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Entrepreneurial identity aspiration refers to the desire to occupy an entrepreneurial role in the future and is an essential impetus for initially engaging in entrepreneurial activities. Building on identity theory, the article investigates the effects of personal attitudes, experiences and inclination towards specific practices on the strength of entrepreneurial identity aspiration.

This article applies multiple linear regression analysis to test the developed hypotheses on an original sample of 127 vocational college students in Austria.

Results show that risk-taking propensity, proactiveness, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and competitiveness drive entrepreneurial identity aspiration. The effects of innovativeness and need for achievement motivation are nonsignificant. Data further suggest that entrepreneurial identity aspiration is related to gender, while entrepreneurial exposure and previous entrepreneurship education show no or adverse effects.

Based on our findings, the authors argue that education should focus on teaching and discussing the identified attitudes and inclinations to foster the formation of entrepreneurial identities. Doing so increases students' aspirations and provides them with the necessary cognitive underpinnings for subsequent entrepreneurial action. The article suggests action-based teaching to achieve this goal.

This article is the first to investigate antecedents of entrepreneurial identity aspiration by connecting it to essential concepts of entrepreneurship research. The authors extend previous work on entrepreneurial identity and add to the theoretical approaches for research in entrepreneurship education. Furthermore, the article points out central aspects that should receive additional attention in educational settings.

Given that 45% of new businesses fail in their first five years (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2020), individuals often observe others' entrepreneurial failures (EFs) in their vicinity. The purpose of this paper is to review the effects of vicarious EFs on individuals by proposing both entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial identity aspiration as mediators, which are widely studied proximal antecedents of entrepreneurial intent.

Using structural equation modeling, the authors empirically test survey data collected from 10,020 college students across 46 colleges or universities in Brazil. The hypothesized model examines the mediating effects of vicarious EFs on individuals' entrepreneurial intent via entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial identity aspiration.

The findings confirm that vicarious EFs negatively affect one's entrepreneurial self-efficacy and that entrepreneurial self-efficacy mediates the effect of vicarious EFs on one's entrepreneurial intent. On the other hand, vicarious EFs positively affect one's entrepreneurial identity aspiration, and entrepreneurial identity aspiration mediates the effect of vicarious failures on entrepreneurial intent.

The entrepreneurship literature focuses mainly on the consequences of EF on those entrepreneurs who have experienced failure. However, there is a lack of knowledge regarding how that failure impacts others in its vicinity. This study provides new insight into the effects of vicarious EFs in facilitating individuals' entrepreneurial intent and presents theoretical and practical implications to promote greater levels of entrepreneurial intent in individuals.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the elements and relationships that explain the entrepreneurial intent in university students, evaluating possible gender and degree differences.

The study is of quantitative approach, survey research design and cross-sectional method. The instrument used was a self-administered questionnaire answered by undergraduate university students enrolled in a public university. The sampling was stratified random, with a representative sample size of 734 cases. For data analysis and hypothesis testing, a confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation model were made.

The results show that the entrepreneurial self-efficacy attribute largely explains the entrepreneurial intent, while all other variables, such as entrepreneurial identity aspirations and outcome expectations, play a less important role but maintain some influence.

According to the findings of this research, institutions of higher education should direct efforts to improve the entrepreneurial skills of students, especially for women. And the creation of an institutional entrepreneurial culture should also be emphasized so that the university students are able to build an entrepreneurial identity.

The value of the research is the proposed integrative model that explains how to trigger entrepreneurial intent, shows the prominent role of entrepreneurial self-efficacy as a predictor variable of entrepreneurial intent and the role of entrepreneur identity aspirations and entrepreneurial self-efficacy as mediating variables. Additionally, this research identifies differences in the model of entrepreneurial intent derived from the variables of gender and degrees.

This chapter develops an integrated model that encompasses four aspects: (1) face-to-face (F2F), (2) online teaching, (3) massive open online courses (MOOCs), and (4) the combination of Western, localized, and indigenous knowledge to provide blended entrepreneurship education. The model emphasizes the importance of a heutagogical approach and the institutional environment in blended entrepreneurship education. It is then applied to a start-up university to help develop students’ entrepreneurial mindset, entrepreneurial identity aspirations, and entrepreneurial skills. The model’s implications for research and entrepreneurship education are discussed.

This study aims to examine how spatial contexts, institutions and entrepreneurial self-identity affected the formation of entrepreneurial intentions of a sample of students in Zimbabwe.

Data were obtained from 284 students enrolled in two vocational education institutions located in Midlands Province of Zimbabwe. To select the respondents, convenience sampling was used. The sample size was determined by the total number of students agreeing to participate in the research. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling (maximum likelihood estimation method).

Social approval, supportive cultural environment and entrepreneurial self-identity had positive statistically significant direct effects on entrepreneurial intentions. Also, entrepreneurial self-identity partially mediated the effects of social approval and supportive cultural environment on entrepreneurial intentions. The total effect of supportive higher education institutions on entrepreneurial intentions was statistically significant, despite the direct and indirect effects being non-significant.

The findings suggest a need to cultivate supportive social contexts and higher education institutions for nurturing entrepreneurial self-identity and entrepreneurial intentions, factors that are integral to the development of future entrepreneurs.

The study examined the validity of a novel conceptual model based on the contribution of entrepreneurial self-identity, spatial context and institutional variables in shaping entrepreneurial intentions of selected college students in the global south.

This paper investigates how a new entrepreneurial identity forms in conjunction with prior work-related identities during sponsored self-employment after an emotional job loss.

The authors empirically examine why some dismissed employees failed and others succeeded in transitioning from a wage-earner career via corporate sponsorship to a career as an entrepreneur, investigating how those employees meaningfully constructed (or did not) an entrepreneurial identity.

The authors' findings show that the simultaneous preservation of central attributes of prior work-related identities and the engenderment of new entrepreneurial attributes support the formation of an entrepreneurial identity and that a liminal state, in which people practice entrepreneurship at work, may facilitate identity transition.

This paper demonstrates that the initial entrepreneurial endeavor is based on prior work-related identity and identity congruence between prior work-related identities and a projected entrepreneurial identity is of great importance for the identity transition. However, the authors also show that incongruence may in some cases turn into congruence if entrepreneurs are given the opportunity to experiment with provisional entrepreneurial selves in a risk-free environment (so-called liminal states).

This study aims to develop insights on how national culture, gender and field of study can influence the impact of entrepreneurship education toward the development of entrepreneurial intention.

The entrepreneurship education project gathered data from over 18,000 undergraduate student responses, spanning over 70 countries and 400 universities. The sample used in this research examined eight countries with significantly different national cultures, while a quantitative analysis of a sample of n = 5,033 responses was performed. Beyond correlation analysis, a hierarchical multiple regression model is implemented for intention along with moderation analysis.

The statistical analysis reveals robust correlations among several entrepreneurial concepts and national cultural indices. As expected, national culture interweaves with all entrepreneurial concepts and more significantly for students of socially oriented disciplines. Gendera and field of the study appear moderators of causal relationships between entrepreneurial constructs. Exerting a strong influence by culture, entrepreneurial identity appears the most significant explanator of intention. Overall, the emergent pattern suggests entrepreneurship is intentional, but in a socially justified and accepted manner closely related to local cultural norms and institutions.

Implications pertain to research for entrepreneurial intention and to educators and educational bodies concerning their goal setting for entrepreneurial programs and appropriate scheduling of effective pedagogies.

The study exploits a large data set from eight countries (Brazil, Colombia, Germany, Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Spain and USA) which permits systematic quantitative search for the influence of culture on the impact of entrepreneurship education. Cross-national studies of entrepreneurship education and the effect of national culture have been scant in literature – a research gap the study responds to. The inclusion of both developing and developed countries contributes in a novel way to a unique understanding of the influence of culture on entrepreneurial concepts through education.

This study explores the role of both trait-like (i.e. adaptability) and situational (previous small business ownership and rurality) variables, on entrepreneurial identity (EI) through a social identity theory lens.

Path analysis was used on 376 individuals from across the United States who met various criteria and were recruited using Prolific.

Adaptability and previous small business ownership were found to be predictors of EI. Findings also highlight the moderating role of adaptability on the previous small business ownership-EI and rurality-EI links. Notably, highly adaptable individuals who have previously owned businesses tend to hold more of an EI, and those who are less adaptable and live in rural locations also tend to hold less of an EI.

Understanding the conditions under which individuals are likely to hold more of an EI may provide several benefits to organizations and individuals within society, including information that can be used to develop more fine-tuned career counseling and training, risk management strategies, and a more calculated allocation of finite resources.

Despite both personal trait-like (i.e. focus/adaptability) and situational (i.e. rurality and previous small business ownership experience) factors likely playing a crucial role in the formation of individuals' perceptions, previous work has largely ignored their interaction in the development of EI. The authors test a model encompassing trait-like (i.e. focus/adaptability) and situational (rurality, previous small business ownership experience) predictors of EI, along with their interactive effects, and illuminate a more holistic picture of EI's antecedents.

Entrepreneurial exit research has overlooked the unique context of exits at retirement age when an exit marks the end of an entrepreneurial career (i.e. retirement). To better understand retirement exit decisions and transitions, this study introduces the concept of work ability (i.e. an individual’s ability to meet work demands) into the entrepreneurial exit literature and, based on role theory, hypothesises its effect and interaction with general life satisfaction in explaining the entrepreneurial exits to retirement. The study clarifies the dynamics between the voluntary and non-voluntary aspects behind exit to retirement.

The authors use mixed-effects ordinal logistic regression with four-wave panel data on 198 Finnish small business entrepreneurs who intend to retire to test hypotheses on the relationship between work ability, general life satisfaction and entrepreneurial exit to retirement.

The study provides partial support for the hypothesis that work ability negatively impacts entrepreneurial exit to retirement and strong support for the idea that this effect is affected by general life satisfaction. Entrepreneurs who experience higher life satisfaction are likely to retire on their own terms, whereas those less satisfied continue working until declining work ability forces them to retire.

The study contributes to the entrepreneurial exit literature by showing how the exit dynamics unfold in the unique context of entrepreneurial exit to retirement. The theoretical discussion opens up the potential psychological mechanisms behind such dynamics.

This paper aims to report an empirically grounded theoretical framework within which to understand the role of entrepreneurial identity development in the discovery, development and exploitation of opportunity, and to elaborate on how these identity transitions both mobilise and constrain female entrepreneurs.

A qualitative case study-based research design was used in this study. Primary and secondary data were collected from eight female participants (all of whom can be categorised as “mumpreneurs”) and analysed to inform the theoretical framework that is the foundation of the paper.

The authors describe how identity conflict, role congruence and reciprocal identity creation play a critical role in venture creation as a form of entrepreneurship. Drawing on the constructs of identification, self-verification and identity enactment, the authors build a theoretical framework for understanding entrepreneurial identity transitions in relation to opportunity-seeking behaviours.

The work is theoretical in character and based on a sample that, whilst rich in the provision of theoretical insight, is small in scope. Additionally, the sample is located in one geographical context (New Zealand) which likely has implications for the way in which the key constructs are perceived and enacted.

This paper is an attempt to integrate conceptualisations of entrepreneurial identity development with opportunity-related processes in the context of venture creation. A holistic focus on identity transitions and their relevance to perception and action in relation to opportunity (the root of entrepreneurial behaviour) is novel; at this point, it is exploratory in intention and tentative in reach.