Født til Succes? Knopskydninger som kilde til innovation

This article presents the latest theoretical research in the link between the experiential background of entrepreneurs and their future success and innovative ability. A number of studies indicate that those factors are closely connected through inherited organisational routines imported by the entrepreneur from his former workplace. This theoretical assertion is examined through a detailed study of the development of the wireless communications industry around the city of Aalborg, and through references to a quantitative study of 3.500 start-ups in the Danish production sector. Both studies point in the direction that new spin-offs with experience from sound enterprises are more likely to succeed, and that those spin-offs are more innovative in the start-up phase than are other, older enterprises.