Does entrepreneurial self-efficacy distinguish entrepreneurs from managers?

Previous research on the psychology of entrepreneurs found that personality traits such as locus of control failed to distinguish entrepreneurs from managers. In search of an individual characteristic that is distinctively entrepreneurial, we proposed an entrepreneurial self-efficacy construct (ESE) to predict the likelihood of an individual being an entrepreneur. ESE refers to the strength of a person’s belief that he or she is capable of successfully performing the various roles and tasks of entrepreneurship. It consists of five factors: marketing, innovation, management, risk-taking, and financial control.We conducted two studies, one on students and the other on small business executives. Study 1 found that the total ESE score differentiated entrepreneurship students from students of both management and organizational psychology, and that across the three types of students, ESE was positively related to the intention to set up one’s own business. We also found the entrepreneurship students to have higher self-efficacy in marketing, management, and financial control than the management and psychology students. In study 2, we simultaneously tested effects of ESE and locus of control on the criteria of founders vs. nonfounders of current businesses. After controlling for individual and company background variables, the effect of ESE scores was significant, but the effect of locus of control was not. More specifically, it was found that business founders had higher self-efficacy in innovation and risk-taking than did nonfounders.The results of this study demonstrate the potential of entrepreneurial self-efficacy as a distinct characteristic of the entrepreneur. From these results, some important implications can be drawn on entrepreneurial assessment, education, counseling, and community intervention. First, ESE can be used to identify reasons for entrepreneurial avoidance. There may be many individuals who shun entrepreneurial activities not because they actually lack necessary skills but because they believe they do. This is especially true for sectors of the population such as women or those minority groups who are perceived as lacking entrepreneurial traditions. Communities and individuals could benefit from identifying sources of entrepreneurial avoidance by targeting their efforts toward enhancing ESE of particular groups or individuals for specific aspects of entrepreneurship.An additional use of ESE is to identify areas of strength and weakness to assess the entrepreneurial potential of both an individual and a community. Once entrepreneurial potential is identified, resources can be channeled and more effectively used to promote entrepreneurship. Finally, diagnosis and treatment of ESE can be performed on real entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur may be completely avoiding, or performing less frequently, certain critical entrepreneurial activities because s/he lacks self-efficacy. For example, the entrepreneur may be avoiding company growth for fear of losing control. Identification and removal of self-doubt will enable the entrepreneur to be actively engaged in entrepreneurial tasks, more persistent in the face of difficulty and setbacks, and more confident in meeting challenges.Overall, ESE is a moderately stable belief and requires systematic and continuous efforts to be changed. Two broad approaches can be taken toward desired change. One is the micro-approach that directly focuses on people’s beliefs. In designing and conducting entrepreneurship courses, training institutions should not just train students in critical entrepreneurial skills and capabilities but also strengthen their entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The current state of entrepreneurship courses in most management schools may fall short in both respects. Courses focus on commonly identified management skills, but often ignore entrepreneurial skills such as innovation and risk-taking. Furthermore, the teaching of entrepreneurial skills tends to be technical, with insufficient attention paid to the cognition and belief systems of the entrepreneur. Educators should take into account entrepreneurial attitudes and perceptions when designing or assessing their course objectives. Conscious efforts could be made to enhance ESE by involving the students in “real-life” business design or community small business assistance, by inviting successful entrepreneurs to lecture, and by verbal persuasion from the instructor and renowned entrepreneurs.The second approach to enhancing ESE is to work on the environment of potential and actual entrepreneurs. According to the reciprocal causation model, the environment may affect self-efficacy not only directly but also indirectly through performance. An environment perceived to be more supportive will increase entrepreneurial self-efficacy because individuals assess their entrepreneurial capacities in reference to perceived resources, opportunities, and obstacles existing in the environment. Personal efficacy is more likely to be developed and sustained in a supportive environment than in an adverse one. A supportive environment is also more likely to breed entrepreneurial success, which in turn further enhances entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Communities can work toward creating an efficacy enhancing environment by making resources both available and visible, publicizing entrepreneurial successes, increasing the diversity of opportunities, and avoiding policies that create real or perceived obstacles.     

A theory of serial entrepreneurship

The contribution of serial entrepreneurs to entrepreneurial activity is significant: in Europe, 18–30% of entrepreneurs are serial; in the US, their contribution is about one-eighth. Yet, theories of entrepreneurship and industry dynamics presume that all firms are launched by novice entrepreneurs and firm failure is synonymous with exit from entrepreneurship. We propose a theory of serial entrepreneurship in which an entrepreneur has three occupational choices: maintain his business in operation, shut it down to enter the labor market to earn an exogenous wage, or shut it down to launch a new venture while incurring a serial startup cost. In equilibrium, a high-skill entrepreneur shuts down a business of low quality to become a serial entrepreneur, launching and subsequently closing firms until a high quality business is found; a low-skill entrepreneur shuts down a business of low quality to enter the labor market, never to become a serial entrepreneur. A decrease in the wage or serial startup cost, or an increase in the startup capital, enhances the contribution of serial entrepreneurs to entrepreneurial activity and promotes new firm formation (by increasing entrepreneurship and the number of new firms that survive), but its effect on the exit rate of new firms is ambiguous. We show the model is consistent with evidence relating to the impact of an entrepreneur’s characteristics and prior experience in entrepreneurship on the survival of his firm and his entry into and survival in entrepreneurship.     

Who is an expat-preneur? Toward a better understanding of a key talent sector supporting international entrepreneurship

The conceptualization of immigrant entrepreneurs has recently expanded to consider some of them as a sub-type of self-initiated expatriates that move across national borders to engage in entrepreneurial activities and opportunities. Known as “expat-preneurs,” and in spite of their growing numbers, this segment of the immigrant entrepreneur population has received far less attention than other types of immigrants in the international and diaspora entrepreneurship literature, and even less attention in the self-initiated expatriate field of study. In this article, we seek to address the gap in empirical studies about expat-preneurs as an important, albeit under-researched, segment of the immigrant entrepreneur and self-initiated expatriate diaspora. While we acknowledge that there may be controversy as to how our entrepreneurship lens is accepted in the international entrepreneurship domain, we see particular value in engaging with the ongoing and emerging discussion within JIEN about what international entrepreneurship can be. To advance the study of expat-preneurs from a theoretical standpoint, we demonstrate empirically that aggregating various kinds of self-initiated expatriates without first ensuring that they are demographically comparable (i.e., that there can be different types) can potentially contribute to poor construct clarity and validity about this field of research in general. More importantly, it can diminish the important role of expat-preneurs in particular within the international entrepreneurship domain, for example, by ignoring that their motivation to engage in entrepreneurial activity differs from the majority of necessity-based diaspora entrepreneurs. To illustrate our point, we surveyed self-initiated expatriates in China, Hong Kong, and Singapore and compared personal characteristics. We found differences regarding their age, position, time in current job in the host location, time as an expatriate, and time in the host location overall to suggest that not all self-initiated expatriates are the same. While we found no intergroup differences for educational level, gender, or marital status, clear distinctions emerged showing that expat-preneurs are different from company-employed self-initiated expatriates. We discuss theoretical implications arising from these findings.     

Entrepreneurial alertness and asymmetric information in a spin-glass model

The purpose of this article is to investigate the relative role played by alertness and asymmetric information on entrepreneurial decisions. The article presents a model in which an individual decides whether to become an entrepreneur based on her alertness and on the information available in her environment. Spin-glass simulations are used to illustrate the dynamics of the decisional process. According to the results, more alert agents have higher probabilities of exhibiting entrepreneurial behavior. However, if information is evenly distributed, the number of entrepreneurs is shown to remain low even when agents are highly alert. If, on the other hand, information is not evenly distributed, entrepreneurship is shown to increase and concentrate geographically. These results are consistent with observed clustering of entrepreneurial activity. In addition, entrepreneurship is identified as a path-dependent phenomenon. As a result, the model suggests that certain political and institutional settings are more conducive to entrepreneurship than others and implies that short-term policies aimed at increasing the prevalence of entrepreneurship are likely to be ineffective.     

A structural model of the effects of entrepreneurial characteristics on venture performance

Venture capitalists, “angel” investors, and experienced, successful entrepreneurs, when asked to identify the most important determinant of new venture performance, will undoubtedly answer “the entrepreneur.” Likewise, prominent academic scholars responsible for the accelerating development of entrepreneurship theory and research would almost always agree. Unfortunately, empirical and theoretical understanding of the influence of the entrepreneur on new venture performance (NVP) has long been stymied. Studies of entrepreneurial characteristics have failed to demonstrate convincing links with entrepreneurial states of being or with NVP, though studies of the former have shown more promise than have those of the latter. In an attempt to explain the failure to link entrepreneurial characteristics with performance and thus to stimulate and modify research agendas, this paper derives a structural, causal model of the relationships between entrepreneurial characteristics and performance. This derivation draws upon current psychological, management, economic, and entrepreneurship theory.Though there is considerable controversy in the field of psychology concerning the ability of personality traits to explain behavior, it is accepted by many that such traits do exist, that they are stable over time, and that they explain behaviors if the level of aggregation is wide enough. In 1988, Hollenbeck and Whitener noted that one of the problems in using personality traits to explain job performance was that such traits are mediated by motivation and moderated by abilities in their causal connection to performance. Thus personality traits are somewhat removed from performance in the causal chain of events. Applied to the study of the entrepreneur, this research suggests that an initial model of the “entrepreneurial characteristics → NVP” relationship must include the mediating role of motivation and the moderating role of entrepreneurial management abilities.This paper further redefines this emerging model of “entrepreneurial characteristics → NVP” by drawing upon other literature from the field of psychology. This literature suggests that “entrepreneurial behavior” and the context in which it is performed both intervene between motivation and ability in their relation to NVP. The paper concludes this section with a psychology-based model of the “characteristics → NVP” relationship that is more comprehensive and realistic than prior models in the entrepreneurship literature.The paper next draws from strategic management, entrepreneurship, and economics literature along with Sandberg's (1986) model of NVP [NVP = f(E,IS,S)] to show that any model of the connection between entrepreneurial characteristics and NVP must further recognize the relationship between strategy and NVP as well as industry structure and NVP. The resultant model suggests strategy and industry structure are “context” variables that interdependently interact with entrepreneurial behaviors to influence NVP. This adaptation of the model is reinforced and expanded by reviewing the management literature on matching managers to situations which in turn implies that the effects of entrepreneurial behaviors on NVP are contingent upon strategy and industry structure. Thus strategy and industry structure, though ultimately determined by entrepreneurial behavior, are themselves important inputs to the behavioral context of entrepreneurship.The last part of the paper examines decision-making, skills, aptitudes, and training as components helping to refine our understanding of the role of motivation as a mediator and ability as a moderator in a model of the “entrepreneurial characteristics → NVP” relationship. The intent here is to identify specific variables that can be studied or acted upon [in an applied sense] to improve the NVP impact of entrepreneurial behaviors.It is hoped that explication of this model will encourage future entrepreneurship research that seeks to examine causes of NVP to reintroduce “the entrepreneur” as the focus or a focus of the research. Hopefully a more fully developed model that includes motivations, abilities, skills, aptitudes, and training as elements in “modeling” entrepreneurial behavior along with the need for strategy and industry structure contexts provides a more compelling and risk-worthy starting point for such research. This should provide an impetus to put the entrepreneur back. into a central position in entrepreneurship research, where both theory and practitioners say he/she belongs.     

Towards a theory of entrepreneurship

Over 200 years of the study of entrepreneurship have provided many definitions of the word “entrepreneur”. However, no theory of entrepreneurship has been developed that would explain or predict when an entrepreneur, by any of the definitions, might appear or engage in entrepreneurship. Indeed, the search for a best definition may have impeded the development of theory.The Schumpeter economic outcome-based concept that an entrepreneur creates value by carrying out new combinations causing discontinuity is embodied in many of the definitions offered within the last 50 years. We strongly recommend the adoption of Schumpeter's definition for academic and policy-making purposes.We offer the following tentative entrepreneurship theory, extracted from anecdotal observations and extant literature, in the hope that it will better explain and begin to predict the phenomenon of entrepreneurship:“A person will carry out a new combination, causing discontinuity, under conditions of:

• 1.1. Task-related motivation,
• 2.2. Expertise,
• 3.3. Expectation of personal gain, and
• 4.4. A supportive environment.

”Several relevant research questions are posed in the hope that they will encourage discontinuity in further development of theory.     

Entrepreneurship as the nexus of individual and opportunity: A structuration view

We propose structuration theory as a useful lens through which to view the entrepreneurial process. Extending Shane and Venkataraman's work (Shane, S., Venkataraman, S., 2000. The promise of entrepreneurship as a field of research. Academy of Management Review 25, 217–226), entrepreneurship is presented as the nexus of opportunity and agency, whereby opportunities are not singular phenomena, but are idiosyncratic to the individual. Entrepreneurial ventures are the medium and outcome of the entrepreneurs' actions. The traditional view of entrepreneurship is that entrepreneurs fill market gaps. A structuration view proposes that the entrepreneur and social systems co-evolve. The presentation of structuration theory offers a robust, and hereto underrepresented, perspective of the entrepreneurial process.     

Entrepreneurship as a utility maximizing response

Research on entrepreneurship has investigated what entrepreneurs do, what happens when they act as entrepreneurs, and why they act as entrepreneurs. This paper contributes to the latter investigation, and specifically asks why some people choose to be entrepreneurs, while others choose to be employees. Responding to prior literature recognizing the lack of a coherent theory of entrepreneurship and calling for a rigorous examination of the decision to become an entrepreneur, this paper presents an economic model of the career decision. We postulate that the individual chooses an entrepreneurial career path, or a career as an employee, or some combination of the two, according to which career path promises maximal utility (or psychic satisfaction).We assume that the individual's utility from any particular occupation, whether self-employed or employed, depends on income (which depends in turn on ability), as well as working conditions such as decision-making control, risk exposure, work effort required, and other working conditions (net perquisites) associated with that occupation. Individuals will exhibit either preference or aversion towards each of the specified working conditions, and it is the degree of that preference or aversion, in conjunction with the quantum of each working condition, which determines the total utility that the individual will derive from each particular occupation.We show that all employees will have an incentive to be self-employed (if they could assemble the same resources as their employer). Also, the greater their managerial and entrepreneurial ability, the greater will be their incentive to be self-employed, other things being equal. Next, we show that a more positive attitude to work (i.e., a lesser aversion to work effort required) provides a greater incentive to be self-employed.The individual's degree of risk aversion also influences the choice to be an entrepreneur. The more tolerant one is of risk bearing, the greater the incentive to be self-employed. Similarly, the greater the preference for independence, or decision-making control, the greater the incentive to be self-employed. Finally, it is noted that perquisites (and avoidance of irksome elements) can potentially be controlled to a greater degree when self-employed, so the individual will consider the differences in these other working conditions when contemplating a career choice.But it is the sum of the utility and disutility from these sources which determines the career decision. Thus, we demonstrate that positive attitudes toward risk, work, and independence are neither necessary nor sufficient conditions for a person to want to be an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurial abilities and attitudes are desirable in employment situations, therefore, an employer may choose to bribe an entrepreneurial individual to be an employee by offering more income and greater independence, for example.We demonstrate that firms recruiting employees, or venture capitalists considering funding an entrepreneur, should in their own best interests investigate the person's attitudes toward income, risk, work, and independence as well as their abilities, as these attitudes underpin the person's worth as an employee and their incentive to be self-employed. Management educators should design programs which enhance the entrepreneurial abilities and attitudes of individuals, and the individuals themselves should consider their `attitudinal' make-up before committing to entrepreneurship.     

Entrepreneurship in the Region: Breeding Ground for Nascent Entrepreneurs?

This paper employs data from the German Socioeconomic Panel (SOEP) and data from the German Social Insurance Statistics to study nascent entrepreneurship. In particular, micro data from the SOEP characterizing employees and nascent entrepreneurs is combined with data characterizing the entrepreneurial environment. The principal findings suggest that individuals are embedded in their local entrepreneurial environment which influences an individual especially at the beginning of the decision process about whether to become self-employed. Work and previous self-employment experience is more important than formal education for the likelihood of being a nascent entrepreneur. Furthermore, social capital is an important stimulus for nascent entrepreneurs. Finally, the results indicate that financial assets are less important for nascent entrepreneurs.     

The development of an infrastructure for entrepreneurship

This paper takes a macroperspective of entrepreneurship, and focuses on the issues and events involved in constructing an industrial infrastructure that facilitates and constrains entrepreneurship. This infrastructure includes: (1) institutional arrangements to legitimate, regulate, and standardize a new technology, (2) public resource endowments of basic scientific knowledge, financing mechanisms, and a pool of competent labor, as well as (3) proprietary R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution functions by private entrepreneurial firms to commercialize the innovation for profit. Although extensive research substantiates the importance of these infrastructure components, they have been treated as externalities to entrepreneurship. By incorporating these components within a single framework, one can systematically examine how various actors and functions interact to facilitate and constrain entrepreneurship.The paper makes three contributions to understanding entrepreneurship. First, I believe that the study of entrepreneurship is deficient if it focuses exclusively on the characteristics and behaviors of individual entrepreneurs, on the one hand, and if it treats the social, economic, and political factors influencing entrepreneurship as external demographic statistics, on the other hand. Popular folklore notwithstanding, the process of entrepreneurship is a collective achievement requiring key roles from numerous entrepreneurs in both the public and private sectors.Second, the paper examines how and why this infrastructure for entrepreneurship emerges. I argue that while this infrastructure facilitates and constrains individual entrepreneurs, it is the latter who construct and change the industrial infrastructure. This infrastructure does not emerge and change all at once by the actions of one or even a few key entrepreneurs. Instead, it emerges through the accretion of numerous institutional, resource, and proprietary events that co-produce each other over an extended period. Moreover, the very institutional arrangements and resource endowments created to facilitate industry emergence can become inertial forces that hinder subsequent technological development and adaptation by proprietary firms. This generative process has a dynamic history that is itself important to study systematically if one is to understand how novel forms of technologies, organizations, and institutions emerge.Finally, the paper emphasizes that the process of entrepreneurship is not limited to the for-profit sector; numerous entrepreneurial actors in the public and not-for-profit sectors play crucial roles. It motivates one to examine the different roles played by these actors, and how their joint contributions interact to develop and commercialize a new technology. This in turn makes it possible to understand how the risk, time, and cost to an individual entrepreneur are significantly influenced by developments in the overall Infrastructure for entrepreneurship. It also explains why the entrepreneurs who run in packs will be more successful than those that go it alone to develop their innovations.     

Entrepreneurs’ creativity and firm innovation: the moderating role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy

There are several studies in entrepreneurship investigating determinants of innovation outcomes in SMEs. Although entrepreneurs’ entrepreneurial creativity is often seen as a prerequisite, previous research indicates it is not an exclusive determinant of innovation. We use theoretical logics of social cognitive theory and innovation theory to develop a conceptual model of entrepreneur’s creativity, self-efficacy, and innovation outcomes. The model is then tested on a large sample of small and medium firms from two distinct economies: the United States and Slovenia. Empirical findings partially support the proposed moderation effects of entrepreneurial self-efficacy, but with the same variations between countries. The implications of these results in relation to entrepreneurship theory and practice are discussed.     

Stigma and business failure: implications for entrepreneurs’ career choices

We use data from global entrepreneurship monitor to examine the act of entrepreneurial reentry by entrepreneurs who exit a failed business. We study reentry by mode of entry and by form of organizing. We find that, in countries where the levels of stigma and regulatory conveyance of stigma markings were at their highest, entrepreneurs who exited failed businesses were less likely to reenter into entrepreneurial activity. Our finding suggests that negative social and economic sanctions that are associated with stigma markings speak only to one side of the entrepreneurship phenomenon. On the other side, stigma can function as a stimulus for entrepreneurs to defy the illegitimacy of the failed business and to actively seek out and engage in innovative behaviors that contribute to the overall diversity of entrepreneurial activities in their country.     

The Corridor Principle

This article discusses how many entrepreneurs create multiple ventures, and thereby apparently lengthen the duration of their entrepreneurial careers. A new concept, called the Corridor Principle, is proposed as a possible explanation of the multiple venture phenomenon. The Corridor Principle states that the mere act of starting a venture enables entrepreneurs to see other venture opportunities they could neither see nor take advantage of until they had started their initial venture.The Corridor Principle presents an alternative model to the linear single venture career model, embodied by such celebrity entrepreneurs as Ray Kroc of MacDonald' s and Kenneth Olsen of Digital Equipment Corp. Six hypotheses test expectations about the timing and duration of entrepreneurial careers, as well as the relationship between entrepreneurial career length and the creation of multiple ventures.The findings strongly support: • the position that entrepreneurship is a dynamic, multi-venture process for a great many entrepreneurs the rule, rather than the exception. • the existence of a positive correlation between finding at least a second venture and realizing a longer entrepreneurial career. Though there are a variety of explanations for this, and the patterns include both sequential and overlapping ventures, the net effect of creating multiple ventures appears to produce a longer entrepreneurial career. • the position that significant numbers of entrepreneurs create their second venture very early in their entrepreneurial careers especially when contrasted to the group of ex-entrepreneurs, who create multiple ventures (if at all) at a slower rate and later in their careers.Overall, these observations reinforce the notion of the Corridor Principle. Though who can and cannot take advantage of the Corridor Principle is not entirely revealed by the data, some indication exists that an entrepreneurs ability to use Corridor Principle strategy to prolong his or her career is related both to age at startup, and to conscious anticipation and preparation for an entrepreneurial career.The main implications for entrepreneurship practitioners, advisors, researchers, teachers and students are these: Whether studying the entrepreneurial process or planning to start an entrepreneurial career, a long-term view should be taken, one that includes the likely possibility of multiple ventures. The minimum economic returns of earlier ventures can be lower than previously thought if these ventures provide entry to subsequent ventures that possess higher (more acceptable) returns to the entrepreneur. The evidence thus far available indicates that the creation of subsequent ventures occurs relatively quickly when corridors of opportunity become visible and attainable after earlier ventures are established. The likelihood of career failure, as opposed to venture failure, may be lowered if one selects earlier ventures based on their potential to reveal follow-on-venture opportunities that the entrepreneur can investigate and possibly pursue.     

Narcissism and learning from entrepreneurial failure

Failure of a prior business provides an opportunity for an entrepreneur to learn in the subsequent entrepreneurial endeavor, but learning from failure is not guaranteed. Why do some entrepreneurs learn less from failure than others? In this study, we propose that a narcissistic personality can create cognitive and motivational obstacles to learning. We further posit that the inhibiting effect of narcissism will be more salient when the costs of failure, especially social costs, are higher. Our analysis with a survey sample of startups provides the initial empirical evidence about the negative impact of narcissism on learning from entrepreneurial failure. The study adds to research on learning from failure and narcissism in entrepreneurship.     

Evaluations of export feasibility by immigrant and non-immigrant entrepreneurs in new technology-based firms

Entrepreneurs evaluate the feasibility of future export opportunities according to individual-level factors and perceived environmental conditions. However, because individual entrepreneurs are heterogeneous in their characteristics, previous experiences, and perceptions of environment, entrepreneurs will differ in their evaluations of internationalization feasibility. In this paper, we investigate whether and how one relevant source of entrepreneur heterogeneity, i.e., migrant condition, impacts the perceived feasibility of exporting opportunities. Drawing on rich primary data collected from a matched-pair sample of 71 immigrant and 69 native entrepreneurs active in non-internationalized new technology-based firms in Italy, we find that the migrant condition positively moderates the relationship between perceived financial public support and perceived feasibility of exporting, whereas it negatively moderates the relationship between international business skills and perceived export feasibility. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and policy in the area of international entrepreneurship.     

Serial entrepreneurship: impact of human capital on time to re-entry

This study uses a longitudinal matched employer–employee database to examine how ex-entrepreneurs’ levels of general and specific human capital influence their likelihood of re-entering entrepreneurship over time, in a different firm, thereby becoming serial entrepreneurs. The results reveal a negative effect of general human capital on the hazard of becoming a serial entrepreneur; the impact of entrepreneurial-specific human capital on the hazard of re-entering entrepreneurship is in general positive. This research provides a dynamic approach to serial entrepreneurship revealing that specific types of human capital play distinct roles on individuals’ entrepreneurial behavior.     

Metaphors and meaning: A grounded cultural model of us entrepreneurship

A grounded cultural model of US entrepreneurship is developed by analysing the metaphors that entrepreneurs use to give meaning to entrepreneurship in their life-and-business narratives. The resultant cultural model is coherent and internally consistent, and is helpful in providing stronger insights into entrepreneurs' own perspectives, aspirations, and cognition of the entrepreneurial process. Close to Schumpeter's conception of the entrepreneur, it nevertheless contains elements that are markedly American, and can be contrasted both with European mental models of entrepreneurship, and metaphorically derived models of organisational behaviour.     

The Role of Entrepreneurial Passion and Creativity in Developing Entrepreneurial Intentions: Insights from American Homebrewers

The study investigates the role of entrepreneurial passion and creativity as antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions, applying social cognitive theory as an underpinning framework. Specifically, this research focuses on American homebrewing, seen as a potential incubator for entrepreneurs. Results demonstrate entrepreneurial passion having a strong positive relationship with entrepreneurial intentions, even when entrepreneurial self‐efficacy is introduced as a mediator. Conversely, the relationship between creativity and entrepreneurial intentions is mediated by entrepreneurial self‐efficacy, confirming that individuals also need to feel self‐efficacious enough to pursue entrepreneurial career. The findings advance the understanding of nascent entrepreneurship phenomenon within a particular hobby context.     

Beyond Achievement: Entrepreneurship as Extreme Experience

How do entrepreneurs experience entrepreneurship, and what are the implications? The cognitive and emotional experiences of the entrepreneur as he/she performs the tasks associated with venture creation and high growth have received limited attention from researchers. The entrepreneurial context can be characterized in terms of peaks and valleys, or periods of relatively high pressure, stress, uncertainty, and ambiguity and periods of relative stability and predictability. Three inter-related psychological variables are investigated to determine their applicability in an entrepreneurial context: peak performance, peak experience, and flow. Results are reported of a series of in-depth, structured interviews conducted with two samples of entrepreneurs. Both qualitative and quantitative evidence is provided of the relevance of all three variables to entrepreneurs, with the highest scores for each variable demonstrated by entrepreneurs in high growth ventures. A number of implications are drawn for ongoing research and entrepreneurial practice, most notably in the area of entrepreneurial motivation. The findings suggest that entrepreneurship be approached as a vehicle for optimal human experiencing.     

基于复杂适应系统理论的学术创业者双元角色协同过程研究

个体的学者角色和创业者角色协同是成功开展学术创业的必要条件。文章将复杂适应系统的特征对应于学术创业者双元角色协同上，借助“刺激—反应”的分析框架，通过纵向案例的方式，探讨了在特殊的复杂的学术创业环境中个体通过认知与行动的交互不断解决角色冲突进而实现双元角色协同的过程。案例发现：个体在解决双元角色的时间冲突、能力冲突和文化表达冲突过程中完成了被动拼凑、核心聚焦和共生协同的演化过程，对环境的适应经历了简单适应、直接适应和复杂适应的阶段。文章提炼的微观层面双元角色协同模型有助于丰富学术创业理论，并为处于不同阶段的学术创业主体成长、调整自身状态提供启示。