The School of Business and Economics will host its second brown bag lunch research seminar of the semester on Friday, October 14 at 12:00pm in Academic Office Building 101. Dr. Emanuel Oliveira will present his recent study.
Title: Union density and entrepreneurship: A motivational approach
Abstract: Prior economics literature has examined the role of union density on rates of
entrepreneurial entry and found a negative relationship. Reasoning that strong unions increase
costs and risks for entrepreneurs, researchers found that raw counts of new entries declined with
increasing union density. By differentiating between necessity and opportunity entrepreneurship,
and looking to motivation theories, our study challenges at least part of these earlier findings.
The results of our multilevel modeling analyses deployed on a large cross-country sample of
entrepreneurs suggest that: (1) union density is positively associated with opportunity-based
entrepreneurship; and (2) union density is negatively associated with necessity-based
entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurship literature suggests that only opportunity entrepreneurship
is positively associated with economic development. Thus, our findings may transform the
understanding of the role of union density and lead to alternative policy recommendations.
