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Ambitious Entrepreneurship: A Review of Growth Aspirations, Intentions, and Expectations

Entrepreneurial Growth: Individual, Firm, and Region

ISBN: 978-1-78560-047-0, eISBN: 978-1-78560-046-3

Publication date: 4 August 2015

Abstract

In the study of entrepreneurial behavior types, “ambitious entrepreneurship” recently emerged as a new research concept. Unfortunately, a systematic overview of what is known (and not known) about this topic is missing. In particular, insights into the various definitions, measures, and antecedents of ambitious entrepreneurship are lacking. In this chapter, we offer a state-of-the-art review and analysis of extant research on ambitious entrepreneurship. We structure the literature review by providing insights into antecedents of ambitious entrepreneurship, and extensively discuss the conceptualization and operationalization of this research concept. We clarify the differences between related concepts such as growth intention, expectation, and aspiration, and argue how all these concepts fit into a unifying framework of ambitious entrepreneurship. We summarize promising future research avenues for the study of ambitious entrepreneurship, both from a methodological and a conceptual point of view.

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgment

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Belgian Science Policy department (BELSPO project TA/00/40). This chapter substantially extends material published in Hermans, Dejardin, Ramdani, Vanderstraeten, and van Witteloostuijn (2013).

Citation

Hermans, J., Vanderstraeten, J., van Witteloostuijn, A., Dejardin, M., Ramdani, D. and Stam, E. (2015), "Ambitious Entrepreneurship: A Review of Growth Aspirations, Intentions, and Expectations", Entrepreneurial Growth: Individual, Firm, and Region (Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth, Vol. 17), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 127-160. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1074-754020150000017011

Publisher

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Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015 Emerald Group Publishing Limited