| "Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision." ---Peter DruckerThis study investigates the antecedents of the entrepreneurial decision to start a new independent business venture. The primary research questions addressed include (1) why do individuals start new ventures, and (2) what factors affect the decision to start a new venture? Specifically, this study empirically tests and compares three prominent models of entrepreneurial intention: (1) Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior, (2) Shapero's Model of the Entrepreneurial Event, and (3) Davidsson's Determinants of Entrepreneurial Intentions.; The research is pursued in three phases. Phase One involves an extensive search and synthesis of literature germane to the entrepreneurial decision. The objective of Phase One is to identify factors relevant to the decision to become an entrepreneur. Three intentions-based models emerge as particularly worthy of further investigation and empirical testing, and are selected for inclusion in the study.*; The objective of Phase Two is to examine a representative entrepreneurship database of 669 comprehensive, 22-page profiles. (See Appendices D and E for sample profiles.) Secondary data are extracted and articulated into the constructs identified in the three models under investigation. The source of the data utilized in constructing the profiles is the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED). The resultant profiles represent over 10,000 response items collected over a three-year period from 446 nascent entrepreneurs and 223 control group respondents. Three trained coders independently review each profile, providing scores on the 25 variables specified in the models.; The objective of Phase Three is to analyze the predictive capabilities of the three intentions-based models. This analysis utilizes structural equation modeling path analysis to evaluate and compare each of the three models, as well as assess relative strength and predictive value of the constructs found within the models.; *Please refer to dissertation for diagrams. |
