Abstract
We investigate how perceived parents’ performance in entrepreneurship (PPE) affects the entrepreneurial career intentions of offspring. We argue that while perceived PPE enhances offspring’s perceived entrepreneurial desirability and feasibility because of exposure mechanisms, it inhibits the translation of both desirability and feasibility perceptions into entrepreneurial career intentions due to upward social comparison mechanisms. Thus, perceived PPE acts as a double-edged sword for the intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship. Our predictions are tested and confirmed on a sample of 21,895 individuals from 33 countries. This study advances the literature on intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship by providing a foundation for understanding the social psychological conditions necessary for such transmission to occur.
Highlights
Intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship from parents to children has interested scholars for many decades
We argue that while perceived performance in entrepreneurship (PPE) enhances offspring’s perceived entrepreneurial desirability and feasibility because of exposure mechanisms, it inhibits the translation of both desirability and feasibility perceptions into entrepreneurial career intentions due to upward social comparison mechanisms
We found that when perceived PPE is low (1), a one-unit increase of the perceived feasibility variable increases the probability of entrepreneurial career intention by 3.8%
Summary
Intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship from parents to children has interested scholars for many decades. It used objective measures of parents’ entrepreneurial performance (e.g., financial indicators), which raise the question of whether intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship is primarily affected by the transfer of financial capital or by social psychological (e.g., role model) mechanisms (Sørensen 2007). It is not clear how parents’ success in entrepreneurship as perceived by offspring affects important social psychological antecedents of entrepreneurial career intentions. Our findings move the theoretical debate beyond the traditional Bblack and white^ question of whether exposure to parents’ entrepreneurship influences offspring’s entrepreneurship (Zapkau, Schwens and Kabst 2017) and toward a finer-grained discussion on how the social mechanisms related to perceived PPE regulate the relationship between parents’ and offspring’s entrepreneurship (BarNir, Watson and Hutchins 2011; Chlosta et al 2012)
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