Journal of Enterprising Culture

The phenomena of an aging population, changing social and economic circumstances, as well as the existential necessity of mid-life changes form the background to this investigation. Though statistics indicate that there are only a few who have considered entrepreneurship as a desirable and feasible career option in mid life, the option is becoming more attractive as the possibility of lifetime employment with a single employer becomes increasingly remote. The focus of this article is to understand what has motivated first time entrepreneurs in mid-career to consider this choice and how they have made sense of their mid-life situations to successfully discover and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. This study has demonstrated that it requires the optimal interaction of four key elements to increase the likelihood of a positive outcome of entrepreneurial pursuits — knowledge, networks, rewards and risks.

Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) suggests empirical implications to promote students' entrepreneurial intentions. In the course of an empirical study with 208 German students, regression analyses confirm that attitude, social norm, and perceived behavioural control contribute substantially to the prediction of start-up intentions. The use of index based measurements shows that entrepreneurial intention is significantly influenced by all three constructs (R² = 0.446). As beliefs based on information and experiences are decisive in order to emerge an intention, a promoting approach should start here. Following the TPB, changes at singular points are not sufficient. A discussion of concrete beliefs provides implications for future research as well as for practical interventions.

How conducive are the institutional environments in the BRIC countries to support entrepreneurship? We employ the Busentiz et al. (2000) survey instrument on a sample of 490 business students from Brazil, Russia, India and China to compare the perceived favorability of their regulatory, cognitive, and normative environments to entrepreneurship. We find no significant differences in the perceived favorability of the regulatory environment, but significant differences in the perceived favorability of the cognitive and normative environments. While the cognitive dimension of the institutional environment in Russia and China is perceived as more conducive to entrepreneurship compared to Brazil and India, the normative dimension in China, India, and Brazil is perceived as more favorable compared to Russia. These differences reflect the wide divergence in the BRIC countries' cultural norms and values, traditions, and institutional heritage and have important implications for future research, managerial practice, and public policy.

This paper contributes to research on metacognitions which focuses on cognitive processes that enable entrepreneurs to create new ventures and to think beyond existing knowledge structures to become adaptable in an entrepreneurial context. Two streams of research, entrepreneurial intentions and metacognitions, jointly inform the hypotheses. Individuals with entrepreneurial intent apply some degree of conscious consideration to the possibility of starting a new business, where these intentions are the result of metacognitions. The empirical evidence ensuing from this study indicates that only the knowledge metacognitive dimension is a significant predictor of entrepreneurial intentions. The study makes a contribution in that the articulation and testing of metacognitive dimensions provides a meaningful categorization, where there are many opportunities for educators to develop skill building exercises that target metacognitions.

The goal of this research is to contribute to a pragmatic knowledge of building a Canadian small business for an independent music artist who does not know where to start in creating a business. It is meant to be an initial guide for musicians planning to consider this form of business development, as opposed to signing with a label, or as a way to increase the likelihood of becoming noticed by a label. This research paper is initial and exploratory in nature.