Abstract
PurposeEntrepreneurial 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.Design/methodology/approachThis article applies multiple linear regression analysis to test the developed hypotheses on an original sample of 127 vocational college students in Austria.FindingsResults 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.Practical implicationsBased 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.Originality/valueThis 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.
Highlights
Entrepreneurship programs have become cornerstones in today’s educational landscape (Holzmann et al, 2018; Nabi et al, 2017)
The base model that includes only the covariates shows that entrepreneurial exposure through parents positively affects the identity aspiration; this effect, becomes nonsignificant when including the main predictors to the main model
R2 5 0.40) of the variance in entrepreneurial identity aspiration, which indicates an increase of 33% compared to the base model
Summary
Entrepreneurship programs have become cornerstones in today’s educational landscape (Holzmann et al, 2018; Nabi et al, 2017). In addition to the knowledge component of entrepreneurship education, the continuous development of an entrepreneurial identity is a vital but often neglected element in students’ education (Chen et al, 2021; Donnellon et al, 2014; Edwards and Muir, 2012; Hytti and Heinonen, 2013) This apparent absence of research applying identity theory is surprising as entrepreneurial identity is an essential concept to deepen our understanding of why individuals start with and keep engaged with entrepreneurial activities (Farmer et al, 2011; Gregori et al, 2021; Murnieks et al, 2020). The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode
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