Perfil de los empresarios y resultados de sus empresas

Resumo

The greater part of the productive fabric in an economy is formed by units in which there is an intimate relationship between the entrepreneur and his company. The performance of the entrepreneur and the company must be measured by available information. In the case of the entrepreneur, this measurement has been undertaken by using opinion surveys that provide information on the behaviour and motivation that have led them in their decision making. As for the company, one alternative is by means of the economic and financial indicators that are obtained from registered accounting information. In this paper, both forms of information gathering have been exploited. On the one hand, 1,500 questionnaires were sent to the same number of entrepreneurs selected from a data base that holds a broad sample of Spanish companies (976,578) that register their annual financial status in the Companies Registry. The sample of entrepreneurs surveyed was selected at random on the basis of dividing the company population into size and number of years in business. The first criterion establishes differences between businessmen that are owners of micro, small, medium, and large businesses. The second criterion distinguishes between initiatives that are less than three, between three and six, six and ten, and those more than ten years old. On the other hand, based on the abovementioned company population, statistically representative company samples for the different sizes and ages considered were selected, which means a set of 7,223 and 7,797 firms, by size and age, respectively. Time series (1997-2004) of the development of representative ratios of their financial-economic structure, activity and performance were obtained for these samples. By using both methodologies, answers are obtained to questions related with the characteristics of entrepreneurs and company variables that characterize the results and efficiency of those that survive the maturation period of the entrepreneurial activity, and, among others, to questions related to whether these characteristics and variables are associated with the age and size of the companies.