Gabriel Macías Godoy A01138871

Gender, human capital, and opportunity identification in Mexico

The phenomenon of business creation cannot exist without the, who is responsible for making decisions, managing resources such as information and raising capital in order to create new ventures and generate profitability.

Given the importance of the individual within the business creation process, this study continues the conversation initiated by DeTienne and Chandler (2007) and Ucbasaran et al. (2008), by explaining the effect of human capital and gender on opportunity identification and the innovativeness of these opportunities within the Mexican context.

Theoretical background and hypotheses

Opportunity identification is a process that is influenced by political, social, and economic factors. However, the most important element within this process is the entrepreneur, the individual who has the capacity to see and identify opportunities.

Human capital is defined as a set of skills and competences that an individual has acquired through formal education and experience, and allow him or her to act innovatively and contribute to firm profitability

H1. Individuals with higher levels of general human capital are more likely to identify more opportunities.

General human capital refers to the knowledge and skills that individuals obtain through formal education and work experience and that is applicable to more than one job or firm

General human capital enables the individual to generate more business ideas and recognize them as viable opportunities.

H2. The greater the specific human capital, the higher the number of opportunities identified. Specific human capital refers to the knowledge and skills acquired on the job that are not

easily used within other firms and industries Shane (2000) referred to prior knowledge as a specific human capital that individuals use to

identify opportunities within an industry. This prior knowledge could be of markets or customer needs. Prior knowledge provides an individual with the ability to see more opportunities and connect concepts quickly

Entrepreneurial experience has also been considered specific human capital. Individuals who have previously created a venture have developed valuable and specific competencies such as the skills of managing resources (time, people, and money) and obtaining financing for the new venture. This kind of experience may provide the entrepreneur with a higher probability of generating successful outcomes, in this case, more opportunities.

H3.1. Given similar levels of general human capital, men and women will differ in the number of opportunities that they identify. H3.2. Given similar levels of specific human capital, men and women will differ in the number of opportunities that they identify

Women entrepreneurs are better educated than their male counterparts and are less likely to shift in and out of self-employment.

Men and women also exhibit different levels of experience at the time they start their ventures.

While experienced entrepreneurs may launch four or five new ventures, women are less likely to change or open diverse ventures.

Women are more likely than men to be concerned about the time that they spend on their startup and the time required by their family

Social feminist theory argues that men and women have different social experiences from birth, which may result in a different view of the world

H4. The higher the level of human capital of the entrepreneur, the higher the level of innovativeness in the opportunities identified.

Creativity is the result of profound and relevant knowledge, which involves rich information derived from education and experience, so they suggest that an individual with more information will be able to generate better solutions.

Creativity training leads to more ideas and, a greater probability of generating higher quality solutions to a problem.

H5. Gender moderates the positive impact of human capital on the innovativeness of opportunities. Considering the social feminist perspective, we expect that men and women with similar

levels of human capital will generate different levels of innovation in the opportunities they identify.

Based on Becker’s (1993) proposition that “more is better”, the expectation is that men, who have greater prior experience will provide solutions with higher levels of innovativeness.

Research methodology Data for this study were collected via a survey of 174 MBA students at a private university

in Northeastern Mexico. 37 percent of the surveys were answered by women and 63 percent by men. The final sample included 168 respondents.

Conclusions This study provides empirical evidence of a positive relation between human capital and

opportunity identification in Mexico This study has shown the significant effect of specific human capital: people with greater

prior knowledge of customer needs or problems may identify more opportunities; however, the probability that an individual identifies opportunities with innovation will be increased when individuals work in different industries or have already had the experience of launching a new business.

Differences between genders were not significant for either the number of opportunities identified or the innovativeness of such opportunities.

Our findings do not allow us to affirm that the different outcomes observed in entrepreneurial activity by women and men are due to gender per se

The poorer outcomes observed among women are due to lower levels of prior knowledge of customer problems, prior entrepreneurial experience, or to less varied industry experience