Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises - Dissertations Copyright (c) 2013 Syracuse University All rights reserved. http://surface.syr.edu/eee_etd Recent documents in Entrepreneurship and Emerging Enterprises - Dissertations en-us Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:34:14 PST 3600 Business Exits and Reentry: Demand and Supply Explanations of Entrepreneur Career Choices http://surface.syr.edu/eee_etd/3 http://surface.syr.edu/eee_etd/3 Wed, 19 Sep 2012 06:13:13 PDT This dissertation is a compilation thesis consisting of three research studies on the normative and personal expectations that influence entrepreneurial engagement subsequent to business exits. Collectively, the three studies provide insights into how and when variances between performance expectations and actual business outcomes shift the demand and supply of different groups of experienced entrepreneurs. On the demand side, I theorize and empirically examine variances in acts and modes of entrepreneurial engagement that correlate to informal (stigma of business failure, masculine norms) and formal (regulatory environment) institutional contexts. On the supply side, I develop propositions about cognitive aspects of business exits that influence the motivation of experienced entrepreneurs to engage in serial entrepreneurship. I ask the following three questions in my dissertation research: When and how do the fit or non-fit of exits from successful and unsuccessful businesses influence future engagement in entrepreneurship activity (Study 1)? How are the future career decisions of entrepreneurs who close failed businesses influenced by formal, i.e., the regulatory environment for doing business, and informal, i.e., the stigma of business failure, institutional contexts (Study 2)? Do differences in normative expectations influence the re-entry of male and female entrepreneurs differently following the closure of a failed business (Study 3)? The extant studies in the entrepreneurship literature often emphasize the characteristics of the entrepreneur or the institutional context. This dissertation highlights the fact that social realities, in concert with the cognitive processing of business exits, shape the acts and modes of entrepreneurial engagement subsequent to business exits. The implications for entrepreneurship theory, policy and practice that arise from this duality are discussed.

]]> Sharon Alicia Simmons Toward a Theory of Serial Entrepreneurship: Decomposing Entrepreneurial Experience http://surface.syr.edu/eee_etd/2 http://surface.syr.edu/eee_etd/2 Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:20:49 PST The focus of this dissertation is to examine the nature of the entrepreneur's prior experience and how it affects entrepreneurs' intentions to reenter entrepreneurship after business exit (i.e. serial entrepreneurship intentions). Drawing on psychology theories, I argue that there is qualitative difference among entrepreneurial experiences and suggest that one's entrepreneurial experience can be decomposed into three factors: financial performance, self-efficacy, and psychological ownership. Those three factors will jointly determine serial entrepreneurship intention. In addition, those three situational factors would interact with the individual's dispositional regulatory focus orientations to affect serial entrepreneurship intention. To this end, I conducted two experimental studies with 175 undergraduate students and 65 entrepreneurs and wrote three essays.

Essay 1 examines the variance in the entrepreneurs' intentions to reenter entrepreneurship by investigating the qualitative difference of entrepreneurial experience (i.e. financial success vs. financial failure) and how this difference affects intention to reenter entrepreneurship. The results show that prior success (failure) experience lowers (increases) the individual's entrepreneurial intention. Moreover, this relationship will be weakened by the individual's entrepreneurial self-efficacy.

Essay 2 looks into intention to reenter from the dispositional perspective to complement Essay 1. Specifically, this essay demonstrates that, in addition to prior entrepreneurial experience, the entrepreneurs' dispositional regulatory focus orientations would also predict their intentions to reenter entrepreneurship after business exit. More interestingly, the dispositional regulatory orientations will interact with the outcome of prior entrepreneurial experience (i.e. financial success or failure) to affect intention to reenter.

Essay 3 investigates the relationship between the entrepreneur's psychological ownership toward the prior venture and intention to reenter entrepreneurship. The results show that psychological ownership is positively related to intention to reenter and that this relationship will be enhanced by the entrepreneur's dispositional prevention focus orientation.

In sum, this dissertation provides a theoretical framework on how prior entrepreneurial experience shapes intention to reenter entrepreneurship. The results indicate that the financial performance of the prior venture, the entrepreneur's self-efficacy, the entrepreneur's prevention focus orientation, and the entrepreneur's psychological ownership toward the venture would interactively determine the entrepreneur's intention to reenter entrepreneurship.

]]> Dan Kai Hsu Whom Would You Choose? The Role of Trust in New Venture Partner Choice http://surface.syr.edu/eee_etd/1 http://surface.syr.edu/eee_etd/1 Tue, 28 Feb 2012 07:27:17 PST What is the role of trust in new venture partner choice? To answer this question, this study uses a human capital framework to investigate the relative importance of the factors of trustworthiness (i.e. ability, benevolence and integrity) in the decision to choose a new venture partner. A second query is, how does familiarity of a potential partner contribute to the choice? This study also explores the moderating influences of propensity to trust, gender and race in new venture partner decision policies. This research uses conjoint analysis and hierarchical linear modeling techniques to capture and decompose more than 3700 new venture partner choice evaluations which are nested in a sample of 116 CPAs. The findings of this study suggest that trust is important in the choice of new venture partner. Specifically, the results show that among this study's sample, the factors of trustworthiness are more important than familiarity. Also found was that integrity is more important than ability and benevolence in new venture partner choice and that propensity to trust moderates the choice. This research offers several contributions. First, this study delves into the underexplored area of new venture team formation and is one of the first to investigate the role of trust in this context. Using a human capital framework, the conceptualization of this concept is extended to include trustworthiness. Methodologically, this study is one of the first to use conjoint analysis in the study of new venture team formation and in the study of trust. Finally, implications for theory, practice and future research are discussed

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