The development of entrepreneurial activity is essential to achieve sustainable economic growth and development in the euro area. However, the European institutions have not given the same importance to the failure of entrepreneurial activity and its causes. With this in mind, and considering the countries of the euro area, on the basis of Eurostat’s business demography data for the years 2008 to 2016, an analysis of panel data was conducted relating the early failure of self-employed entrepreneurs to their macroeconomic and institutional environment. The results thus show a negative relationship with respect to the quality of formal institutions, entrepreneurial culture and social norms, the efficiency of goods markets and entrepreneurial freedom. On the other hand, a positive relationship is shown with respect to the high status assigned to successful entrepreneurs.

Purpose: Over the last decades, the development of entrepreneurial activity has allowed greater growth and economic development in Spain. However, within the analysis of Spanish entrepreneurial dynamics, insufficient attention has been paid to a key group: senior entrepreneurs. The fact that the first two decades of the 21st century have been accompanied by the two worst economic crises in remembrance since the Great Depression of the 1930s has had a great impact on the professional careers of the group of senior workers, whose careers have been cut short due to the closure of companies. In this way, the present work delves into the reality of senior entrepreneurs in Spain, analyzing the main characteristics of this group, which is becoming increasingly important in society.Design/methodology/approach: Using microdata from the Spanish National Statistics Institute's Labour Force Survey, the study focuses on reference persons who, being 50 years of age or over and actively working, work as an entrepreneur and have started their activity in the last 12 months. The study covers, in turn, the analysis period of the fourth quarters from 2005 to 2020. In relation to the methodology, the work focuses on the use of binary logistic regression techniques, given that the phenomenon to be studied is binary in nature: entrepreneurship or not.Findings: The main conclusions drawn are the importance of sociodemographic factors such as educational level, age, the profession of the couple as well as the fact of having or not having children. The sector of activity and region are also significant. It is also concluded that senior entrepreneurship in Spain is of a necessary nature, considering the evolution of unemployment and decisions based on pension reform.Research limitations/implications: The main limitations of the study refer to the lack of socioeconomic information. Thus, it would be interesting to know the link among the sociodemographic characteristics and the economic situation of the professionals, as well as the fact of whether they have started from a previous situation of unemployment or employment.Practical implications: The obtained conclusions allow progress to be made in the generation of economic policies aimed at the professional reorientation of a group of workers who, due to labor market circumstances, are obliged to end long professional careers and to seek alternatives. In fact, entrepreneurship is a viable professional alternative for these professionals.Originality/value: Despite the importance of senior professionals in the Spanish economy, more research is needed on their characteristics and needs. Despite important studies such as Socci et al. (2020) or Perez-Encinas et al. (2021), there are not many studies for the Spanish reality. This paper seeks to deepen the understanding of the sociodemographic characteristics of Spanish senior entrepreneurs, based on current public information and considering different stages of the economic cycle.

The main feature of the current business reality is the speed of the changes in the environment and the uncertainty they generate. Among these changes, those which stand out for their importance are the ones related to the current digital revolution, which is changing, in a very short period of time, the companies’ business models. From this perspective, and based on panel data for the 2009–2020 period, the study seeks to examine in depth the technological and innovative factors which are related to the entrepreneurial density in euro area countries, with special emphasis on self-employed entrepreneurs. The results obtained show that greater robotization of industrial activities generates entrepreneurial opportunities, while investment in R&D by companies is negatively related to entrepreneurial activity. It is also noteworthy that public investment in R&D and the greater volume of employment in scientific-technological sectors has not been significant in the generation of entrepreneurial opportunities. These conclusions make it possible to identify economic policies to promote entrepreneurial activity, such as training and the generation of a favorable environment for digital innovation and artificial intelligence, but also the incentive for intrapreneurial activity in companies that invest in R&D.

The decision between whether to become self-employed or to work as an employee is a dilemma faced by an increasing number of Spanish professionals. This research investigates the sociodemographic profile of Spanish self-employed workers, and examines the factors in the economic and institutional environment that influence their decision to become self-employed. The sociodemographic characteristics that make up the profile of entrepreneurs who decide to become self-employed are presented using microdata from the Spanish Labour Force Survey, and based on a logistic regression model. The influence of the economic and institutional environment on this tendency towards entrepreneurship is also studied. The results enable us to conclude that favourable factors for entrepreneurship are previous experience as an entrepreneur, the sector in which the individual wishes to be an entrepreneur, the professional's age and sex, their marital status, and the maximum age at they completed their education. As for the environmental perspective, the relative size of the economy and the level of bank credit in the autonomous community of Spain where the entrepreneur wishes to do business has a positive influence on the tendency towards entrepreneurship.