Research On The Generation,Dimensions And Mechanisms Of Entrepreneurial Motivation Of Older Entrepreneurs

The trend of population aging poses great challenges to economic and social development,with increasing older employees,some of which are forced to start their own businesses due to age discrimination for older employees.The aging of the population reduces the working-age population,and the prices of care services continue to.rise steadily,putting forward higher demand for the elderly's savings.Compared to older employees,older entrepreneurs spend more time in economic activities.Starting a business for the elderly will be an effective strategy to actively cope with the aging population.It is also an important means to improve the quality of work and life of the elderly and their ability to cope with uncertainty in future life.At the same time,for the enterprises that have to dismiss the older employees because of the nature of the enterprise and industry,it will become a relatively mild way to lay off employees to encourage the older employees to start their own businesses on the basis of providing"entrepreneurial adaptive learning".However,research on the field of older entrepreneurs is still very limited.Through the review of entrepreneurial motivation,older entrepreneurs and the new venture growth,this study explores the generation and dimension of older entrepreneurs'entrepreneurial motivation and its impact on new venture growth,based on self realization theory,inheritance theory and social cognitive theory.This study focuses on three key theoretical issues:first,what dimensions do older entrepreneurs'entrepreneurial motivation consist of?Second,how do entrepreneurial motivation of older entrepreneurs arise?What are the differences in the influencing factors between different motivations?Third,what is the mechanism of entrepreneurial motivation of older entrepreneurs on the new venture growth?With the development of entrepreneurial activities,will the entrepreneurial motivation of older entrepreneurs change?Will this change affect their venture growth?In order to answer the above three theoretical questions accurately,this paper uses qualitative and quantitative research methods to carry out the following three studies.First,constructs the path of recurring relationship between the generation and dimension of older entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial motivation and its impact on new venture growth.Based on the grounded theory,this study"captures" the key psychology and behavior of the old entrepreneurs in entrepreneurial process,and construct the dynamic process of the generation,dimension and its impact of the entrepreneurial motivation of the older entrepreneurs.It is found that the older entrepreneurs produce security and children's growth motivation under the influence of role model,policy environment and career development constraints,producing fame and wealth pursue motivation under the influence of entrepreneurial resources,power need and achievement need,producing independence and autonomy motivation under the influence of entrepreneurial resources,entrepreneurial self-efficacy,power need and career development constraints,producing spiritual experience motivation under the influence of entrepreneurial self-efficacy,achievement need,policy environment and career development constraints,and producing social responsibility motivation under the influence of entrepreneurial resources,achievement need and policy environment.When older entrepreneurs have different entrepreneurial motivation,they perceives different extent of entrepreneurial barriers.Older entrepreneurs who perceive strong entrepreneurial barriers have relatively poor growth performance.The older entrepreneurs with high sense of calling based on employees,have high new venture growth,even if they perceive strong entrepreneurial barriers.Second,verifies the structure and influencing factors of older entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial motivation.Based on the theoretical model constructed by grounded theory,this study empirically tests the dimension structure and influencing factors of older entrepreneurs'entrepreneurial motivation.The research results show that older entrepreneurs'entrepreneurial motivation is composed of five dimensions:security and children's growth motivation,fame and wealth pursue motivation,independent and autonomy motivation,spiritual experience motivation and social responsibility motivation.Role models and career development constraints have a significant positive impact on security and children's growth motivation.Achievement need has a significant positive impact on fame and wealth pursuit motivation.Entrepreneurial resources,power need and career development constraints have a significant positive impact on independent and autonomy motivation.Achievement need and policy environment have a significant positive impact on spiritual experience motivation and social responsibility motivation.Third,verifies the mechanism of older entrepreneurs' entrepreneurial motivation on new venture growth.Based on the theoretical model constructed by grounded theory,this study empirically examines the mechanism of entrepreneurial motivation of older entrepreneurs on the new venture growth.It is found that there are significant differences in the impact of entrepreneurial motivation on new venture growth,and the relationship between entrepreneurial motivation and new venture growth is mediated by entrepreneurial barriers perception.It is also found that the sense of calling based on employees has a negative moderating effect on the relationship between perceived entrepreneurial barriers and the growth of new venture.The innovation of this research is as follows:(1)constructing a new idea of the entrepreneurial motivation of the older entrepreneurs based on the qualitative and quantitative research methods,and promoting the research in the field of entrepreneurial motivation of older entrepreneurs.(2)constructing a dynamic process model of the generation,dimensions of entrepreneurial motivation of older entrepreneurs and its impact on the growth of new ventures,which breaks through the traditional path of research on entrepreneurial motivation of older entrepreneurs,and promotes the research on the efficiency mechanism of entrepreneurial motivation of older entrepreneurs.(3)combining the entrepreneurial advantages and barriers of older entrepreneurs,which injects "fresh blood" into the field of entrepreneurship of older entrepreneurs that focus more on the positive aspects of entrepreneurship of older entrepreneurs.(4)exploring the entrepreneurial motivation of older entrepreneurs in a phased and dynamic way,and pays attention to the impact of the change of entrepreneurial motivation of older entrepreneurs on the growth of their new ventures in the process of entrepreneurship.Conclusions are important for promoting the entrepreneurship activities of the elderly and improving their business growth performance.First,the government should attach importance to the value and role of the older entrepreneurs and encourage them to carry out entrepreneurial activities.Second,the government should pay attention to the heterogeneity of the elderly group and provide targeted entrepreneurial support for them.Third,Enterprises should pay attention to the future career development of "quitted"older employees and provide them with "entrepreneurial adaptation learning".