IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/esprep/68590.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who Becomes an Entrepreneur? A 30-Years-Review of Individual-Level Research and an Agenda for Future Research

Author

Listed:
  • Heinrichs, Simon
  • Walter, Sascha

Abstract

This article reviews the theoretical background and cumulates findings of 126 published studies (1980 - 2009) on individual determinants of entrepreneurial status. We categorize determinants into one of six paradigms (trait, cognitive, affective, intentions, learning, and economic) and review findings for 46 repeatedly studied variables. We then examine trends in the field and propose an agenda for future research. Our article complements prior reviews and meta-analyses by picturing the breadth of the field and adding important points to the research agenda.

Suggested Citation

  • Heinrichs, Simon & Walter, Sascha, 2013. "Who Becomes an Entrepreneur? A 30-Years-Review of Individual-Level Research and an Agenda for Future Research," EconStor Preprints 68590, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:esprep:68590
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/68590/1/Who%20Becomes%20an%20Entrepreneur.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Irwin Bernhardt, 1994. "Comparative Advantage in Self-Employment and Paid Work," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 27(2), pages 273-289, May.
    2. Holtz-Eakin, Douglas & Joulfaian, David & Rosen, Harvey S, 1994. "Sticking It Out: Entrepreneurial Survival and Liquidity Constraints," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 53-75, February.
    3. David Goss, 2005. "Schumpeter's Legacy? Interaction and Emotions in the Sociology of Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 29(2), pages 205-218, March.
    4. Dolton, Peter J & Makepeace, G H, 1990. "Self Employment among Graduates," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(1), pages 35-53, January.
    5. Bernard L. Simonin, 1999. "Ambiguity and the process of knowledge transfer in strategic alliances," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(7), pages 595-623, July.
    6. Evan J. Douglas & Dean A. Shepherd, 2002. "Self-Employment as a Career Choice: Attitudes, Entrepreneurial Intentions, and Utility Maximization," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 26(3), pages 81-90, April.
    7. Ajzen, Icek, 1991. "The theory of planned behavior," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 179-211, December.
    8. William Norton & William Moore, 2006. "The Influence of Entrepreneurial Risk Assessment on Venture Launch or Growth Decisions," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 26(3), pages 215-226, April.
    9. repec:bla:obuest:v:62:y:2000:i:5:p:565-87 is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Hansemark, Ove C., 2003. "Need for achievement, locus of control and the prediction of business start-ups: A longitudinal study," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 301-319, June.
    11. Yannis Georgellis & John Sessions & Nikolaos Tsitsianis, 2005. "Windfalls, Wealth, and the Transition to Self-Employment," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 25(5), pages 407-428, December.
    12. Davidsson, Per & Honig, Benson, 2003. "The role of social and human capital among nascent entrepreneurs," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 301-331, May.
    13. Norris Krueger, 1993. "The Impact of Prior Entrepreneurial Exposure on Perceptions of New Venture Feasibility and Desirability," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 18(1), pages 5-21, October.
    14. Borjas, George J & Bronars, Stephen G, 1989. "Consumer Discrimination and Self-employment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 581-605, June.
    15. Andrew E. Burke & Felix R. FitzRoy & Michael A. Nolan, 2000. "When Less is More: Distinguishing Between Entrepreneurial Choice and Performance," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 62(5), pages 565-587, December.
    16. Palich, Leslie E. & Ray Bagby, D., 1995. "Using cognitive theory to explain entrepreneurial risk-taking: Challenging conventional wisdom," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 10(6), pages 425-438, November.
    17. Joseph G. Eisenhauer, 1995. "The Entrepreneurial Decision: Economic Theory and Empirical Evidence," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 19(4), pages 67-79, July.
    18. Andrew Henley, 2004. "Self-Employment Status: The Role of State Dependence and Initial Circumstances," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 22(1), pages 67-82, February.
    19. Begley, Thomas M., 1995. "Using founder status, age of firm, and company growth rate as the basis for distinguishing entrepreneurs from managers of smaller businesses," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 249-263, May.
    20. Ritsila, Jari & Tervo, Hannu, 2002. "Effects of Unemployment on New Firm Formation: Micro-level Panel Data Evidence from Finland," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 31-40, August.
    21. Mueller, Stephen L. & Thomas, Anisya S., 2001. "Culture and entrepreneurial potential: A nine country study of locus of control and innovativeness," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 51-75, January.
    22. Boden, Richard Jr., 1996. "Gender and self-employment selection: An empirical assessment," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 671-682.
    23. Peter B. Robinson & David V. Stimpson & Jonathan C. Huefner & H. Keith Hunt, 1991. "An Attitude Approach to the Prediction of Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 15(4), pages 13-32, July.
    24. Lowell W. Busenitz & Chung-Ming Lau, 1996. "A Cross-Cultural Cognitive Model of New Venture Creation," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 20(4), pages 25-40, July.
    25. Hannu Tervo, 2006. "Regional unemployment, self-employment and family background," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(9), pages 1055-1062.
    26. Evans, David S & Leighton, Linda S, 1989. "Some Empirical Aspects of Entrepreneurship," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(3), pages 519-535, June.
    27. KruegerJR, Norris F. & Reilly, Michael D. & Carsrud, Alan L., 2000. "Competing models of entrepreneurial intentions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 15(5-6), pages 411-432.
    28. Roope Uusitalo, 2001. "Homo entreprenaurus?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(13), pages 1631-1638.
    29. Taylor, Mark P, 1996. "Earnings, Independence or Unemployment: Why Become Self-Employed?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 58(2), pages 253-266, May.
    30. Bates, Timothy, 1995. "Self-employment entry across industry groups," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 143-156, March.
    31. McGrath, Rita Gunther & MacMillan, Ian C., 1992. "More like each other than anyone else? A cross-cultural study of entrepreneurial perceptions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 7(5), pages 419-429, September.
    32. Lee, Soo Hoon & Wong, Poh Kam, 2004. "An exploratory study of technopreneurial intentions: a career anchor perspective," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 7-28, January.
    33. Schiller, Bradley R & Crewson, Philip E, 1997. "Entrepreneurial Origins: A Longitudinal Inquiry," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 35(3), pages 523-531, July.
    34. Boskin, Michael J, 1974. "A Conditional Logit Model of Occupational Choice," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages 389-398, Part I, M.
    35. Robert F. Scherer & Janet S. Adams & Susan S. Carley & Frank A. Wiebe, 1989. "Role Model Performance Effects on Development of Entrepreneurial Career Preference," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 13(3), pages 53-72, April.
    36. Charles A. Campbell, 1992. "A Decision Theory Model for Entrepreneurial Acts," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 17(1), pages 21-27, October.
    37. Chen, Chao C. & Greene, Patricia Gene & Crick, Ann, 1998. "Does entrepreneurial self-efficacy distinguish entrepreneurs from managers?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 295-316, July.
    38. Souitaris, Vangelis & Zerbinati, Stefania & Al-Laham, Andreas, 2007. "Do entrepreneurship programmes raise entrepreneurial intention of science and engineering students? The effect of learning, inspiration and resources," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 566-591, July.
    39. Busenitz, Lowell W. & Barney, Jay B., 1997. "Differences between entrepreneurs and managers in large organizations: Biases and heuristics in strategic decision-making," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 9-30, January.
    40. Manimala, Mathew J., 1992. "Entrepreneurial heuristics: A comparison between high PL (pioneering-innovative) and low PI ventures," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 7(6), pages 477-504, November.
    41. Baron, Robert A., 1998. "Cognitive mechanisms in entrepreneurship: why and when enterpreneurs think differently than other people," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 275-294, July.
    42. Pia Arenius & Maria Minniti, 2005. "Perceptual Variables and Nascent Entrepreneurship," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 24(3), pages 233-247, February.
    43. StewartJr., Wayne H. & Watson, Warren E. & Carland, Joann C. & Carland, James W., 1999. "A proclivity for entrepreneurship: A comparison of entrepreneurs, small business owners, and corporate managers," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 189-214, March.
    44. Lars Kolvereid, 1996. "Prediction of Employment Status Choice Intentions," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 21(1), pages 47-58, October.
    45. Rees, Hedley & Shah, Anup, 1986. "An Empirical Analysis of Self-employment in the U.K," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 1(1), pages 95-108, January.
    46. Amit, Raphael & Muller, Eitan & Cockburn, Iain, 1995. "Opportunity costs and entrepreneurial activity," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 95-106, March.
    47. Simon, Mark & Houghton, Susan M. & Aquino, Karl, 2000. "Cognitive biases, risk perception, and venture formation: How individuals decide to start companies," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 113-134, March.
    48. Begley, Thomas M. & Boyd, David P., 1987. "Psychological characteristics associated with performence in entrepreneurial firms and smaller businesses," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 2(1), pages 79-93.
    49. Baron, Robert A., 2004. "The cognitive perspective: a valuable tool for answering entrepreneurship's basic "why" questions," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 221-239, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bickenbach, Frank & Dohse, Dirk & Liu, Wan-Hsin, 2014. "An inquiry into the determinants of graduate entrepreneurship in Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Mainland China)," Kiel Working Papers 1940, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    2. Fourati Hedia & Affes Habib, 2014. "Risk as a Threat, Risk as a Missing Opportunity, the Owner Finance and Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Research Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 4(4), pages 351-365, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sascha G. Walter & Achim Walter, 2009. "Personenbezogene Determinanten von Unternehmensgründungen: Stand der Forschung und Perspektiven des Fortschritts," Schmalenbach Journal of Business Research, Springer, vol. 61(1), pages 57-89, February.
    2. Bickenbach, Frank & Dohse, Dirk & Liu, Wan-Hsin, 2014. "An inquiry into the determinants of graduate entrepreneurship in Hong Kong and Guangzhou (Mainland China)," Kiel Working Papers 1940, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    3. Verheul, Ingrid & Thurik, Roy & Grilo, Isabel & van der Zwan, Peter, 2012. "Explaining preferences and actual involvement in self-employment: Gender and the entrepreneurial personality," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 325-341.
    4. Dirk Dohse & Sascha Walter, 2012. "Knowledge context and entrepreneurial intentions among students," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 39(4), pages 877-895, November.
    5. Sascha G. Walter & K. Praveen Parboteeah & Achim Walter, 2013. "University Departments and Self–Employment Intentions of Business Students: A Cross–Level Analysis," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 37(2), pages 175-200, March.
    6. Jeffery S. McMullen & Katrina M. Brownell & Joel Adams, 2021. "What Makes an Entrepreneurship Study Entrepreneurial? Toward A Unified Theory of Entrepreneurial Agency," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 45(5), pages 1197-1238, September.
    7. Dirk Dohse & Sascha G. Walter, 2010. "The role of entrepreneurship education and regional context in forming entrepreneurial intentions," Working Papers 2010/18, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    8. Dirk Dohse & Sascha G. Walter, 2010. "The role of entrepreneurship education and regional context in forming entrepreneurial intentions," Working Papers 2010/18, Institut d'Economia de Barcelona (IEB).
    9. McCann, Brian T. & Folta, Timothy B., 2012. "Entrepreneurial entry thresholds," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(3), pages 782-800.
    10. Zellweger, Thomas & Sieger, Philipp & Halter, Frank, 2011. "Should I stay or should I go? Career choice intentions of students with family business background," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 521-536, September.
    11. Peter van der Zwan & Ingrid Verheul & Roy Thurik & Isabel Grilo, 2009. "Entrepreneurial Progress: Climbing the Entrepreneurial Ladder in Europe and the US," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-070/3, Tinbergen Institute, revised 17 Mar 2010.
    12. Nicolaou, Nicos & Shane, Scott, 2009. "Can genetic factors influence the likelihood of engaging in entrepreneurial activity?," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 1-22, January.
    13. Ingrid Verheul & Joern Block & Katrin Burmeister-Lamp & Roy Thurik & Henning Tiemeier & Roxana Turturea, 2015. "ADHD-like behavior and entrepreneurial intentions," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 85-101, June.
    14. Aikaterini Sarri & Stavroula Laspita & Anastasios Panopoulos, 2018. "Drivers and Barriers of Entrepreneurial Intentions in Times of Economic Crisis: The Gender Dimension," South-Eastern Europe Journal of Economics, Association of Economic Universities of South and Eastern Europe and the Black Sea Region, vol. 16(2), pages 147-170.
    15. Preeya S. Mohan, 2022. "An investigation into entrepreneurial intentions in Caribbean Small Island Developing States," Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 1-21, December.
    16. Verheul, I. & Thurik, A.R. & Grilo, I., 2008. "Explaining Preferences and Actual Involvement in Self-Employment: New Insights into the Role of Gender," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2008-003-ORG, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    17. Walter, Sascha G. & Dohse, Dirk, 2009. "The interplay between entrepreneurship education and regional knowledge potential in forming entrepreneurial intentions," Kiel Working Papers 1549, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    18. Rohit H. Trivedi, 2017. "Entrepreneurial-intention constraint model: A comparative analysis among post-graduate management students in India, Singapore and Malaysia," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 1239-1261, December.
    19. Arezou Abbasianchavari & Alexandra Moritz, 2021. "The impact of role models on entrepreneurial intentions and behavior: a review of the literature," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 71(1), pages 1-40, February.
    20. Werner Bönte & Vivien D. Procher & Diemo Urbig, 2016. "Biology and Selection into Entrepreneurship—The Relevance of Prenatal Testosterone Exposure," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 40(5), pages 1121-1148, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    entrepreneurial status;

    JEL classification:

    • M13 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - New Firms; Startups

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:esprep:68590. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.