[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/osfxxx/c62tn.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Big Data, artificial intelligence and the geography of entrepreneurship in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Obschonka, Martin
  • Lee, Neil
  • Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés
  • Eichstaedt, johannes Christopher
  • Ebert, Tobias
Abstract
There is increasing interest in the potential of artificial intelligence and Big Data (e.g., generated via social media) to help understand economic outcomes and processes. But can artificial intelligence models, solely based on publicly available Big Data (e.g., language patterns left on social media), reliably identify geographical differences in entrepreneurial personality/culture that are associated with entrepreneurial activity? Using a machine learning model processing 1.5 billion tweets by 5.25 million users, we estimate the Big Five personality traits and an entrepreneurial personality profile for 1,772 U.S. counties. We find that these Twitter-based personality estimates show substantial relationships to county-level entrepreneurship activity, accounting for 20% (entrepreneurial personality profile) and 32% (all Big Five trait as separate predictors in one model) of the variance in local entrepreneurship and are robust to the introduction in the model of conventional economic factors that affect entrepreneurship. We conclude that artificial intelligence methods, analysing publically available social media data, are indeed able to detect entrepreneurial patterns, by measuring territorial differences in entrepreneurial personality/culture that are valid markers of actual entrepreneurial behaviour. More importantly, such social media datasets and artificial intelligence methods are able to deliver similar (or even better) results than studies based on millions of personality tests (self-report studies). Our findings have a wide range of implications for research and practice concerned with entrepreneurial regions and eco-systems, and regional economic outcomes interacting with local culture.

Suggested Citation

  • Obschonka, Martin & Lee, Neil & Rodríguez-Pose, Andrés & Eichstaedt, johannes Christopher & Ebert, Tobias, 2018. "Big Data, artificial intelligence and the geography of entrepreneurship in the United States," OSF Preprints c62tn, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:c62tn
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/c62tn
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/5b062f75add54d00134ddfaf/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/c62tn?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David B. Audretsch & Isabel Grilo & A. Roy Thurik (ed.), 2007. "Handbook of Research on Entrepreneurship Policy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3856.
    2. Carter, Nancy M. & Gartner, William B. & Shaver, Kelly G. & Gatewood, Elizabeth J., 2003. "The career reasons of nascent entrepreneurs," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 13-39, January.
    3. Sam Youl Lee & Richard Florida & Zoltan J. Acs, 2008. "Creativity and Entrepreneurship: A Regional Analysis of New Firm Formation," Chapters, in: Entrepreneurship, Growth and Public Policy, chapter 13, pages 171-182, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    4. Edward L. Glaeser & Scott Duke Kominers & Michael Luca & Nikhil Naik, 2018. "Big Data And Big Cities: The Promises And Limitations Of Improved Measures Of Urban Life," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 114-137, January.
    5. David B. Audretsch & Max Keilbach, 2007. "The localisation of entrepreneurship capital: Evidence from Germany," Papers in Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 86(3), pages 351-365, August.
    6. Zhang, Zhen & Arvey, Richard D., 2009. "Rule breaking in adolescence and entrepreneurial status: An empirical investigation," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 436-447, September.
    7. Neil Lee, 2017. "Psychology and the Geography of Innovation," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 93(2), pages 106-130, March.
    8. Gilles Duranton & Andres Rodríguez-Pose & Richard Sandall, 2009. "Family Types and the Persistence of Regional Disparities in Europe," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 85(1), pages 23-47, January.
    9. Ben Spigel, 2017. "The Relational Organization of Entrepreneurial Ecosystems," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 41(1), pages 49-72, January.
    10. Keisuke Kondo, 2016. "Hot and cold spot analysis using Stata," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 16(3), pages 613-631, September.
    11. Martin Obschonka & Eva Schmitt-Rodermund & Rainer K. Silbereisen & Samuel D. Gosling & Jeff Potter, 2013. "The Regional Distribution and Correlates of an Entrepreneurship-Prone Personality Profile in the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom: A Socioecological Perspective," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 550, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    12. Sjoerd Beugelsdijk, 2010. "Entrepreneurial Culture, Regional Innovativeness and Economic Growth," Springer Books, in: Andreas Freytag & Roy Thurik (ed.), Entrepreneurship and Culture, chapter 0, pages 129-154, Springer.
    13. Davidsson, Per & Wiklund, Johan, 1997. "Values, beliefs and regional variations in new firm formation rates," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 18(2-3), pages 179-199, April.
    14. Åstebro, Thomas & Thompson, Peter, 2011. "Entrepreneurs, Jacks of all trades or Hobos?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(5), pages 637-649, June.
    15. Stuetzer, Michael & Obschonka, Martin & Audretsch, David B. & Wyrwich, Michael & Rentfrow, Peter J. & Coombes, Mike & Shaw-Taylor, Leigh & Satchell, Max, 2016. "Industry structure, entrepreneurship, and culture: An empirical analysis using historical coalfields," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 52-72.
    16. Nathan Nunn & Leonard Wantchekon, 2011. "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3221-3252, December.
    17. Sternberg, Rolf, 2009. "Regional Dimensions of Entrepreneurship," Foundations and Trends(R) in Entrepreneurship, now publishers, vol. 5(4), pages 211-340, May.
    18. Daniel Arribas-Bel & Karima Kourtit & Peter Nijkamp, 2016. "The sociocultural sources of urban buzz," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(1), pages 188-204, February.
    19. Martin Obschonka & Michael Stuetzer & Samuel D Gosling & Peter J Rentfrow & Michael E Lamb & Jeff Potter & David B Audretsch, 2015. "Entrepreneurial Regions: Do Macro-Psychological Cultural Characteristics of Regions Help Solve the “Knowledge Paradox” of Economics?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-21, June.
    20. James C. Hayton & Gabriella Cacciotti, 2013. "Is there an entrepreneurial culture? A review of empirical research," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(9-10), pages 708-731, December.
    21. Edward L. Glaeser & Sari Pekkala Kerr & William R. Kerr, 2015. "Entrepreneurship and Urban Growth: An Empirical Assessment with Historical Mines," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 498-520, May.
    22. David B. Audretsch & Martin Obschonka & Samuel D. Gosling & Jeff Potter, 2017. "A new perspective on entrepreneurial regions: linking cultural identity with latent and manifest entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 681-697, March.
    23. Avner Greif & Guido Tabellini, 2010. "Cultural and Institutional Bifurcation: China and Europe Compared," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 135-140, May.
    24. Robert Huggins & Piers Thompson, 2019. "The behavioural foundations of urban and regional development: culture, psychology and agency," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 121-146.
    25. Rune Dahl Fitjar & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, 2014. "When local interaction does not suffice: sources of firm innovation in urban Norway," Chapters, in: André Torre & Frédéric Wallet (ed.), Regional Development and Proximity Relations, chapter 5, pages 195-222, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    26. Emanuela Carbonara & Enrico Santarelli & Martin Obschonka & Hien Thu Tran & Jeff Potter & Samuel D Gosling, 2018. "Agency culture, constitutional provisions and entrepreneurship: a cross-country analysis," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 27(3), pages 507-524.
    27. Michael Stuetzer & David B. Audretsch & Martin Obschonka & Samuel D. Gosling & Peter J. Rentfrow & Jeff Potter, 2018. "Entrepreneurship culture, knowledge spillovers and the growth of regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(5), pages 608-618, May.
    28. Martin Obschonka & Michael Stuetzer, 2017. "Integrating psychological approaches to entrepreneurship: the Entrepreneurial Personality System (EPS)," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 49(1), pages 203-231, June.
    29. Tata, Amulya & Martinez, Daniella Laureiro & Garcia, David & Oesch, Adrian & Brusoni, Stefano, 2017. "The psycholinguistics of entrepreneurship," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 38-44.
    30. Magnus Lofstrom, 2013. "Does self-employment increase the economic well-being of low-skilled workers?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 40(4), pages 933-952, May.
    31. Obschonka, Martin & Stuetzer, Michael & Gosling, Samuel D. & Rentfrow, Peter J. & Lamb, Michael E. & Potter, Jeff & Audretsch, David B., 2015. "Entrepreneurial Regions: Do Macro-psychological Cultural Characteristics of Regions help solve the “Knowledge Paradox” of Economics?," MPRA Paper 65323, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    32. Luigi Curini & Stefano Iacus & Luciano Canova, 2015. "Measuring Idiosyncratic Happiness Through the Analysis of Twitter: An Application to the Italian Case," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 121(2), pages 525-542, April.
    33. Peter J Rentfrow & Markus Jokela & Michael E Lamb, 2015. "Regional Personality Differences in Great Britain," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-20, March.
    34. Michael Fritsch & Michael Wyrwich, 2014. "The Long Persistence of Regional Levels of Entrepreneurship: Germany, 1925-2005," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(6), pages 955-973, June.
    35. Jule Specht & Boris Egloff & Stefan C. Schmukle, 2011. "Stability and Change of Personality across the Life Course: The Impact of Age and Major Life Events on Mean-Level and Rank-Order Stability of the Big Five," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 377, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    36. James C. Hayton & Gerard George & Shaker A. Zahra, 2002. "National Culture and Entrepreneurship : A Review of Behavioral Research," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 26(4), pages 33-52, July.
    37. Robert C. Kloosterman, 2010. "Matching opportunities with resources: A framework for analysing (migrant) entrepreneurship from a mixed embeddedness perspective," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 25-45, January.
    38. Obschonka, Martin & Stuetzer, Michael & Rentfrow, Peter J. & Shaw-Taylor, Leigh & Satchell, Max & Silbereisen, Rainer K. & Potter, Jeff & Gosling, Samuel D., 2018. "In the shadow of coal: How large-scale industries contributed to present-day regional differences in personality and well-being," MPRA Paper 89645, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Williamson, Amanda Jasmine & Battisti, Martina & Pollack, Jeffrey M., 2022. "Capturing passion expressed in text with artificial intelligence (AI): Affective passion waned, and identity centrality was sustained in social ventures," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Obschonka & Neil Lee & Andrés Rodríguez-Pose & Johannes C. Eichstaedt & Tobias Ebert, 2020. "Big data methods, social media, and the psychology of entrepreneurial regions: capturing cross-county personality traits and their impact on entrepreneurship in the USA," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 55(3), pages 567-588, October.
    2. Martin Obschonka & Mingjie Zhou & Yixin Zhou & Jianxin Zhang & Rainer K. Silbereisen, 2019. "“Confucian” traits, entrepreneurial personality, and entrepreneurship in China: a regional analysis," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 961-979, December.
    3. Michael Fritsch & Martin Obschonka & Michael Wyrwich, 2018. "Historical Roots of Entrepreneurial Culture and Innovation Activity?An Analysis for German Regions," Papers in Evolutionary Economic Geography (PEEG) 1824, Utrecht University, Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Group Economic Geography, revised Jun 2018.
    4. Reher, Leonie & Runst, Petrik & Thomä, Jörg, 2024. "Personality and regional innovativeness: An empirical analysis of German patent data," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 53(6).
    5. Michael Stuetzer & David B. Audretsch & Martin Obschonka & Samuel D. Gosling & Peter J. Rentfrow & Jeff Potter, 2018. "Entrepreneurship culture, knowledge spillovers and the growth of regions," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(5), pages 608-618, May.
    6. Huan Yang & Xinning Zhang, 2023. "Persistence of culture: how the entrepreneurial culture of origin contributes to migrant entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 1179-1204, October.
    7. Michael Wyrwich & Michael Stuetzer & Rolf Sternberg, 2016. "Entrepreneurial role models, fear of failure, and institutional approval of entrepreneurship: a tale of two regions," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 46(3), pages 467-492, March.
    8. Obschonka, Martin & Stuetzer, Michael & Peter, Rentfrow & Jeff, Potter & Samuel, Gosling, 2017. "Did Strategic Bombing in the Second World War lead to ‘German Angst’? A large-scale empirical test across 89 German cities," MPRA Paper 83680, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Rolf Sternberg, 2022. "Entrepreneurship and geography—some thoughts about a complex relationship," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 69(3), pages 559-584, December.
    10. Robert Huggins & Piers Thompson & Martin Obschonka, 2018. "Human behaviour and economic growth: A psychocultural perspective on local and regional development," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 50(6), pages 1269-1289, September.
    11. Tavassoli, Sam & Obschonka, Martin & Audretsch, David B., 2021. "Entrepreneurship in Cities," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 50(7).
    12. Michael Fritsch & Michael Wyrwich, 2017. "Persistence of Regional Entrepreneurship: Causes, Effects, and Directions for Future Research," Jena Economics Research Papers 2017-003, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    13. Joan-Lluís Capelleras & Ignacio Contin-Pilart & Martin Larraza-Kintana & Victor Martin-Sanchez, 2019. "Entrepreneurs’ human capital and growth aspirations: the moderating role of regional entrepreneurial culture," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 3-25, January.
    14. Stuetzer, Michael & Obschonka, Martin & Audretsch, David B. & Wyrwich, Michael & Rentfrow, Peter J. & Coombes, Mike & Shaw-Taylor, Leigh & Satchell, Max, 2016. "Industry structure, entrepreneurship, and culture: An empirical analysis using historical coalfields," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 52-72.
    15. Katharina Erhardt & Simon Haenni, 2018. "Born to be an entrepreneur? How cultural origin affects entrepreneurship," ECON - Working Papers 309, Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    16. Obschonka, Martin & Stuetzer, Michael & Rentfrow, Peter J. & Shaw-Taylor, Leigh & Satchell, Max & Silbereisen, Rainer K. & Potter, Jeff & Gosling, Samuel D., 2018. "In the shadow of coal: How large-scale industries contributed to present-day regional differences in personality and well-being," MPRA Paper 89645, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Robert Huggins & Michael Stuetzer & Martin Obschonka & Piers Thompson, 2021. "Historical industrialisation, path dependence and contemporary culture: the lasting imprint of economic heritage on local communities [Technology and the labour market]," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 21(6), pages 841-867.
    18. David B. Audretsch & Martin Obschonka & Samuel D. Gosling & Jeff Potter, 2017. "A new perspective on entrepreneurial regions: linking cultural identity with latent and manifest entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 48(3), pages 681-697, March.
    19. Fritsch, Michael & Obschonka, Martin & Wahl, Fabian & Wyrwich, Michael, 2020. "The deep imprint of Roman sandals: Evidence of long-lasting effects of Roman rule on personality, economic performance, and well-being in Germany," Hohenheim Discussion Papers in Business, Economics and Social Sciences 05-2020, University of Hohenheim, Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences.
    20. Martin Obschonka & Michael Stuetzer & Samuel D Gosling & Peter J Rentfrow & Michael E Lamb & Jeff Potter & David B Audretsch, 2015. "Entrepreneurial Regions: Do Macro-Psychological Cultural Characteristics of Regions Help Solve the “Knowledge Paradox” of Economics?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-21, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • L26 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Entrepreneurship
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:c62tn. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://osf.io/preprints/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.