A cross-country investigation of micro-angel investment activity: The roles of new business opportunities and institutions

Building on international business literature and institutional theory, we examine the joint roles of new business opportunity availability and key formal and informal institutions in a country for explaining the incidence of micro-angel investment activity. Micro-angel investments should increase to the extent that countries demonstrate (1) greater availability of new business opportunities, (2) more protective legal systems, and (3) stronger embeddedness of members in interrelationships. More protective legal systems and stronger embeddedness also may play moderating roles, such that they amplify the relationship between the availability of new business opportunities and the incidence of micro-angel investment activity. Finally, legal protection and embeddedness can substitute for each other, such that the effect of one becomes suppressed at higher levels of the other. Data drawn from different cross-national data sources support these hypotheses. This study is among the first to explain cross-country differences in micro-angel investment activity.

Research highlights
► The incidence of micro-angel investment activity is higher to the extent that countries demonstrate (1) greater availability of new business opportunities, (2) more protective legal systems, and (3) stronger embeddedness of members in interrelationships.
► More protective legal systems and stronger embeddedness play moderating roles, such that they amplify the relationship between the availability of new business opportunities and the incidence of micro-angel investment activity.
► Legal protection and embeddedness substitute for each other, such that the effect of one becomes suppressed at higher levels of the other.