New(s) data for entrepreneurship research? An innovative approach to use Big Data on media coverage
- PDF / 1,041,332 Bytes
- 22 Pages / 547.087 x 737.008 pts Page_size
- 6 Downloads / 171 Views
New(s) data for entrepreneurship research? An innovative approach to use Big Data on media coverage Johannes von Bloh & Tom Broekel & Burcu Özgun & Rolf Sternberg
Accepted: 20 April 2019 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Although conventional register and survey data on entrepreneurship have enabled remarkable insights into the phenomenon, the added value has slowed down noticeably over the last decade. There is a need for fresh approaches utilising modern data sources such as Big Data. Until now, it has been quite unknown whether Big Data actually embodies valuable contributions for entrepreneurship research and where it can perform better or worse than conventional approaches. To contribute towards the exploration of Big Data in entrepreneurship research, we use a newly developed dataset based on publications of the German Press Agency (dpa) to explore the relationship between news coverage of entrepreneurship and regional entrepreneurial activity. Furthermore, we apply sentiment analysis to investigate the impact on sentiment of entrepreneurial press releases. Our results show mixed outcomes regarding the relationship between reporting of entrepreneurial events, i.e. media coverage, and entrepreneurial activity in German planning regions. At this stage, our empirical J. von Bloh (*) : T. Broekel : R. Sternberg Institute of Economic and Cultural Geography, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Hanover, Germany e-mail: [email protected] T. Broekel : B. Özgun Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands B. Özgun Department of Economics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey
results reject the idea of a strong relationship between actual entrepreneurial activities in regions and the intensity of it being reported. However, the results also imply much potential of Big Data approaches for further research with more sophisticated methodology approaches. Our paper provides an entry point into Big Data usage in entrepreneurship research and we suggest a number of relevant research opportunities based on our results. Keywords Entrepreneurship . Media coverage . Mass media . Big Data . Sentiment analysis . GEM . Entrepreneurial ecosystem . Region . News data JEL classification C8 . L26 . R12
1 Introduction New, vast amounts of data and data sources for scientific research have become available in recent years and seem to be ripe for the taking, i.e. to be analysed with sophisticated algorithms and Big Data approaches. Big Data is a reality, and it needs to be harvested for scientific purposes. This includes entrepreneurship research. Yet so far, relatively few efforts have been made in this direction. Most of the research in entrepreneurship still relies on insight from traditional data sources like registers and surveys. Investigating value and possibilities of all kinds of new and promising Big Data sources to unveil novel insights into entrepreneurship, however, seems to be the necessary next step. Although in
Data Loading...
