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Contents
- Abstract
- An Expanded Role for Psychology in Entrepreneurship
- Defining Entrepreneurship
- Types of Entrepreneurs
- Typologies of entrepreneurs
- Team entrepreneurs
- Corporate entrepreneurs (“intrapreneurs”)
- The Entrepreneurship Process
- Entrepreneurship Research and Practice: A Call to Action for Psychology
- The Personality Characteristics of Entrepreneurs
- Improving Design and Measurement in Personality-Based Research
- Entrepreneurship as a process: The need for longitudinal research
- Matching of predictor and criterion variables
- Construct operationalization
- Valid and reliable measures
- Moderating and mediating variables
- Psychopathology: Exploring the “Dark Side” of Entrepreneurs
- Entrepreneurial Cognition
- Entrepreneurship Education
- Entrepreneurship as a Global Phenomenon
- Culture and entrepreneurship
- Culture, religion, and entrepreneurship
- Policy and entrepreneurship
- Conclusion: The Way Forward
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Abstract
Entrepreneurship is a major source of employment, economic growth, and innovation, promoting product and service quality, competition, and economic flexibility. It is also a mechanism by which many people enter the society’s economic and social mainstream, aiding culture formation, population integration, and social mobility. This article aims to illuminate research opportunities for psychologists by exposing gaps in the entrepreneurship literature and describing how these gaps can be filled. A “call to action” is issued to psychologists to develop theory and undertake empirical research focusing on five key topic areas: the personality characteristics of entrepreneurs, the psychopathology of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial cognition, entrepreneurship education, and international entrepreneurship. Methodological issues are discussed and recommendations provided. It is shown that psychologists can help identify the factors that influence new venture creation and success and inform the construction of public policy to facilitate entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship, starting and managing a business for the purpose of growth and profit (Carland, Hoy, Boulton, & Carland, 1984), can be traced back to ancient Greece, where entrepreneurial activity brought independence and economic and social reform. Entrepreneurship is credited with the development of the assembly line, the airplane, the computer, the contact lens, and DNA fingerprinting (Baumol, 2004). It is a major source of employment, economic growth, and innovation and is an integral part of the economic renewal process (Kuratko, 2003). Entrepreneurship is also a mechanism by which many people enter the economic and social mainstream of society, facilitating culture formation, population integration, and social mobility (Bednarzik, 2000).
The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM; Reynolds,...