In the last decade, directed from the European Union, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship education became a main topic on both, political and strategic managerial agenda’s. Despite the enormous effort and money invested, the failure rate of starting entrepreneurs seems to be stable. Next to an increase of starting entrepreneurs, more young people are faced with the trauma of an entrepreneurial failure. This paper want to explore the causes of a negative entrepreneurial outcome an the possibilities to prevent from this.
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Purpose: A model is developed to analyse what personality traits impact entrepreneurial cognitive and social strategic decision-making skills, originating from the effectuation framework. Design/methodology/approach: 128 participants from an entrepreneurial pre-launch programme were assessed by experienced incubator and business coaches. Personality was measured by a Big Five test. Based on a confirmatory factor analysis, the relationships were analysed between personality and three core dimensions of the effectuation framework: 1) the bird-in-hand principle, 2) the crazy quilt principle and 3) the pilot in the plane principle. Findings: Specific patterns (moderation effects) as opposed to levels of personality traits proved to be relevant. The bird-in-hand and the crazy quilt principles are related to the moderating effect between sensitivity to feedback, sociability and ambition. The pilot in the plane principle was related to the whole pattern of entrepreneurial key qualities embedded in the extraversion domain. Furthermore, relationships of personality with key issues in the effectuation framework were found, examples being reflecting on a high diversity of means or on own talents, conducting a thorough risk analysis and engaging in inspirational networking. The final model revealed a direct positive influence of the capacity to conduct a thorough risk analysis on the overall capacity to apply the effectuation principles. Originality/value: The research results offer deeper insights for the mobilisation and development of complex entrepreneurial behaviours. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEBR-06-2019-0343 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rainer-hensel-phd-8ba44a43/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronald-visser-4591034/
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The aim of this study is to investigate the factors affecting the entrepreneurial intention (EI) of university students. In order to do so, EI, individual entrepreneurial orientation, self-efficacy, perceived educational support, perceived relational support, perceived structural support, knowledge sharing, and gender were used within the proposed model, and the constructed hypotheses were evaluated using SEM. The findings of a survey of 268 students show that self-efficacy is the strongest influencer of students’ EI. The findings also show the mediating influence of self-efficacy on the environmental components. Additionally, male students are more likely than female students to have EI.