Country-level entrepreneurial attitudes and activity through the years: a panel data analysis using fsQCA

This paper presents a novel longitudinal study of entrepreneurial attitudes and activity. The study uses fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) and builds on a previous cross-sectional cross-country investigation. Data for 2007–2017 from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) project are used to compare 108 countries in terms of entrepreneurial attitudes and activity. Considering each country-year GEM observation as a case (in fsQCA terms), causal recipes are found and then interpreted. Elucidation of the nature of the considered panel data set is given by i) analyzing the causal recipes’ consistency across different years and ii) investigating individual countries and their consistency across recipes and years. The study has policy management and future research implications based on the heterogeneous year-on-year relationships identified between entrepreneurial attitudes and activity across different countries. Panel fsQCA and year-specific cross-sectional fsQCA are also compared.