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The aims of this paper are to: critically review and identify gaps in current literature on entrepreneurial self‐efficacy, provide a definition of entrepreneurial self‐efficacy that addresses some of those gaps, and explore the role of entrepreneurial self‐efficacy during the phases of a business start‐up process. The research seeks to define entrepreneurial self‐efficacy using three sources of dimensionality. The first includes the particular aspect of entrepreneurship to which self‐efficacy is applied, whether to business start‐up or business growth activities. The second sources of dimensionality refers to the content of self‐efficacy beliefs (task or outcome goal beliefs), and the third source to the valence of entrepreneurial self‐efficacy beliefs (positive or negative control beliefs).

The authors build from the origins and mechanisms of the self‐efficacy construct in social cognitive theory and a synthesis of that work with prior use of self‐efficacy in entrepreneurship to propose a definition of entrepreneurial self‐efficacy that is context specific and empirically testable.

Entrepreneurial self‐efficacy is best seen as a multidimensional construct made up of goal and control beliefs, and propositions for how these two different dimensions will play a role during phases in the process of starting‐up a new business are developed.

A well‐defined entrepreneurial self‐efficacy construct has significant pedagogical payoffs given that entrepreneurship education should also focus on social‐cognitive, psycho‐cognitive and ethical perspectives of entrepreneurship.

The proposed multidimensional nature of self‐efficacy is original and unique in its contribution, and provides a conceptual foundation to understand how capabilities along different dimensions of entrepreneurial self‐efficacy are created and nurtured. This knowledge is useful for potential entrepreneurs as well as those who support them in the process.

This paper seeks to address the question of “why some people choose to be an entrepreneur?” It offers a novel perspective in the strand of cognitive models to examine the formation of entrepreneurial intention.

Data for this research came from a questionnaire survey of university students in Shanghai, Zhejiang and Hubei provinces. The conceptual model is tested using the method of structural equation modelling on a sample of 415 university students.

The research confirms that perceived benefits of entrepreneurship have positive and statistically significant effects on perceived value of entrepreneurship and that perceived sacrifices of entrepreneurship in terms of non‐economic sacrifices have negative and statistically significant effects on perceived value of entrepreneurship.

The paper proposes a new construct of perceived value of entrepreneurship to explain the formation of entrepreneurial intention. Building on the concept of value perception from the marketing literature, it conceptualized the perceived value of entrepreneurship in benefit‐sacrifice components and empirically tested the argument that entrepreneurship‐related career decision making is a cognitive process in which entrepreneurial intention results from a cognitive trade‐off between perceived benefits and perceived sacrifices.

As good as existing measurements of entrepreneurial potential (EP) may appear in the literature, they are fragmented, suffer from the lack of theory integration and clarity, are inadequately specified and assessed and the dimensions are unordered by importance. These limitations of EP metrics have hindered entrepreneurial practice and theory advancement. There is a risk of atomistic evolution of the topic among “siloed” scholars and room for repetitions without real progress. The purpose of this paper was to take stock of existing measurements from which the authors developed a new instrument that is brief and inclusive.

The authors followed several steps to develop and validate the new instrument, including construct domain name specification, literature review, structured interviews with entrepreneurs, face validation by experts, semantic validation and statistical validation after two waves of data collected on employee and entrepreneur samples.

A clear operational definition of EP is proposed and serves as a starting point towards a unified EP theory. The new EP instrument is made up of 34 items classified into seven dimensions, which in order of importance are proactive innovativeness, management skill, calculated risk-taking, social skill, financial literacy, entrepreneurial competencies prone to cognitive and heuristic biases and bricolage. The authors provide evidence for reliability and validity of the new instrument.

Although a model is not the model, the authors discuss several ways in which the new measurement model can be used by different stakeholders to promote entrepreneurship.

The authors discuss the domain representativeness of the new scale and argue that the literature can meaningfully benefit from a non-fuzzy approach to what makes the EP of an individual. By developing a new EP instrument, the authors set an important pre-condition for advancing entrepreneurial theory and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the methodological limitations of existing dominant research paradigms in entrepreneurship research. In order to encourage the use of little used methodologies to create higher quality data, an alternative approach is proposed whereby data triangulation from conventional quantitative and qualitative methods of the postal survey and the in‐depth interview are combined with biographical data.

By following a path of research, which embraces data triangulation from both contemporary and historical perspectives, this paper explores the benefits of embracing methods from disciplines outside the conventional confines of business research in order to better inform our understanding of smaller firm behaviour.

Introducing creativity into the research process mirrors the behaviour of entrepreneurial small firms, which often thrive in non‐linear environments where conventional linear, stepwise research methodologies fail to capture the full picture of owner/manager behaviour. Adoption of a biographical approach to entrepreneurship research can result in the uncovering of rich descriptions of valuable data, which would otherwise remain undiscovered if more conventional approaches were adopted, alone.

Whichever methodological approach is adopted, it will be open to criticism and bias. Biographical research has been criticised for its subjectivity in terms of the biographer imposing his or her own thinking on the process. However, good biographical research utilises the creative “story telling” strengths of the biographer as researcher to uncover clearer truths.

The paper presents a discussion of how to utilise biographical data as a management research tool, either as a stand‐alone method or in conjunction with other research methodologies through the process of data triangulation.

Following a more creative, biographical approach to researching entrepreneurship suggests adopting a more postmodern, or even critical approach. Management researchers can now begin to understand how chaos and fragmentation are located in a world where formal, linear methods of understanding are being superceded by more creative conceptualisations and interpretations of the truth.

This paper aims to explore cultural attitudes and beliefs about entrepreneurship in the southwestern region of Cameroon. This study also identifies the existence of subcultural variations with important implications for the development of entrepreneurial activities in Cameroon.

The paper uses the hybrid qualitative/quantitative Q methodology to survey and analyze a purposively diverse sample of individuals and thereby discover subcultural structures and patterns to the attitudes and beliefs that exist in Cameroonian culture.

This study discovers three distinct subcultures that differ significantly in their attitudes and beliefs about entrepreneurship. These subcultures can neither be predicted from commonly used national measures of cultures, such as those of Hofstede, nor are they directly attributable to regional effects.

The author calls into question the continuing use of national culture as a construct in explaining and predicting entrepreneurial activities, through discovery of subcultures at odds with national measures. Further research should be undertaken to assess the prevalence within Cameroonian society of the three widely different subcultures identified here.

This paper highlights the importance of incorporating subcultural variations in attitudes and beliefs (whether regional, tribal or other) in the development and implementation of public policies to affect national entrepreneurship.

The paper applies a novel methodology to qualitatively explore the subjective variations in the meaning and value of entrepreneurship in Cameroonian society, and to quantitatively develop a structure or typology to these variations.

In this systematic review of the literature on women’s entrepreneurship education, this paper aims to examine the current state of the field. The authors analyze publication trends, identify major themes and propose an agenda for future research.

The authors review 363 articles published between 1993 and 2023, to develop a synthesized overview of women’s entrepreneurship education, complete with insights into the journals that have provided the most coverage of this topic, as well as how it has emerged over time.

The authors tracked the evolution of research themes and collaboration networks over a 30-year period. Results show there has been significant growth in research on women’s entrepreneurship education, as evidenced by a surge of publications on the topic and the total number of citations.

The authors categorized and analyzed six thematic clusters within the literature: entrepreneurial intention, ethical perspectives, gender-specific barriers, gender stereotypes, rural entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Building on these thematic clusters, this study discusses future research directions to advance the field.

In order to extend the literature on predicting entrepreneurial intentions this study aims to test a model incorporating cultural, social, and psychological factors.

The paper surveyed over 1,000 students at universities in the USA, Spain, and China.

Across cultures, university students share generally similar views on motivations and barriers to entrepreneurship, but with some interesting differences. Further, while cultural and social dimensions explain only a small portion of intentions, psychological self‐efficacy (disposition) is an important predictor.

The study was restricted to university students. It generated focused conclusions and recommendations, but these may not be more widely generalizable. The study suggests directions for continued work on the relationship between cultural and psychological factors in entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurship education may serve students better by increasing its focus on creativity and confidence‐building. Further, curricula should be adapted to specific cultures – for example, a unique dilemma faced by Chinese students is discussed in detail.

Performing a cross‐cultural comparison made it possible to add fresh insight to debates over the antecedents of entrepreneurship. It also uncovered some important topics for further discussion and research.

The purpose of this paper is to adapt the research conducted on subclinical psychopaths in the private sector and applies it to the public sector to build a conceptual frame for further research on subclinical psychopaths in public organisations. General characteristics of entrepreneurs often run counter to democratic values, and are more often aligned with private sector values. Public managers who display one of the dark-triad personalities, i.e., psychopathy, can pose a greater threat to democratic values and the state.

The approach of this paper is theoretical with the aim of proposing a conceptual framework that utilises Downs’ five types of officials governing bureaucracies, to illustrate a relationship between public entrepreneurs and subclinical psychopaths.

The conceptual framework presented in this paper suggests that psychopathic entrepreneurs can be identified within Downs’ bureaucratic framework specifically as climbers (due to inherent personality traits) and as zealots (heroic and altruistic behaviour for organisational causes, yet motivated by power, domination, and self-interest). The implications of psychopathic public managers who engage in entrepreneurial activities may be escalating public distrust, hostility, and dissatisfaction in government.

This theoretical paper adds to the growing body of criticism for public entrepreneurship by conceptualising how psychopaths, as climbers and zealots, affect public trust in terms of accountability and democratic values.