Journal of Enterprising Culture

Risk-taking propensity is considered a defining characteristic of entrepreneurs. Previous research informs us that risk-taking propensity can be dynamic, changing over the course of an individual’s life, often in response to situational changes. Despite this, temporally driven shifts in entrepreneurs’ risk-taking propensity have been underappreciated by research to date. While some studies investigate risk-taking propensity variation across entrepreneurs in early venture phases, risk-taking propensity differences across all venture phases have not been investigated. To close this gap, we assess variations in risk-taking propensity across groups of entrepreneurs in different venture phases, ranging from early to late stages. In a sample of 266 practicing entrepreneurs, we observe notable differences in risk-taking propensity across venture phases. Early-stage entrepreneurs exhibit higher risk-taking propensity than those in later phases of venture maturity. This has important implications for entrepreneurship research and encourages the consideration of temporal personality variation and differences within the group of entrepreneurs.

Prior research on pull entrepreneurship sees opportunity perception as dependent on the individual’s cognitive processes and pays relatively less attention to the role of exogenous factors, which influence and shape our belief structures in the first place. To fill this gap, the main aim of the study is to investigate the relationship between exogenous factors, both positive and negative, and individuals’ opportunity perception. A theoretical framework, based on Institutional Theory, is proposed and empirically tested through panel analysis. The data cover 36 OECD countries observed between 2000 and 2014. The results show that opportunity perception is encouraged by positive exogenous factors, e.g., cultural motivation, social recognition; conversely, it is discouraged by negative exogenous factors, e.g. R&D expenditure and female unemployment. The findings also provide new insights into how exogenous factors impact individuals’ perceptions of opportunities for new business creation, highlighting that positive exogenous factors play a more important role than negative exogenous factors in this process. The empirical results confirm the proposed theoretical framework and allow the formulation of interesting theoretical and managerial implications.

A key focus for entrepreneurial development strategies for many economies is to facilitate sustainable and inclusive growth that will create jobs and reduce poverty. Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is confronted with institutional challenges in bringing these objectives into fruition. We draw from institutionalism and entrepreneurial governance theory to explore institutional context and challenges to entrepreneurial development and inclusive growth in Africa. We theorize that entrepreneurial governance and public policy must focus on policy direction, enterprise enabling institutions for nascent entrepreneurs, seed funding and local embeddedness to eliminate institutional voids. We provide a dynamic view of institutional context and offer a policy framework to uncover challenges to entrepreneurial emergence and sustainable development in Africa. The study submits that enabling entrepreneurial activities for inclusive growth and sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa requires the right institutional and supporting ecosystem.

This article studies the entrepreneurial intention of Algerian students to explain the weakness in business creation in the country. Theoretical and empirical evidence on this subject is scarce, particularly among young Algerians. By combining two dominant research trends in the field of entrepreneurship, namely an approach based on contextual factors, and one based on individual characteristics, we examined the impact of perceived entrepreneurial climate and entrepreneurial self-efficacy on Algerian students’ entrepreneurial intentions. Our study, contextualized in the student environment, aims to analyze how entrepreneurship education moderated the relationship between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intention.

Based on a sample of 302 students, our survey yielded two important results. The first was the negative effect of perceived entrepreneurial climate on entrepreneurial intention. The second was that as a moderating factor, entrepreneurship education did not reinforce the significant direct influence of entrepreneurial self-efficacy on the intention to start a business among Algerian students. These insights may help improve the level of entrepreneurial intention within developing countries.