Forming Entrepreneurial Intentions: An Empirical Investigation of Personal and Situational Factors

This book examines the relationship between a person's intentions to start a business and specific personal and situational factors. The study is built on the premise that people develop intentions to start a business when they feel that starting a business is desirable, that they can control circumstances by taking action, that they have necessary skills and resources, and when a significant trigger event has taken place in their lives such as graduation from college, loss of a job, or forming a family. The study investigates the relationship between the formation of entrepreneurial intentions and a variety of variables including the perceived desirability of entrepreneurship, a person's propensity for proactive behavior, a person's self-efficacy for starting a business, and the presence of an emotional trigger event. In addition, the influences on perceived desirability resulting from the support of significant others such as family, friends and mentors, and the extent and positiveness of pastentrepreneurial experience were also examined. Finally, the influences of past entrepreneurial experience, and a person's assessment of his/her skills, ability, and resources on the self-efficacy of entrepreneurship were studied. The results indicate that support from significant others and positive past entrepreneurial experience positively relate to perceived desirability. Also, perceived desirability, propensity for proactive behavior, an assessment of skills, abilities, and resources, and the presence of a trigger event positively relate to entrepreneurial intention. Other studies have looked at the influence of these same variables on entrepreneurial intentions, but not in this combination. In addition, unlike other studies, this study used people who were actually in the process of deciding on becoming entrepreneurs as real estate agents.