Does the presence of a formal business plan increase formal financial support? Empirical evidence from the PSED II on the signalling and mimetic nature of formal business planning

摘要

In this article, we examine longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II to infer whether formal business planning affects the amount of formal financing raised by nascent entrepreneurs. Our findings suggest that by and large the use of business plans is mimetic and reveals only limited information about the underlying entrepreneur. Yet, entrepreneurs that write formal business plan receive more formal financial support than had they not planned formally.