Whereas much research has focused on the predictors of entrepreneurial behavior during adulthood, we know little about how preadulthood experiences influence entrepreneurial behavior later in life. Grounded in imprinting theory, this study examines whether introducing economics classes in school enhances students’ entrepreneurial behavior in adulthood. Using a difference-in-differences approach exploiting

Destructive entrepreneurship is an important research topic because it challenges the frequent implicit assumption that all entrepreneurship is “good.” Recent scholarly interest has been directed toward destructive entrepreneurship from various perspectives, including economics, psychology, and business ethics. This article offers a comprehensive review of the literature on destructive entrepreneurship

We conducted a three-step replication of Davidsson and Honig’s study on the roles of human and social capital in venture creation processes. First, we attempted an exact replication to rule out mistakes and questionable manipulations influencing the original results. Second, we included the initial stage of development as an additional control variable, reflecting on updates suggested in later research

This review of the entrepreneurial metacognition literature systematizes the existing literature. Metacognition is vital for entrepreneurs to sense, act, and mobilize cognitive resources under uncertainty. Despite the rapidly growing stream of metacognitive research in entrepreneurship, indicating that the topic is promising and emerging, these bits of knowledge still need to be brought together to

Why do migrants return home and start businesses? Research on this multistage phenomenon—that is, return followed by entrepreneurship—is fragmented, reflecting different scholarly approaches and reasons migrants return and start businesses (or not). We systematically review 80 papers addressing aspects of returnee entrepreneurship and organize findings into a two-stage process model grounded in three

How new family CEOs use the structural setup they initially find to foster post-succession change in their family firms remains a theoretical and practical puzzle. Building on strategic change and family succession insights, we draw upon 74 interviews from 43 intra-family CEO successions to employ a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis. We reveal three change-enabling solutions (authority, empowerment

This study develops a theory of social proof in angel investing. We propose that availability bias leads angel group members to copy the highly visible decisions of new investors evaluating the same opportunity ( external social proof) and overlook the more insightful reinvestment decisions of prior investors ( internal social proof). We also theorize that more experienced investors generally herd

This study investigates whether male and female entrepreneurs exhibit systematic differences in the customer learning actions they pursue, and how those actions convert to venture performance. Drawing from a dyadic sample of founders and startup advisors in the high-technology context, we explore the effects of two alternative customer learning actions—customer involvement as an information source

Configurational research has great promise in entrepreneurship. There are few universal laws or relationships that hold under all circumstances. More often, optimal entrepreneurial outcomes are contingent on many factors. Consequently, configurational analysis using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) has become increasingly popular. However, methodological research in sociology and political science

Jess Chua was a leading scholar in the field of family business and a major contributor to Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice both as an author and editor. His significant contributions to the field were acknowledged by the Web of Science, which listed him among the world’s most highly cited researchers in Economics and Business in 2017, 2019, and 2020. In this memorial editorial, we pay tribute

Drawing on goal-setting and stewardship theories, this study examines the management of family and business goals in family firms under transgenerational complexity, presenting a dynamic model of family stewardship. Through multiple case studies, we identify four distinct stewardship strategies, each with a corresponding governance structure: cultivating family stewardship (with family-dense governance)

Despite its importance to the functioning of entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs), the orchestration of networks remains a largely undertheorized topic. To address this “omission,” we sought to explain the interplay between networks, their orchestrators, and their implications for ecosystem outcomes. To do so, we conducted an in-depth case study of the Agtech Valley EE in Brazil. From our study, we developed

Long-term orientation has been proposed as one of the differences between family and nonfamily firms. Family business scholars base this difference theoretically on the incumbent generation’s altruism for the next generation and the intention for intrafamily succession. We point out that the applicable boundaries for these two theoretical bases are limited. We also point out misconceptions regarding

This study explores groupthink on the boards of family firms. We conjecture that institutional investors, in the face of principal–principal agency issues, are discouraged by groupthink and consequently invest less in family firms. Appropriate corporate governance in the form of greater board diversity, lower director tenure, busier boards, more financial disclosure, and bigger shareholder voice should

We theoretically model an entrepreneur’s choice of his firm’s products to trademark, the relation between the number of trademarks and venture capital (VC) investment staging, long-run operating performance, and successful firm exit probability. We test model predictions using a large dataset of trademarks registered by VC-backed private US firms. We find that firms with a larger number of trademarks

I introduce variability in decision-making (VDM) as a construct that covers the extent to which entrepreneurs switch between analytic and intuitive decision-making over time. Drawing from self-regulation theories, I developed a model that explains how VDM is negatively related to taking charge behavior (TCB) and is driven by entrepreneurs’ regulatory focus strategies. This model is tested using a dataset

How uncertainty affects entrepreneurship is a central theme in entrepreneurship research. However, evidence for how a culture of uncertainty avoidance (UA) influences entrepreneurial activity is mixed. Unlike prior research, we theorize and test how UA practices allocate individuals across two modes of opportunity exploitation. Our findings show that uncertainty-avoidant cultures channel individuals

Although much has been made about heroic entrepreneurs, there is recent interest in less glamorous forms of entrepreneurship. The least glamorous is dirty entrepreneurship. In this study, we used an inductive approach and a sample of entrepreneurs engaged in dirty plastic recycling businesses to develop an intersectionality model of entrepreneurs’ dirty recycling businesses. This inductive study offers

Entrepreneurship has entered a new era shaped by artificial intelligence (AI), demanding accelerated scholarly advances to keep pace with this transformative technology—yet this demands that academics bridge the gap between the AI revolution’s ambiguities and meaningful scholarly contributions. To motivate and guide future research on AI’s transformative role in entrepreneurship, we introduce an ongoing

Current theorizing on learning during hybrid entrepreneurship is limited in explaining the circumstances under which entrepreneurs’ well-being benefits from a preceding phase in hybrid entrepreneurship. Using existing theory on entrepreneurial learning and role conflict, we argue that interfering demands from roles outside entrepreneurship constrain hybrid entrepreneurs’ ability to transform experiences

Firms’ strategic orientation toward entrepreneurship exposes them to regulatory uncertainties. Prior research suggests that addressing these uncertainties through corporate political activities (CPA) may require costly trade-offs, such as the loss of strategic flexibility. We argue that some of these trade-offs can be mitigated by the way firms structure their CPA. We extend the insights from real

Strategic human capital literature assumes founders mobilize human resources from the market. Social capital research shows that relying on nonmarket sources, such as ethnic communities, for resources results in distinct ways of organizing business activities in immigrant and nonimmigrant firms. Based on a field study, I found that the impact of sourcing human capital from the market versus the ethnic

We investigate how entrepreneurs communicate with crowdfunding backers during the onset of a societal crisis via a content analysis of campaigns active during the COVID-19 pandemic and a vignette experiment. While effective communication with stakeholders is critical for acquiring resources during societal crises, little is known about what communication strategies entrepreneurs use during these crises

We examine the physical health consequences to entrepreneurs of firm growth and decline. Using register-based panel data (2000–2021), we find that entrepreneurs and hired CEOs are, on average, healthier and live longer than individuals from a socio-economically similar random sample from the general population. However, our findings also reveal that entrepreneurs are more likely to fall ill during

Traditionally, family firm studies have assumed there is a single family behind the firm. We challenge this assumption and argue that the distinction between multi-founding family firms and single-founding family firms matters. We theorize that multi-founding family firms, based on mutual monitoring among families, have corporate governance advantages (less principal–agent and principal–principal problems)

Recent research introduced and laid the foundation for a new individual-level entrepreneurial orientation conceptualization (Ind.EO) within the entrepreneurial orientation family of constructs. Building directly from this work, this article theoretically defines a measurement model for the construct and develops and validates a scale. We define and measure disposition-based behavior constructs for

Drawing from expectancy violations theory, we examine the effect of entrepreneurs’ claims about their ventures’ capability reputation and character reputation on crowdfunding performance. We propose that capability reputation and character reputation claims benefit crowdfunding performance—but only up to a point—until crowdfunding backers begin to perceive it as over-claiming (inverted-U relationship)

Access to finance is crucial for sustaining entrepreneurial activity. Elaborating on resource dependence theory, we argue that the adverse impact of a loan rejection by a crowdlending platform is more severe than that of a rejection by a traditional financial institution. The data indicate that a failed crowdlending loan attempt is associated with a 14.80% increase in the probability of transitioning

By following 17 entrepreneurial ventures throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we show how entrepreneurial ventures can resourcefully mobilize resources throughout crisis—when resource constraints and opportunities for resource mobilization shift erratically. In a period marked by significant resource constraints, a temporary field emerged, centered around societal consequences of the crisis and temporarily

This article explores the counterintuitive notion that congruence in the importance family firm supervisors and their employees place on socioemotional wealth is negatively associated with employee citizenship and proactive behaviors, while incongruence has positive effects. Results from polynomial regression analysis of data collected from 159 family firm supervisor–employee dyads support our complacency

This study investigates how venture capitalists (VCs) balance upside potential and downside risk across investment stages. Drawing on the attention-based view, we propose a situated attention mechanism—that is, the investment stage represents a situational consideration affecting VC’s attention allocation to different risk dimensions. We argue that varying staging situations drive VCs to prioritize

This study examines the influence of market conditions—hot versus cold—on the decision-making processes of venture capitalists (VCs). Prior research suggests that VCs prefer costly signals over cheap talk when assessing new ventures under static conditions. However, based on a cognitive perspective, we argue that the dynamic nature of market conditions alters VCs’ information processing. In cold markets

Digital product innovation (DPI) is critical for the survival of firms, especially those operating in traditional industrial-age industries. While research has started to investigate digital innovation in family firms (FFs) considering them as a monolithic group, we still lack a more nuanced perspective that considers heterogeneity among FFs with respect to DPI and what drives such variance. Drawing

This article examines the operating and financial performance of venture firms conducting initial coin offerings (ICOs) with different types of investors and at different points along a venture’s life-cycle. Relative to purely crowdfunded ICO ventures, institutional investor-backed ICO ventures exhibit weaker operating performance and fail earlier. However, conditional on survival, these ventures financially

Product development in innovation-driven industries often fails. Although such failures cause new ventures to struggle to raise follow-on investments, some overcome this challenge. Why? Synthesizing insights from the research on signaling and social evaluation theory, we identify how certain resources can mitigate the risk of funding termination for new ventures despite product development failure

Entrepreneurs need to access knowledge to grow, but weak entrepreneurial ecosystems tend to lack the types of knowledge that foster venture growth. To explore how entrepreneurs can act resourcefully as they overcome local ecosystem deficiencies in efforts to grow, we conducted 78 interviews with growth-oriented entrepreneurs in Central America. These entrepreneurs, perceiving that their ecosystem was

Serendipity has played a significant role in the history of invention. Yet, little is known about whether serendipitous inventions are perceived as more or less innovative and thus achieve greater success in seeking funding than those resulting from deliberate processes. The current study explores this issue using a matched-pair sample of 168 serendipitous and non-serendipitous inventions used by entrepreneurs

Although we know a great deal about creating ventures that can generate financial wealth for entrepreneurs, we have largely excluded, ignored, or “danced around” the creation of nonprofit ventures (with some important exceptions). We propose research to explore how initiating, engaging, and performing nonprofit venturing may differ from for-profit venturing and how some nonprofit entrepreneurs and

We adopt a dyadic, multi-referent trust perspective to assess the effects of franchisee–franchisor trust (in)congruence and franchisee trust in peers on franchisee network exit intentions, under varying levels of franchisee perceived network control. We observe a nuanced relationship between trust (in)congruence and exit intentions, revealing a negative and nonlinear effect for trust congruence, and

This study explores how students from low-income families with no prior entrepreneurial experience engage in conditional student entrepreneurship (CSE). Longitudinal data from 30 undergraduates across two Nigerian public universities revealed that resource constraints and significant loss events threaten students’ educational pursuits. However, rather than dropping out to pursue unskilled jobs, the

Studying temporal change using Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) allows researchers to examine complex and dynamic causal pathways between configurations of time-based conditions and a desired outcome. No comprehensive QCA technique currently addresses complex temporal changes in a unified manner. To remedy these shortcomings, we introduce Growth Pattern QCA—a mixed-method technique for studying

This article investigates ethnographically how early-stage impact investors evaluate the credibility of the impact promises made by social entrepreneurs. Uncovering how investors carry out this task beyond observable characteristics and self-reported prosocial intentions, I propose that their evaluation of impact promises centers on four interrelated aspects of the entrepreneurs’ behavior: impact metrics

Enacting a corporate entrepreneurial role requires cognitive, behavioral, and emotional qualities. While scholarly work has focused on the cognitive and behavioral aspects of this role, its emotional aspect—how corporate entrepreneurs feel when enacting their role—remains relatively unexplored. Our qualitative study reveals the corporate entrepreneurial role as a source of liabilities and assets for

Entrepreneurship scholars have much to gain from including time perspective in developing theory about entrepreneurs’ alertness. In this study, interviews with 22 French entrepreneurs revealed associations between their alertness and past-positive, present-hedonistic, and future time perspectives. Complementarily, a sample of 376 U.S. entrepreneurs provided evidence that their present-hedonistic and

Although prior research emphasizes the essential role of anchor organizations’ leadership in entrepreneurial ecosystem development in the early stages, their strategic functions are undertheorized. This study conducted a single case study with the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Santiago de Chile as a revelatory case by examining how anchor organizations catalyze the early evolution of the entrepreneurial

Researchers are divided on whether shareholder agreements (SAs) improve or hurt firm value. We offer family firms as a context where SAs add value and explain why; SAs limit “superprincipal” agency conflicts between family owners and other family members. A panel of French firms and a second study of French Initial Public Offerings show shareholders value SAs more in family than in nonfamily firms

Business families directly participating in political roles have considerable influence in various countries. We explore political business families’ unique economic and social characteristics through a social embeddedness lens. We build a comprehensive dataset of Chilean business families and identify their direct political participation from 1989 to 2020. We find limited support for economic features

This study proposes a hybrid model of initial trust formation that highlights the role of social categorization and its interplay with both institutional trust and the individuating information about the party. Using data on 1,474 corporate venture capital (CVC) investments in European ventures and a case-control research design, we find that ventures more likely form initial CVC ties with investors

Research studying employment before, during, and after spells of entrepreneurship is growing in both popularity and importance for understanding the antecedents and consequences of entrepreneurship. However, methodological challenges (e.g., retrospective bias, limitations of archival data sources) hinder further development and refinement. The Occupational Information Network, better known as O*Net

Nascent entrepreneurs often believe that their chances of success are better than those of others due to imperfect information about the competencies and accomplishments of other entrepreneurs, leading to overplacement. Theory suggests that the provision of historical outcome data of comparable projects could help entrepreneurs develop more realistic plans and expectations by closing the information

Entrepreneurs have been promoted as a main engine of progress. However, recent scandals and questionable behavior have led to increased discussion of entrepreneurs’ ethics. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualize entrepreneurial responsibility throughout the entrepreneurial process from an ethical viewpoint. We model entrepreneurial responsibility based on normative ethics (deontology and teleology)

This research note critically extends Audretsch and Moog’s work on the relationship between democracy and entrepreneurship. While Audretsch and Moog present a positive relationship between democracy and entrepreneurship, we find that key measures of entrepreneurship are frequently negatively, not positively, associated with democracy and its various determinants. However, we do find some evidence to

Intermittent exporting (repeatedly exiting and reentering foreign markets) is often associated with the initial stages of internationalization. However, some small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), including family firms, pursue an intermittent exporting strategy beyond the initial stages. Drawing on a refinement of the behavioral agency model (BAM) and real options reasoning, we theorize that a

Unlike traditional investing, where decisions follow a clear financial calculus, it is unclear how and why funders support hybrid ventures. To address this question, we analyze the varied priority that investors place on social impact versus financial returns and draw on categories theory to argue that different priority orderings associate with different perceptions of how hybridity aligns with different

Entrepreneurial energy, the level of energetic activation that a founder feels for building their venture, is an important indicator of a founder’s well-being. Changes in entrepreneurial energy have wide-ranging consequences for both founders and their ventures, yet much remains to be learned about how and why such fluctuations might occur, as well as the role of social dynamics in influencing fluctuations

Drawing from costless signaling research, we examine the role of virtue language in Airbnb listings. We propose that virtue language espoused by entrepreneurs is beneficial for Airbnb price premiums—but only to a certain extent. Specifically, we argue that virtue language espoused by entrepreneurs has a curvilinear relationship with the price premium of their listings, suggesting that excessive use

Our meta-analysis investigates the environmental sustainability performance of family firms (FFs) distinguishing between environmental hand- and footprint and accounting for FF heterogeneity. Based on a sample of 87 primary studies comprising 118,538 firms, we find no significant difference between FFs and non-FFs regarding their overall environmental sustainability performance. Yet, distinguishing

Investing in sectors that a firm has never invested in before is fundamentally a form of entrepreneurial experimentation and an integral part of wealth creation. We consider how the broader market ...

Despite many calls, functional brain magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies are relatively rare in the domain of entrepreneurship research. This methodological brief presents the brain-imaging m...

Integrating the family embeddedness perspective with research on commensality and family meals, we develop a framework that explains why some families are more likely to fuel entrepreneurship than ...