ADHD-like behavior and entrepreneurial intentions

Ingrid Verheul,Joern Block,Roy Thurik,Katrin Burmeister-Lamp,Roxana Turturea,Henning Tiemeier

doi:10.1007/s11187-015-9642-4

Abstract

Little is known about the relation between entrepreneurship and the extent of psychiatric symptoms. Validated psychiatric symptom scores are seldom used for non-clinical reasons. One prevalent symptom that deserves our interest is Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). ADHD is a developmental disorder characterized by inattentiveness and hyperactivity that has been linked to occupational choice and performance. Building on the person–environment fit literature, we hypothesize that individuals who exhibit behavior associated with ADHD are more likely to have entrepreneurial intentions. Using a sample of 10,104 students enrolled in higher education, we can confirm our prediction that students with a higher level of ADHD-like behavior are more likely to have entrepreneurial intentions. Additionally, we show that risk taking propensity is a mediator that partly explains this positive effect. Our study points to the importance of behavioral tendencies associated with developmental disorders, when making entrepreneurship decisions. Our study contributes to the literature on the determinants of entrepreneurship, which so far has largely neglected the effects of psychiatric symptoms on entrepreneurship.

Highlights

Entrepreneurs are commonly characterized as individuals who have high energy levels (Kets de Vries 1985), who dare to pursue risky activities and who show resilience in times of adversity (Markman et al 2005)
9,025 students (i.e., 89.3 %) intend to work in wage-employment and 1,079 students (10.7 %) aim to found a venture directly after their study. This percentage of intentional founders is comparable to the average level of start-up intentions in the Netherlands according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), which is reported to be about 10 %
To test our first hypothesis, stating that the level of ADHD-like behavior is positively related to entrepreneurial intentions, we estimate stepwise binary logistic regressions

Summary

Introduction

Entrepreneurs are commonly characterized as individuals who have high energy levels (Kets de Vries 1985), who dare to pursue risky activities and who show resilience in times of adversity (Markman et al 2005). 2012), creativity (White and Shah 2011), and action orientation (Barkley 1997), and far research has not systematically studied the link between behaviors associated with ADHD and a career in entrepreneurship (Mannuzza et al 1993). We examine the relation between individual behaviors associated with ADHD and the intention to pursue an entrepreneurial career. Our paper links the literature on the consequences of ADHD to research about the determinants of entrepreneurship (Block et al 2013; Verheul et al 2012). This literature has remained largely silent on the effects of psychiatric symptoms on entrepreneurship. Prior research has taken a psychological perspective and investigated the effects of different personality characteristics on entrepreneurship intentions (Lee et al 2011; Nyock Ilouga et al 2014) as well as the decision to become and stay self-employed (Beugelsdijk and Noorderhaven 2005; Caliendo et al 2014), but has not taken an explicit psychiatric symptom perspective, which we do in our study

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion