Entrepreneurial intention: An empirical insight to nascent entrepreneurs

XXIII - ISPIM ConferenceBarcelona - 20th June

Francesc Miralles - fmiralles@salle.url.eduCarla Riverola - criverola@salle.url.edu

Agenda

Introduction

Literature Review

Research Question

Research Design

Empirical Results

Conclusions

IntroductionNew companies are creators of new jobs Entrepreneurship is considered an important economic force (Davidsson 1995).

There is an interest on identifying the individual’s influencing factors on becoming entrepreneurs to promote entrepreneurship. – From the point of view of behaviours, intentions are good predictors.

Research on entrepreneurial intention has been using student samples, not many researchers have included nascent entrepreneurs.

The main contribution of this research is to provide a deeper understanding of entrepreneurial intention through the study of nascent entrepreneurs.

Results based on nascent entrepreneurs provide significant insights on the understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour.

Literature Review (1/3)First approaches were based on analysing some factors or common patterns among entrepreneurs (p.e. McClelland 1961).

Gartner (1988) challenged the whole approach by arguing that the behaviour of creating a new venture, not the personality of the founder, should be fundamental to the object of study.

Focusing on the pre-decision stage of becoming entrepreneur, intentions seem to be the best predictor of behaviour (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975).

Intentions capture the motivational factors (such as needs, values, wants, habits, and beliefs) which influence behaviour (Bird 1988).

Intention-based models provide a good means of examining the precursors to entrepreneurship (Krueger et al 2000).

Literature Review (2/3)The Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB): Indicates the effort that the person will make to carry out that behaviour (entrepreneurship).

(Ajzen 1991; adapted to entrepreneurship by Kolvereid 1996)

Personal Attitude (PA): The perceptions of the personal desirability of being an entrepreneur.

Social Norms (SN): The perceptions of what important people in respondents’ lives think about being an entrepreneur.

Perceived Behavioural Control (PBC): perceived ease or difficulty of being an entrepreneur.

Intention Behaviour

Literature Review (3/3)Lack of diversity on the samples used for testing the TPB in literature.

– Data collected exclusively from students.

– Student samples possess limitations• Most students simply do not have the experience and resources to

judge whether they can be successful entrepreneurs (McGee et al. 2009).

– Nascent entrepreneurs are individuals who have yet to start a new business. • They possess the desire to start a new business and are involved in

specific activities that bring such desires to fruition (Carter et al. 1996).

Research QuestionRQ-1: Do nascent entrepreneurs’ samples exhibit different behaviour patterns compared to student samples when analysing entrepreneurial intention?

Related to personal characteristics and situational variables:

– RQ-2A: Do male subsamples of nascent entrepreneurs provide significant differences when explaining entrepreneurial intention, compared to female subsamples?

– RQ-2B: Do age subsamples of nascent entrepreneurs provide differences when explaining entrepreneurial intention?

– RQ-2C: Do educational background subsamples of nascent entrepreneurs provide differences when explaining entrepreneurial intention?

– RQ-2D: Do nascent entrepreneurs who already owned a business exhibit differences towards those who haven’t when explaining entrepreneurial intention?

Research DesignA quantitative method to empirical support for the hypotheses

Survey EIQ (Liñán and Chen 2009). – The EIQ is an instrument to measure Entrepreneurial Intention (EI) and other

variables (PA, SN, and PBC).

Sample Nascent entrepreneurs who attended an enterprise educational programme.– Programme promoted by “Generalitat de Catalunya” & Labour Department.

• Requirements: Involved in an entrepreneurial activity for less than 3 years.• Participants of different profiles: gender, age, etc.

– Surveys were administered in the initial training sessions (Sept-Oct 2010).– A total of 459 questionnaires were taken into analysis.

Empirical ResultsSample R2 (EI)

Krueger et al. 2000

97 35.00%

Líñán and Chen 2009

533 54.90%

ConclusionsThe literature review identified that researchers have been using student samples instead of nascent entrepreneurs for analyzing entrepreneurial behaviour. – Contribution: Analyse entrepreneurial intention on 459 nascent entrepreneurs.

Results– Nascent entrepreneurs provide significant insights to explaining entrepreneurial

behaviour. – Subsamples show significant differences among the categories analysed.

Limitations– Exogenous influences, prior knowledge, motivational criteria.

Implications– Practitioners: This research may interest those entities dedicated to developing

programs in order to enhance entrepreneurship by addressing intention.– Academics: This project offers an accurate relationship of patterns influencing

entrepreneurial intention by analysing real nascent entrepreneurs.