunity driven entrepreneurship can be stimulated. This is the research gap that this thesis will attempt to close. This thesis wants to examine the possible changes that the dutch government can make to stimulate more
opportunity driven entrepreneurs in the Netherlands.
2.3 Theoretical framework
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor has a conceptual model that is used in
researches to examine the possibilities towards National economic growth. The data collection engine powering GEM research is build up out of two complementary tools - the Adult Population Survey (APS) and the National Expert Survey (NES). The information that the data collection engine collects, is used as input for the description of the current state of the three main domains of their framework. These domains are: 1.Basic requirements availability for established firms, 2.The state of the efficiency enhancers for both the established firms and for entrepreneurs and 3.Innovation and entrepreneurship enhancers. These are three very broad domains however, and are normally used to describe the state of art in every country regardless of the stage of economical development of that country. Consequently not all of the variables are relevant for this research. More specifically, the two domains of ‘Basic requirements’ and ‘Efficiency enhancers’ will not be used in this research because they contain variables that are more relevant when looking at factor driven and efficiency-driven economies. The Netherlands ,however, has an advanced economy. The GEM report of 2010 says the following about advanced economies: “Advanced economies have a relatively sophisticated foundation of basic requirements and efficiency enhancers. While these factors are essential in sustaining necessity-based entrepreneurship, they may be insufficient drivers of opportunity-based behavior. Entrepreneurship-specific framework conditions become the levers that drive dynamic, innovation-oriented behavior, while the foundation of basic requirements and efficiency enhancers needs to be maintained.” This thesis will therefore only use the last domain: ‘ innovation and entrepreneurship’ as it is the only domain of the three that describes what
variables to look at when looking at possibilities for innovation. The nine factors under this domain are believed to have a significant impact on innovative
entrepreneurship. The nine factors are also known as the Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions (EFCs). In this thesis the nine factors of the EFC framework will be used as independent variables leading to the dependent variable: ‘opportunity
entrepreneurship’ (figure 1). As said before, the Netherlands has an innovation driven economy and therefore opportunities are found in innovation. So, if the the variables for innovation are analysed and documented, clearly they will clarify how innovation and therefore opportunity entrepreneurship can improve. So the EFCs will be used in order to study the possible ways in which entrepreneurs in the Netherlands can be stimulated to exploit innovative opportunities.
More specifically this thesis will work towards a description of the current state of the Netherlands with regards to encouragement of opportunity driven entrepreneurs by looking at the following factors: Entrepreneurial Financial, Government Policies, Government Programs, Education & Training, R&D Transfer, Commercial & Legal Infrastructure, Internal Market Openness, Access to Physical Infrastructure, and Cultural & Social Norms. The conditions of these nine factors will acknowledge the flaws and subsequently fitting improvements that the Netherlands should make to cultivate opportunity entrepreneurship will be presented.
3.0 Methodology
This thesis will be a qualitative study. The research approach will be deductive, structured and looking for information and building upon existing knowledge. The research method that is used it literature study. The nine variables are also known as the Entrepreneurial
Framework Conditions (EFCs) will be the independent variables leading to the dependent variable opportunity entrepreneurship. These EFCs will be researched in the form of a case study of the Netherlands. The research is focussed on the governmental influence in this process. Therefore the literature that is used in this research consists for a large part out of policy documents and governmental papers. The most important current policies will be used, but also the governmental plans for the near future, or aims for the mid-long period. The information gathering happens over the internet and via open source, also the online library of the University of Amsterdam which enables this thesis to make use of a wide range of different articles. Subsequently the interesting information of the articles is documented so that it is clear that this information is relevant for the paper. After doing this to enough articles to cover the whole spectrum of the nine variables it is time to structure the different paragraphs and include the relevant information for every paragraph. This is done in this way because it makes the search for information objective and not aimed at finding certain
information to proof a point. This is done this way in an attempt to make sure that the search for articles does not contain any confirmation bias. After structuring the paragraphs
additional information is looked up to complete the missing links. In order to ensure internal validity all information used comes from articles that are regularly cited by other papers and that originate from trustworthy journals. To increase the reliability of this research unless the document is originally from a dutch governmental institution, to make sure that the used article contains correct information, another articles is consulted to confirm what was said. Furthermore to increase the representativity of this thesis the research is done based on only online documents because these are also the documents that are directly available to an entrepreneur. So for example, if looking at ‘Entrepreneurial finance’ it is represents the reality more to look at information that is available on the internet as for an entrepreneur this is the most logical place to look for information. If there is another type of entrepreneurial fund which can not be found online which therefore is known by almost no entrepreneurs it will not be relevant for this paper as it would describe more possibilities than the
entrepreneurs use. Finally the founded information is being analyzed by looking at which possible variables could be improved to stimulate opportunity entrepreneurship more.
4.0 Results
In this section the results of the literature study are shown. The Netherlands can facilitate a better environment that stimulates opportunity entrepreneurship, this will be shown in this thesis. The current state of the nine factors of the entrepreneurial framework conditions in the Netherlands will first be shown. Every chapter in this section will discuss one of the nine variables and what the situation around this variable looks like momentarily in the
Netherlands. Based on these findings certain solutions or improvements of existing situations will be given in the discussion section.
4.1 Entrepreneurial Financial
The dutch government helps people that have startups in many financial ways. The site of the central government of entrepreneurship in the Netherlands (RVO) shows the following types of subsidies and financing possibilities for businesspeople: pledges/securities, fiscal
advantages, guarantees, credits, cooperation programs, subsidies, insurances and vouchers. (RVO, 2017). The site also shows a specific group of funds that only innovative or green startups can get. These are the following funds: early phase financing (‘Vroege Fase Financiering’, VFF) ,Seed Business Angels, Innovation Credit, SEED Capital, Guarantees SME credits (Borgstelling MKB Kredieten, BMKB) ,WBSO, Residence permit foreign startups (Verblijfsvergunning buitenlandse startups), SME innovation stimulation region and top sectors (Mkb Innovatiestimulering regio en Topsectoren, MIT), dutch Good Growth Fund for startups (DGGF voor startups) , Guarantees for agriculture (Borgstellingskrediet voor de Landbouw, BL) (Central government of entrepreneurship, 2017).
These regulations, that are specifically meant for innovative startups, such as the innovation credit and the SEED Capital regulation, fall under the program called : innovation fund SME+. The goal of the innovation fund SME+ is to help as many SMEs as possible to transform their ideas into new sustainable products, services and processes. The SEED Capital regulation for example is an initiative of the government to start a fund that will consist of a combination of on one side government money and on the other side private financiers’ money. This fund would subsidies innovative startups in the technological and creative sector. This SEED Capital fund is established by the government to take away some risk of the venture capitalists so that they can fund more startups. The innovation credits are funds that are directly given to entrepreneurs. This helps to cover the development costs of programs of SMEs for 35% (Central government, 2017). Just like these to examples there are many more funds for innovative startups.
The government has had improvement plans for the dutch business market since 2010, when the ‘Enterprises policy’ was implemented. This policy has three aims for the Netherlands before 2020. First of all, it aims to raise the dutch economy before 2020 to the top 5 of most
entrepreneurial and competitive economies in the world. Second of all, it wants to increase the dutch amounts of Research & Development to get to the point where it pays more than 2,5 % of the GDP. Third of all, it aims at achieving a top consortium for knowledge and innovation where public and private parties participate for more than €800.000, which consists of at least 40 percent private investments.
The Enterprise policy has a total financial capacity of €7.4 billion in 2016. The largest part of €5.4 billion is meant for fiscal entrepreneurship stimulations. This is divided up in €2.6 billion to sector stimulation (among others through reducing tax-rates at food and horeca) and €2.1 billion goes to direct fiscal income support of entrepreneurs. For stimulation of
innovative entrepreneurship there is on one hand €1.2 billion in the form of fiscal support, and on the other hand €0.8 billion in non-fiscal support in the form of subsidies for example. An example of the fiscal innovative entrepreneurship stimulation is the WBSO (Wet
Bevordering Speur- en Ontwikkelingswerk) (ministerie van economische zaken, 2017). WBSO is a fiscal regulation for research and development. Companies can reduce their expenses of Research and Development (R&D)- projects via the WBSO regulation. The WBSO decreases the salary costs and other costs that are related to a R&D project. For example a starter may get refunds for a prototype or for research materials. The advantage that one gets from this WBSO can be gained through the tax return. Self-employed people will get a standard reduction (rijksoverheid, 2017).
Another government initiative is the Innovationbox which is meant for innovative
entrepreneurs. The innovationbox stands for a lower tax rate box over the profit of innovative companies. Entrepreneurs only have to pay 5% tax over the profits instead of 20 or 25%. This is a clear stimulation of innovative entrepreneurship. So clearly the dutch government has many support systems for dutch innovative entrepreneurs.
4.2 Government Policies
The enterprise policy that was implemented in 2010 went in two strategy directions, a generic one and a specific one. The generic strategy was aimed at all entrepreneurs. This strategy focusses on
innovation and a reduction of policy pressures and administrative requirements. It also focusses on increasing the access to investments or finances for entrepreneurs, good public services for companies and (fiscal) help for entrepreneurs. The specific strategy on the other hand was aimed at only the top sectors. These so called top sectors are clusters of companies and knowledge institutions where most of the dutch R&D money is used,. These top sectors need to be active in export and aimed at solving societal challenges. The strategy is to combine the political powers and these top sector powers to work on the development and execution of the competitive strategy and the innovative agenda of the Netherlands.
These changing directions resulted in a couple of changes in the policy composition. According to the site of the central government the most important changes were:
● less direct subsidies, more generic innovation stimulation and more financial stimulators such as credits and guarantees that would repay itself;
● increasing the impact of publicly financed research projects through better
communication and trade-off between researchers and potential users of the outcomes of the researches;
● there will be a change of direction in the policy development and the policy execution where the power will be given more to the companies and knowledge-institutions. The government will be in the facilitating role in the public-private relationship between companies, knowledge institutions and governments;
● lastly top sectors are being clustered together to work on economic competitive strategies and on the innovative goals.
(Ministerie van Economische Zaken, 2017)
Next all these ideas and plans for the future the government also has programs that are already there to help and fund startups. There is the guarantee regulation for bankers and investors in which the financiers get 50% guarantee on risk capital that they provide to business people. The government refunds 50% of the invested money if the business fails. Next to this there is also the microcredit for entrepreneurs. Since 2008 entrepreneurs can get a loan against an interest of 8.75% per year of maximum €50.000 which must be paid back within 10 years. This money is given to starters to start or expand their business. These micro-credits have some contingencies however. The entrepreneur has to be at least 18 years old, must have a well-thought business plan, and must be capable of running a business.
4.3 Government programs
Social security systems
Almost every country has governmental programs that support the citizens of that country. These programs vary from social security-support programs to legal support for
entrepreneurs. “The social security system of the Netherlands is based on social insurances and supplementary income support provisions” (government of the Netherlands, 2017). The
core idea of providing all dutch citizens of social security is making sure that all members of society must be able to play an equally active role in society. To be able to achieve this, their concerns about their basic requirements should be taken away. The dutch social security structure is divided up in two directions, one of them is the social supplies (sociale voorzieningen) and the other one is the social insurances (sociale verzekeringen). Under social supplies falls IOAW, IOAZ, TW and the AKW (zorgwijzer, 2016). These are just financial support systems to help people in different specific circumstances. The AKW for example is a social benefit that is meant to help and take care of the children of parents who do not have a job for example. On the other side there are the social insurances which is divided up into national insurances (volksverzekering) and employee insurances (werknemersverzekeringen). “National insurance is required for all those living in the
Netherlands and covers social benefits. Employee insurance is required for those that work in the Netherlands and provides employment-related benefits.” (Expatica, 2017) The national insurances include: Wlz, AOW and Anw. The the employee insurances include: WIA, WAO, WW, and ZW. These social insurances in general provide support for almost all needy
groups. For example, the ZW is for the sick people, the AOW for the old, the WAO for the unfit for work and the WW is for the ones that lost their job and are still searching for a new one. All these insurances or social security benefits are income-based and always provided in the absence of sufficient income or assets. So, when someone earns less than 70% of the minimum wage then the government will give them money until that threshold. But this automatically means that the given support decreases parallelly to the increase of someone’s income until they reach that threshold and do not ‘need’ support anymore.
Qredits
Next to just programs for social security the Netherlands has also programs for social flourishment. Qredits is a project team that the government works with to finance startups with a loan. However, next to finances, companies and startups can also get coaching and ask for online help tools from Qredits. Qredits can help companies overcome barriers or
difficulties throughout all of the process of making a successful company, such as: how to write a proper business plan.
‘Room in Rules’ (ruimte in regels)
Furthermore the government has a program called ‘Room in Rules’. This program helps entrepreneurs who want to innovate but get stuck because of restrictive laws. The program is about helping these innovative entrepreneurs find a way to continue their business
eventhough they encounter problematic policies. Together with the entrepreneurs, lawmakers and authorities, Room in Rules looks where laws present space for green growth and circular economy. In this way they try to find ways to help entrepreneurs not to get stuck on the rules when trying to make innovative green startups (Rijksoverheid, 2016).
The government in these ways tries to make sure that it helps the citizens of the Netherlands to have their basic needs, and also try and give them opportunities for help when people want to build businesses.
4.4 Education & Training
During the economic recession in the 90’s many countries, including the Netherlands suffered from high unemployment rates and fluctuations in international trade cycles. This pulled the political attention ‘to the potential role of entrepreneurs as a possible solution to rising unemployment rates and as a recipe for economic prosperity’ (Garavan & O’Cinneide, 1994). Ever since, governments have changed certain policies to support entrepreneurs and they have also invested in education and programs directed at promoting innovative activities in order to improve youngsters and students their innovative capabilities.
One program that has been started in The Netherlands is called: ‘BizWorld’(RVO, 2017). This program is meant for kids between the age of 10 and 12 years old. It is a four-day experiential learning class at dutch primary schools. The objective of this educational program is to improve students’ collaborational, financial, and leadership skills while
exposing them to the basics of business. Before this course the teachers of these students have to attend a two-hour program in which they receive the course material. Subsequently they teach, in combination with an expert entrepreneur who can give examples from experience, this program (Valerio, Parton and Robb, 2014). This program is under the direction of the Department of Education and only takes place in public elementary schools. Other countries have more programs that could possibly assist this idea of the BizWorld, maybe in different stages of the school carriers of children. So also in secondary and high school, by integrating education about entrepreneurship into school programs it is likely to increase the pool of career choices that students will consider after finishing their education.
To expand this idea another program was set up called: ‘Education and Entrepreneurship’ with which the ministry of economical affairs and the ministry of education, culture and science aimed to stimulate the development of entrepreneurial skills, attitude and
entrepreneurship within the educational curriculum.
It is important to bring education and the business life closer to each other. So therefore the central government of entrepreneurial Holland offers support and this is done with a focus on all stages of education for primary school to university. This program started in 2008.Goals of the action program are an increasing number of schools in the Netherlands that have the idea of entrepreneurship integrated in education put into policies, organisation, and
curriculums. Furthermore, this program’s aims are: getting more students to undertake, getting students to like start ups more and getting more students to start a business within 5 years after they finish their education (RVO, 2017).
The action program consists of 7 action points:
1. The execution of the regulation ‘Education Network Entrepreneurship’ (ONO) and the supervision on the projects.
2. Escort of the 6 centres for entrepreneurship. These are the collaborations of universities and colleges with the business industry.
3. Facilitate a wide range of training opportunities for teachers. 4. Certifying entrepreneurial education.
5. A program for top students with high entrepreneurial ambitions: Scholarship Program on Entrepreneurship (SPOE)
6. Research and result measuring to measure the effects of the policies that are established because of this action program.
7. Creating awareness around entrepreneurship education and facilitation of knowledge sharing.
This program is however still not visible in the current educational system, and therefore needs to be taken more serious. It could become part of the national educational programs and curricula, and therefore really become an integrated part of what youngsters grow up with. This would help them recognise business opportunities faster when they grow up, and therefore could stimulate opportunity entrepreneurship.
4.5 R&D Transfer
The Netherlands has many financial ways to support entrepreneurs, one of them as mentioned earlier on is the WBSO which helps with fiscal compensation. It provides this compensation also for research and development projects. With the WBSO the ministry of economic affairs helps companies reduce the cost of R&D-projects to decrease. They do so because the more R&D investments are made, the more innovative companies there will be, and they are the cause of economical development and a better competitive position (RVO, 2017).
IA network
The Ministry of economic affairs supports with its Innovation Attaché Network
(IA-Network) the dutch companies and organisations to get into contact with international Research and Development (R&D)-contacts in order to be able to innovate. This IA network can be helpful to companies in a couple of ways. First of all, it makes liaisons for
international R&D cooperation. Second of all, it looks for trends and chances in the area of technological R&D for future markets. Third of all, it informs about trends and
developments through publications and seminars. and lastly, it provides strategic guidance at acquisition of knowledge intensive foreign investments. (RVO, 2017)
The goal for the future of the dutch government is to ensure that the Netherlands is in the top five knowledge economies in the world in 2020. Another goal for the dutch society is that Investments in R&D have to rise to at least 2.5 percent of GDP in 2020
(www.hollandtradeandinvest.com, 2015). So the Netherlands have clear plans for the future to improve the R&D transfer.
4.6 Commercial & Legal Infrastructure
The dutch government is constantly busy optimising the business law. They try to make the legal infrastructure safer and less restricting at the same time. A great example is that at the start of 2017 a new scheme for partnerships was created. The laws for the public limited company have been adapted to create more opportunities for firms to restructure. This can be done through various ways: they can change the corporate form, merge together with other public limited companies or have a division of the company. Also the government is trying to build in mechanisms to protect the rights of the minority shareholders, as more companies have an auditing shareholder.
Improving the legal infrastructure promotes the dutch business climate and enables dutch companies to remain in a strong competitive position. It is therefore important that
modernisation of the legal basis for the business sector is managed properly. At the moment, this is an ongoing process in the Netherlands in which the government tries to simplify the rules for the companies constantly. In a public limited company for example, since this year decisions can be made outside the meetings.
Lastly, the Netherlands is looking at the possibility to change the corporate form of legal entities nationally and internationally. This would mean that businessmen could react more adequately to changing circumstances. So, a businessman who starts his own private limited company can merge his business later on with the private limited company. The dutch government has expressed its aspiration to lead these changes in legal structures in the right ways..(Government of the Netherlands, 2016)
The commercial infrastructure.
This can be seen as the name of the total of all infrastructural projects and investments. Examples are the construction of common goods such as, electricity infrastructure, installations of materials for the generation of durable energy, waste depots and
infrastructures for the car fuels. These are all infrastructures that find their source in the services of companies. These infrastructures are very often heavily regulated by the
government and have to pass certain criteria to be implemented or sustained (RVO, 2016).
A great example of the kind of regulations that are constantly changing for companies are environmental minimal requirements. The Netherlands is battling global warming, and
therefore tries to shape its policies in such a way that it requires companies to pursue this goal as well. Since the first of July 2016 companies that apply for licenses for dropping chemicals
in water surfaces have to match tougher requirements, that were set up by the government. The idea behind these rules is that companies battle pollution at the source with the best available techniques. Another example from the government battling global warming with a rather positive stimuli are the subsidies for sustainable inland waterway shipping. The water needs to be cleaned up, and therefore the government gives subsidies to innovative ideas to battle the waste in the waters (RVO, 2016).
4.7 Internal Market Openness
The internal market is the core of the European Union an includes all the free traffic of goods, services, people and capital and has brought the business industry many advantages. Doing business has become easier and less expensive for example because the exclusion of import and export formalities and douane controls and by harmonization of product requirements. The Idea behind the internal market is that through the free traffic more companies can compete with each other which makes prices drop. Also because of the entry to a market of 500 million customers, economies of scale can result in prices dropping. Also this brings a wider variety of products for the consumer. (KVK, 2017)
75% of the dutch export goes to countries within the EU and half of our import comes from EU countries. Through the export to the internal market of the EU, the Netherlands earns 20% of its GDP: 120 billion euro’s per year (KVK, CBS). So it is very profitable for the Netherlands, and clearly the openness of the internal market is perfect since the free traffic introduction. Netherlands would not want to loose this internal market because next to the export incomes the Netherlands also has investments in the EU that earns them 10% of their GDP, or put differently 180 billion euros. So if the Netherlands would lose this internal market, global calculations predict that it would cost 15 % of the GDP, that 500.000 people would lose their jobs and the national budgetary deficit would increase up to 10% of the GDP (VNO NCW, 2012). The internal market is clearly good for the Dutch economy and job creation.
A research published in 2009 conducted by the European commission measured the extent to which EU-member states were integrated in the internal market of the European Union. They measured the openness of EU countries to imports coming from other Member States in 2000 as compared to 2007. The degree of a country's openness to trade, would show their openness to the internal market. They found that this openness is heavily determined by a country's’ size. ‘Smaller countries such as Belgium are usually more open than big countries like France, as they are more dependent on the outside world for getting what they need (imports) and for selling their domestically produced goods and services (exports).’ They therefore looked at the amount of change of this openness between 2000 and 2007, in this way they got a better indication of the trade integration within the internal market irrespective of the size of that country. A significant increase indicates that a country is becoming more open and
integrated inside the Internal Market and therefore is creating traffic of trade. The
Netherlands is on the 15th place of the 28 countries that were looked at, and therefore seems to have room for improvement in being more open to an internal market (Zamora, 2009). The Netherlands has a great profit due to the internal market, but still has room to become more open to the market and engage even more.
4.8 Access to Physical Infrastructure
According to the Global competitive Report of 2016/2017 The Netherlands has the best infrastructure in all of Europe (Global competitive report, 2017). This is not very strange considered that the dutch ministry of Infrastructure and environment has set very high
ambitions in the domain of Infrastructure that they wish to achieve before 2030. They want to make sure that The Netherlands is safe, liveable and accessible. Therefore, they work
together with IenM to make sure that the Netherlands will be a junction of excellent connections, that it will have smart cities, and that it has citizens and companies who are concerned with their surroundings (Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Milieu, 2017). The dutch ministry of Infrastructure and Environment wants to improve the connectivity of the Netherlands by working on the infrastructure in all possible ways. Firstly, for example by improving the airways, the roads, the water channels of traffic and the internet highways. Secondly, they want to be better connected with Europe and the rest of the world. Thirdly, they want to do all that with a focus on service and safety for all users of these infrastructures. Achieving these goals will have a positive effect on connectivity and the ease of traveling. The increase of connectivity and the ease of traveling would on its turn be very beneficial for innovative entrepreneurs. As it not only poses opportunities for businesses in the infrastructure sector, but it also makes it easier for dutch companies to be competitive. Many barriers for people to start a business will be taken away when the infrastructure is dealt with.
Furthermore, the dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment wants a country with smart cities. Smart cities in this case mean cities with good roads, public transport and enough green places with space and water. Places like this are great for large companies to be able to compete with other European and global metropolises. They also have a
stimulative effect on attracting young innovative starters.
Lastly, the dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment wants to stimulate citizens and companies to be concerned with their neighbourhood and surroundings. They try to achieve this by making a switch from a service orientated governing to a serving
government. They want to govern with less strict policies, and give room for bottom-up initiatives, and also share their knowledge digitally in order to decrease the knowledge asymmetry and increase the transparency.
Next to all these plans for the future the Netherlands has now already improved in their public transport. It has now excellent public transport links, and the swipe card payment system public transport chip card ( OV-chipkaart) is the official transport payment system for the metro, bus and tram throughout the Netherlands (expatica, 2017). accessibility to the infrastructure in the form of public transport. There are roads everywhere and therefore the public transport companies can transport people to wherever they want to go. The national way of traveling in the Netherlands is by use of ‘the public transport chipcard’
the OV-chip smart card system works using an embedded RFID chip inside the card.
4.9 Cultural & Social Norms
From welfare state to participation society.
The dutch king Willem Alexander announced in the King’s speech of 2013 that the
Netherlands was slowly changing from a welfare state to a participation society (Troonrede 2013). He urged the citizens to take their responsibilities to take care of their own
neighbourhoods. The government was urged to fulfill a more subtle role in the coming years. Its role became to listen to the wishes of the citizens and the companies and to be the
facilitator of the requirements, rather than executer of the plans. This has made an impact on the dutch social structures and has stimulated many neighbourhood initiatives to take off. This is an ongoing process in which still both, the government and the citizens, need to adapt to a new way of thinking. On one hand, the citizens still have to get used to the freedom and opportunities that they got from the government, and to the fact that they are being involved in such a way that it looks like cocreation. On the other hand, the civil servants still need to learn and let go of the strings and give citizens the space and support to start initiatives and be participative within the society. This development in the political situation in the Netherlands is very likely to have an positive effect on the dutch social norms. Namely, it gives the citizens a sense of partial ownership and therefore gets them more engaged and active. The reason for that, is that there is an atmosphere created in which people need to be energetic because everyone is counted on to add their part to society, and everyone is held accountable for the wellbeing of their neighbourhood. This stimulates the entrepreneurial spirit in the dutch society at all social classes. So even the people with lower income ,but with
entrepreneurial aspirations that normally would not have the courage or financial needs to start a business, could now start (subsidised) neighbourhood initiatives such as a neighbours gathering or activities for children in the neighbourhood, etc. Thereby they could gain the needed experience to start their own business. This initiative also stimulates people to look around and search for problems which offers the opportunity to get orientated in the market. This helps new startups to be build as when people get orientated and start seeing the actual problems, they might also come up with nice business ideas to solve them.
The Netherlands has a very competitive economy which is good for new startups (global competitiveness report, 2017). There are cultural norms however that influence the
entrepreneurial spirit. One of the main obstacles for dutch entrepreneurs is the idea that one should always minimize their risk. Investment Bankers and Venture Capitalists in the Netherlands have very high requirements to give out loans or finances before they invest in companies. They make sure that their risks are as low as possible and most of the times only people with a low risk profile can get financial support. This has been the status quo for a very long time now. The government has noticed this and has started new programs in which they give guarantees to venture capitalists that they will be refunded parts of their money at bankruptcy of the startups they invested in. However, they not only want to give guarantees, they are providing venture capital for social projects. 2.5 billion in government backed funds will be made available in the coming year. ”Invest-NL – jointly launched by the ministries for Foreign Affairs, Finance, and Foreign Trade & Development Co-operation – is to focus on energy, sustainability, mobility, food, and digitalisation, according to dutch financial news daily Het Financieele Dagblad (FD)” (Preesman, 2017). People in the Netherlands stimulate each other to get a full time job rather than to start a business, because it is more safe. This results in either people taking a job, or moving to another place where risks can be taken. A great example is the dutch entrepreneur who moved to San Francisco and says the following about the success of the app he created with regards to why he did the startup in San
Francisco: “In the Netherlands Humin would never have been able to raise the same amount of money as in San Francisco, and the chance would have been small that the company would have made enough noise in order to get the Wall Street Journal interested. ‘There is nothing wrong with the dutch entrepreneurs culture, but they are just too sober. The willingness to take risks is low.’”(Betlem, 2014).
5.0 Discussion
This discussion section will consist out of four main chapters, the first one is ínsights in results’, this a chapter in which the analysis of the information happens, and where the link is made with the research question, and subsequently it provides recommendations for the dutch government institutions. Then the next chapter called ‘points of critique’ will discuss the process of this thesis, and where thing could have been done differently. Afterwards there is chapter three which is called: ‘relevance of this thesis’ explaining the value of this paper to certain institutions and countries. Lastly, it will do suggestions for future research in chapter 4 ‘possibilities for future research’.
5.1 Insight in results
There are a couple of recommendations that can be done based on the results of this research. So in this chapter these recommendations will be discussed.
First of all the impression of the dutch entrepreneurial finance system seems to be good, as it has many ways to stimulate innovative entrepreneurship. So this pool of support for
innovation should be sustained and if possible expanded.
Second of all government policies, such as the enterprise policy are great ones and the
government should try and keep paying attention to entrepreneurship but more specifically to innovation possibilities so that it will stimulate opportunity entrepreneurship.
Third of all, the government programs. This chapter shows how the dutch social security system is build up. As said before, now most social security benefits are always given based on the income of the household. Therefore if someone works to earn money, he will only benefit when he surpasses the threshold of the governmental support. However, this brings a lot of negative energy as it makes people always consider whether it is worth all the work they do for the little amount of extra money that they gain in comparison to if they do not work. This will therefore discourage people to start new businesses as they are not sure whether it will succeed or not and on whether the incomes of this business will affect their financial stabilities. This way of social security therefore maybe needs replacement. Luckily there has been a new form of social security system that is now being explored, which is called a basic income. This is a different form of social support in which people get a fixed amount of money independent of the incomes or the assets of a household. Everyone
irrespective of if they need it just gets this basic income, and it is not taken away at anytime. At this moment in the netherlands there has been a petition started by RADAR a dutch program on the NPO the main national television channel, in which they urge to experiment with the basic income for people of 55 + years (Avrotros, 2017). A recommendation to the dutch government would be to accept this petition in order to experiment, and be able to see the benefits and the downsides. In this way they could try and improve the concept in such a way that they can implement it for all people who are 18+. This would give the government in the long run many profits because it gives people the financial space they need so that they do not become necessity entrepreneurs but opportunity entrepreneurs instead. This then has shown to result in more economic development for the country.
Fourth of all Education & Training. An interesting point in this chapter is about the
programs such as bizzworld. However these have not been integrated in the total educational system. There should be an integrated educational course about entrepreneurship in all levels of education, it should become just like math something that is thought to children since they were young. In this way after they finish their education they have an idea of how the
practical world works and not only theory about it. This might help people more often feel ‘safe’ to start a business, because nowadays people prefer their permanent contract over entrepreneurship because they experience entrepreneurship as way more risky. But if they have more knowledge about it this automatically means that it is less risky or scary. Fifth of all R&D transfer. This seems to be good. Only there is a large focus on top sectors whereas small companies or startups could also profit from R&D outcomes. So in order to help them be creative too, more programs like the IA-network should be considered by the government.
Sixth of all commercial and legal infrastructure. The information about this topic is quite dispersed all over the place and therefore it is difficult to do extensive recommendations. It is clear however that the Netherlands can still reduce the amount of rules and the complexity of paperwork that is required when having a business. Making the legal infrastructure better would motivate many people to start their business.
Seventh of all, internal market openness. This chapter shows that the Netherlands profits a lot from the internal market in the EU. They however are not considered to be as open as they could be. In order to make use of this market more export and import should take place in the Netherlands so the government could make programs or educate people more about import and export so people know what to do and this would bring new opportunities to them. next to this when more trade happens the capital flow in the Netherlands will increase which will provide better purchasing power, and therefore better circumstances for entrepreneurs to start. Eighth of all access to physical infrastructure. The best physical infrastructure in all of
Europe and still ambitions to improve for the future, hopefully they will keep it up this way. Last of all, the cultural and social norms. Local governments in the Netherlands need to adapt to the fact that the country is moving towards a participation society and give citizen
initiatives the room and space to develop their ideas and plans. When this happens it is likely that this will result in two positive changes. Firstly there will be a change of energy within the dutch citizens they will be stimulate to be more initiating. Secondly will they take notice more of their surroundings as they feel like they are responsible to take care of it and therefore get more orientated on problems which need solutions. The combination of these two factors is a recipe for more opportunity entrepreneurship.
Hopefully this section provides clear recommendations to the government which they can use for future policy making.
5.2 points of Critique
In this chapter some points of critique will be discussed about this paper
in order to show the struggle points and possible points of improvement. A clear
point of critique about this paper could be that it is only based on literature and
not on depth interviews with professionals or statistical analysis. The reason for
this choice was explained in the methodology, however it is not unthinkable that
combined with these other research methods the results could be more
representative for the reality. professionals could always give directly the most
recent developments on a certain theme, even when there have no papers been
written about. It was tried several times to contact professionals from the field
but due to their busy agendas they could not participate with an interview. So it
was decided that the paper would be from the perspective of an entrepreneur.
One other point of critique is the amount of variables that had to be tested. The
availability of information about these nine variables was enormous, and
therefore very difficult to filter out what the main important information was. So
because it was such a wide range of variables that had to be covered in this
thesis, (due to time restrictions) not every variable could be discussed
extensively in depth.
5.3 Relevance of this thesis.
The findings of these thesis will be relevant to policy makers in the Netherlands, as it can give the references to what needs to be done to stimulate opportunity entrepreneurship in the Netherlands. If the dutch government looks carefully at the founded results they can stimulate their entrepreneurs to succeed more often. The findings will also be relevant to new entrepreneurs as they will know which sources lack and of which sources there is a sufficient amount available in the Netherlands. In a later stadium these findings could also be relevant to other countries as well. Because when the Netherlands changes its policy based on the findings of this research, the physical results can be observed in order to see if they lead to an increase of opportunity entrepreneurship. If they do result in an increase, it would be
interesting for other countries to do a similar research to find out what needs to be done in their situation in order to increase the amount of opportunity entrepreneurship.
5.3 Possibilities for future research.
In this thesis the choice was made to only use literature study as information source. In this way it would represent a more realistic overview of the information that is directly available for entrepreneurs about important issues such as entrepreneurial finance and
government programs, etc. However, in the future it would be interesting to do interviews with professionals with experience from the field. These professionals are orientated better on the possibilities within the industry and therefore this could add another dimension to the findings of this thesis. Another idea for a future research could be to study the drivers for opportunity entrepreneurship from another angle. So in this thesis, the government’s input is discussed. This thesis mostly delivers a top-down perspective of what could possibly improve opportunity entrepreneurship, and it would be interesting to research the bottom-up version. One could investigate what entrepreneurs should change in themselves to become more opportunity driven.
5.0 conclusion
In conclusion, this thesis laid down the current state of the nine Entrepreneurial Framework Conditions in the Netherlands and subsequently discussed the possible improvements that could be done based on this situation. The Dutch economy is already in the top 5 of most competing economies worldwide. To that extend the Netherlands should be happy, however there is still enough place for improvement. Just like there were more startups in 2016 than ever before, the amount of companies that were closed down were also more than it had been in the last five years. So it calls for more opportunity entrepreneurship to increase the life expectancy of companies. Recommendations done in this thesis such as integration of entrepreneurship education in all levels of school as a standard course and looking at changing the current social security systems can form a guidance to policymakers if they want to stimulate opportunity driven entrepreneurship and thereby stimulate the innovation in the Netherlands.
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