article
Balanced Skills and the City: An Analysis of the Relationship between Entrepreneurial Skill Balance, Thickness, and Innovation
Elisabeth Bublitz,
Michael Fritsch,
Michael Wyrwich,
Elisabeth Bublitz
Hamburg Institute of International Economics, Heimhuder Str. 71, 20148 Hamburg, Germany
Search for more papers by this authorMichael Fritsch
School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Carl-Zeiss-Str. 3, D-07743 Jena, Germany
Search for more papers by this authorMichael Wyrwich
School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Carl-Zeiss-Str. 3, D-07743 Jena, Germany
Search for more papers by this authorElisabeth Bublitz,
Michael Fritsch,
Michael Wyrwich,
Elisabeth Bublitz
Hamburg Institute of International Economics, Heimhuder Str. 71, 20148 Hamburg, Germany
Search for more papers by this authorMichael Fritsch
School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Carl-Zeiss-Str. 3, D-07743 Jena, Germany
Search for more papers by this authorMichael Wyrwich
School of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Carl-Zeiss-Str. 3, D-07743 Jena, Germany
Search for more papers by this authorAbstract
Entrepreneurs are assumed to be multiskilled, covering a number of skills and achieving in each skill a level as high as possible. Being such a jack-of-all-trades increases the probability of running an entrepreneurial venture successfully, but what happens to the jack-of-few-trades who lacks sufficient skills? This article investigates a possible compensation mechanism between balanced skills and cities and how this compensatory measure relates to performance. Specifically, we test and find support for the idea put forward by Helsley and Strange that high market thickness, such as that found in cities, can compensate for a lack of entrepreneurial skill balance. The results indicate that entrepreneurs with low skill balance benefit more from being located in cities than their counterparts with high skill balance. Innovative firms do not differ from other businesses in this respect.
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