Student: Rui André Pereira Agostinho

Title: “Essays on Workforce Demographics, Entrepreneurial Transitions and Startup Performance”

Date: 29/10/2025

Time: 10h00

Location: Amphitheatre PA-3, Mathematics Building (-1 floor)

Supervisor: Professor Rui Miguel Loureiro Nobre Baptista (IST)

Co-supervisor: Professor Hugo Miguel Fragoso de Castro Silva (IST)

Co-supervisor: Professor Stieneke Jolanda Annemarie Hessels (ESE)

Brief description of the research work: My dissertation comprises three essays examining how workforce demographics shape entrepreneurial entry and startup performance, using Quadros de Pessoal, a matched employer–employee dataset from Portugal. We build on prior research showing that managers are more likely to become entrepreneur; on the “rank effect,” which states that older workers delay younger employees’ promotions to managers, reducing their entrepreneurial prospects; and on the “small firm effect,” which suggests that employees in smaller firms are more likely to become entrepreneurs. The first essay uses sequence analysis to trace career paths into entrepreneurship, showing that managers (especially top managers) and small-firm workers are more likely to become entrepreneurs. The second essay employs discrete-time hazard models, showing that workers in firms with older managers progress more slowly to managerial ranks, which lowers their likelihood to become entrepreneurs, but increases their chances of finding employment in other firms. Lastly, third essay shows that startups with founders and employees coming from small firms perform better initially, while those coming from larger firms, especially those with managerial experience, achieve stronger long-term performance. In sum, our findings show that managerial experience supports both entrepreneurial transitions and firm success, and that small-firm experience increases early performance but may constrain longer-term expansion. 

Research Unit: Centre for Management Studies of IST (CEGIST)