The Impact of Family Business Apprenticeship on Entrepreneurship and Survival of Small Businesses: Evidence from Thailand

This paper investigates the impact of exposure to a family business and participating in a family business on individuals decision to start a business (self-employed and small business) and their likelihood of survival. We find that individuals who have a family member doing business are more likely to start their own business. However, only individuals who have actually worked in the family-owned business are more likely to survive longer. This paper demonstrates that the higher the number of hours they worked in a family business, the higher the probability of survival. The impact remains significant even if the sample includes only individuals who are the spouses of business owners. The impact of prior experience from helping a family business depreciates over a short period of time. This result suggests that entrepreneurial skills can be learnt from an apprenticeship in small businesses.