Survival of Nascent Firms: Effects of Human and Social Capital, Management Practices, and Gender

Abstract In this article, we assess the impact of an entrepreneur’s human capital, social capital, and adoption of management practices on the survival of firms in their first years of life. We innovate by assessing how the effect of those factors varies according to gender: whether the entrepreneur is male or female. Using a database of 2,000 firms registered in the Junta Comercial do Estado de São Paulo (Jucesp), between 2003 and 2007, we employed two distinct econometric models to measure the effect of those variables on the survival of new firms. Our results suggest that the adoption of management practices and some traits related to human capital positively affect firm survival. The effect of competencies and social capital on firm survival was higher for female than for male entrepreneurs. These results suggest that female entrepreneurs face higher barriers to launch new firms, thus require distinct resource configurations to overcome these barriers and increase the probability of survival.