An Exploration in Sustainability and Lifespan of Enterprise: A Cross–Country Empirical Study (2011–2020)

There has been a plethora of research works about entrepreneurship in the last two decades since enterprises are now treated as one the major driving forces, if not the most influential, of global economy as a whole. To quote Filion (2021): “The term ‘entrepreneur’ is a French word derived from the verb ‘entreprendre’, which means to do or to undertake. It can be divided into two parts, ‘entre’, meaning ‘between’, and ‘preneur’ meaning ‘taker’. Literally, then, an entre- preneur is a ‘between-taker’, or ‘go- between.” On the other hand, the term ‘enterprise’ has originated from ‘emprise’ (Root Latin word: Imprisia) which refers to something bold, firm, and daring (Vérin, 1982; pp. 31–33). This research paper has attempted to construct a structural model to establish a regressionary relationship between the regressand enterprise growth, and the regressors bankruptcy, venture capital investment, and enterprise life span respectively by using a mix of empirical panel data and time series study on 5 sample European countries for the time period of 10 years (2011–2020). The derived statistical results proved to be a mixed bag of some interesting findings which could be used as the ‘stepping-stones’ for further research.