The GEM project is an example of international collaboration between researchers for a harmonized analysis of entrepreneurial activity. Each year, this project includes data from dozens of countries to measure the entrepreneurial initiative of the population, as well as the environmental conditions in which new businesses are developed. The data collected allows for the publication of periodic reports on entrepreneurship at the global, national, regional and local levels.

In addition, these data also publish special monographic reports on specific aspects of the entrepreneurial phenomenon (eg entrepreneurship and gender, entrepreneurship education and training, rural entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs with high growth potential, entrepreneurship funding, social entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship). corporate, among others).

The project began in 10 countries in 1999 with the support of London Business School and Babson College. Since then, about 115 countries have participated in various editions of the project, which has been running for 21 years. The number of participants in this 2020-2021 edition is 50 countries.

The GEM project provides data on several basic aspects of understanding entrepreneurship. This report highlights the following aspects:

1. Values, perceptions and entrepreneurial attitudes of the adult population.
2. Levels of entrepreneurial activity and characteristics of those who do it.
3. Statements of business quality resulting from entrepreneurial activity.
4. The context in which the entrepreneurial process takes place.

Methodology

From a classical point of view, economic growth and prosperity have been explained as promoters of basic requirements and efficiency that help established firms to exploit resources under the right conditions, with the use of investment in capital and labor.

More recently, human capital has also been incorporated into growth models and the importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in the economic development process has begun to be recognized. The GEM project focuses on the role of entrepreneurship, given that people’s ability to identify and exploit business opportunities contributes to the economy along with the contribution that established companies make.

People who identify and exploit business opportunities operate within a specific context that affects innovation and entrepreneurship. This context has special social, cultural and economic conditions that make the territory important for promoting entrepreneurial activity.

In this way, the individual’s perception of business opportunities and ability to implement them moderates the specific contexts in which people operate. In other words, in each context, population perceptions and entrepreneurial attitudes generate different outcomes of entrepreneurial activity or business creation processes, with different signs of the level or quality of the desires of the businesses created.

Influenced by innovation and entrepreneurship to analyze the conditions of the context, the GEM project collects data through a survey of experts (NES). In order to analyze entrepreneurial attitudes, the results of entrepreneurial activity and the quality statements of the businesses created, the data are collected through a survey aimed at the adult population (APS acronym).

Finally, the GEM project recognizes that entrepreneurial activity is not only limited to individual and independent adult performance (known as TEA - Total Entrepreneurial Activity), but also arises from the entrepreneurial activities of employees dependent on existing firms.

Measurement of entrepreneurial activity

Entrepreneurial activity is generally conceived as a process of identifying, evaluating and exploiting business opportunities. The GEM project provides a number of indicators to measure the levels of entrepreneurial activity in a territory, identifying people involved in business initiatives at different stages of the entrepreneurship process. These stages include the period in which a person intends to start in the near future, the period in which an initial business is set up, the period in which he owns and manages a new business, the period in which the created business is established, and the period in which he leaves a business.

The following are the different indicators of the GEM project related to the entrepreneurship process:

• Percentage of potential entrepreneurs or the adult population (aged 18 to 64) who have indicated their intention to start a new business in the next 3 years.
• Percentage of employers or adults who have invested time and effort in starting a business but have not paid salaries for more than three months.
• Percentage of new or adult entrepreneurs who own a business that has been paid for more than 3 months and less than 42 months. So the percentage of entrepreneurs in non-established companies.
• Entrepreneurship activity rate (TEA) or initial phase, which is the main indicator prepared by the GEM project, and which corresponds to the sum of the percentage of initial entrepreneurs and the percentage of new entrepreneurs.
• Percentage of entrepreneurs or adults who own businesses that are established in the market after paying salaries for more than 42 months.
• Indicator of leaving the company: measured as a percentage of adults who have closed or canceled their business in the last 12 months.