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We investigate economic and subjective effects of public business advice delivered to nascent entrepreneurs in Germany. We analyze data from the Thuringian Founder Study, an interdisciplinary research project on innovative entrepreneurship. Employing cluster analysis, we first explore the actual scope and intensity of business advice used. Two distinct groups of policy take-up can be identified: (1) use of intense assistance across all areas, and (2) use of less-intensive assistance being limited to operational issues. Then we analyze personal entrepreneurial resources (human and social capital, entrepreneurial personality profile) as predictors of take-up and perceived usefulness taking into account the different patterns of utilized advice. Finally, we assess economic effects by studying subsequent business performance employing propensity score matching. We cannot reveal that business advice translated into better start-up performance, but our results indicate that advice may help founders with fewer resources to overcome barriers in the founding process. We find that a lack of personal entrepreneurial resources predicts take-up of business advice in general as well as perceived usefulness of comprehensive business advice.

1. Entrepreneurship and psychology in geographic context: Introduction -- 2. Micro-level psychology of entrepreneurship -- 3. Geographic variation of psychological factors associated with entrepreneurship -- 4. Persistence of regional entrepreneurship -- 5. Historical roots -- 6. Implications for practice, education and policy -- 7. Agenda for future research -- 8. Summary and outlook references -- Index.

Applying a lifespan approach of human development, this study examined pathways to entrepreneurial success by analyzing retrospective and current data. Along the lines of McClelland's ideas of early entrepreneurship development and Rauch and Frese's Giessen-Amsterdam model on venture success, we investigated the roles of founders' adolescent years (early role models, authoritative parenting, and early entrepreneurial competence), personality traits (Big Five pattern), and entrepreneurial skills and growth goals during venture creation. Findings were derived from structural equation modeling studying two comparable samples of founders (N = 531) and nascent founders (N = 100) from Germany. Across both samples, reports on age-appropriate entrepreneurial competence in adolescence and an entrepreneurial Big Five profile predicted entrepreneurial skills during venture creation, which in turn predicted founders' setting of ambitious growth goals and entrepreneurial success. Early entrepreneurial competence was related to the availability of entrepreneurial role models and authoritative parenting during adolescence as well as to an entrepreneurial Big Five profile. In line with prospective reports on early precursors of entrepreneurship, the findings illuminate the development of entrepreneurship in general and entrepreneurial success in particular over the lifespan, especially with regard to factors relevant in the adolescent years and the interplay with personality across different developmental periods.