Swiss Panel of Emerging Businesses (SwissPEB)

The Swiss Panel of Emerging Businesses (SwissPEB) is a comprehensive, longitudinal research project about the startup process in Switzerland. SwissPEB involves identifying a representative sample of pre-profit ventures and tracking their progress until they are abandoned or reach initial profits.

Based on a telephone screening of more than 28’000 individuals in 2015, we identified a representative sample of people who are currently trying to start a new firm, so called «nascent entrepreneurs». We conducted a detailed phone interview with 300 of these nascent entrepreneurs and will follow up on their progress 12 and 24 months after their initial interview.

The methodology of this research project comes up to the highest standards in entrepreneurship and management research. SwissPEB draws on the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED) research protocol. This empirical approach has opened up a unique new avenue at the very core of entrepreneurship research: systematic, large-scale study of on-going processes of new venture creation. The research design and parts of the questionnaire are harmonized with other PSED studies currently underway to facilitate cross-national comparisons. The gathered data are of a longitudinal nature, thus, avoiding problems of hind-sight bias, memory decay and post hoc rationalization.

SwissPEB will make a twofold research contribution. First, SwissPEB will contribute to our understanding of specific aspects of new venture creation. Specifically, our project will focus on the role of opportunity beliefs, the social identity of the founder, the combination of promotion- and prevention-driven motives and behaviors, and on the causation-effectuation approach to business gestation activities. Second, Swiss PEB will provide a unique insight into the start-up process in the specific context of Switzerland, a highly innovative and competitive environment for entrepreneurship. The project will provide important information on the proportion and characteristics of nascent ventures that become operational new firms. As part of a European initiative, SwissPEB will contribute to the data gathered on the European level, thereby enhancing the value of the aggregate data for cross-national comparisons. At a broader level, the results will contribute to a more efficient and effective public policies to promote new firm creation.

SwissPEB is financed by the Swiss Research Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (KMU-HSG) and the Basic Research Fund of the University of St.Gallen.