Attributions and Success in New Venture Creation Among Canadian Nascent Entrepreneurs‪.‬

The question of why some new ventures are successfully brought to fruition while others are not is one that continues to elude researchers. Generally, we know that the rate of firm failure is inversely related to age (Thornhill and Amit, 2003; Sapienza, 1991). While Beaver (2003) claims that failure rates among new businesses are ten times as high as those of larger established firms, other estimates of failure range anywhere from 50 to 95%. Not surprisingly, the high rate of failure among small businesses, particularly new ones, has been a concern among policymakers for some time (Storey 1994). Over the past decade, the importance of this concern has increased as policymakers focus their efforts on encouraging new firm formation. In light of the relationship between a firm's age and failure, nascent ventures--those in the gestation stage of start-up--would be expected to have the highest rate of demise. Yet, gestation is an aspect of the entrepreneurial process about which very little is known (Gartner et al., 2004). One of the major stumbling blocks in acquiring more knowledge of business formation has been the lack of "real time" study of the start-up process. Currently, the Entrepreneurial Research Consortium (ERC)--comprised of researchers in nine countries--is addressing this issue through a research project commonly referred to as the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) (for further details on the consortium see Gartner et al., 2004).