Thesis (doctoral)--Universität zu Breslau.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Marburg.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Breslau.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Erlangen.

Diss.--Uppsala--University, 1991.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--City University of Hong Kong, 2009. / "Submitted to Department of Information Systems in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-88)

Berlin, Freie Univ., Diss., 2005.

Dans le but de comprendre ce qui pousse les entrepreneurs à agir, les chercheurs en entrepreneuriat utilisent depuis des décennies les modèles de l’intention dans leurs études. Les plus célèbres sont la Théorie de l’Action Planifiée d’Azjen et l’Evènement Entrepreneurial de Shapero et Sokol. Cependant, ces modèles restent perfectibles. En effet, ils partent du principe que l’intention est un bon prédicateur du comportement, alors que seules moins de la moitié des variations des comportements entrepreneuriaux sont explicables par l’intention. De plus, les modèles de l’intention se concentrent uniquement sur les antécédents de l’intention. La partie motivationnelle (le « pourquoi ») est donc couverte, mais la partie volitionnelle (le « comment ») est oubliée.Notre thèse, qui se compose de quatre travaux, a pour ambition de parer à ce manquement, dans le but de parfaire notre compréhension du processus entrepreneurial. Notre objectif est de mettre en lumière des facilitateurs qui permettraient de passer effectivement de l’intention à l’action. Nous relevons donc le défi de dévoiler en partie la boîte noire qui se trouve entre intention et comportement entrepreneurial. Nous avons sélectionné l’engagement et l’intention planifiée dans la littérature de socio-psychologie comme étant les chaînons manquants possibles, et nous les avons testés en contextes entrepreneuriaux.Ainsi, en se concentrant sur la partie volitionnelle, notre thèse complète les modèles de l’intention dans le but d’améliorer nos connaissances du processus entrepreneurial. Elle vise à servir les porteurs de projets, les politiques, les enseignants et les différents acteurs de suivi des entrepreneurs. En effet, tous peuvent utiliser ce que nous avons mis en lumière pour augmenter le taux de conversion de l’intention entrepreneuriale. Notre objectif est de manière générale de proposer de la matière nouvelle pour aider les porteurs de projets à concrétiser leurs intentions.Cependant, la taille de nos échantillons limite nos études empiriques à des études exploratoires. Nos résultats devront maintenant être confirmés de manière quantitative. / In order to understand what leads individuals to create new ventures, entrepreneurship researchers use intention models in their studies for decades. The most famous are the Theory of Planned Behavior of Azjen and the Entrepreneurial Event of Shapero and Sokol. However, these models are still perfectible. In fact, they stem from the fact that intentions predict behaviors, but only less than half of variance of entrepreneurial behaviors is explained by intention. Moreover, intention models only focus on the antecedents of intention. So the motivational part (why one acts) is addressed, but the volitional part (how to pursue actions) remains set aside.Our thesis, composed of four pieces of work, aims at addressing this gap in order to improve our understanding of the entrepreneurial process. Our objective is to shed light on facilitators that can lead from intentions to effective action. We thus took on the challenge of unveiling part of the missing links between entrepreneurial intention and behavior. We selected commitment and implementation intention in the socio-psychological literature as being the possible missing links, and we test them in entrepreneurial contexts.Thus by focusing on the volitional part, our thesis completes the intention models in order to improve our knowledge of the entrepreneurial process. It has implications for intended entrepreneurs themselves, politicians, educators and incubators. Indeed, they could use what we have learnt about commitment and implementation intention to enhance the entrepreneurial intention conversion rate. Generally speaking, our goal is to propose new materials to help intended entrepreneurs to enact their intentions.However, the size of our samples limits our empirical studies to exploratory papers. Further researches should now test our findings quantitatively.

Scholarship has recognised the importance of entrepreneurship for economic development. Increasingly, policy makers promote entrepreneurship as one of the solutions for unemployment concerns. However, although many people formulate entrepreneurial intention they fail to convert their intention into action; this problem is called the intention-action gap. The problem of intention-action gap is particularly salient in Saudi Arabia. Although people have positive perceptions about entrepreneurship and high entrepreneurial intention, the country’s entrepreneurial activity is low. This presents a barrier in achieving the country’s national strategy to create more entrepreneurs through the promotion of entrepreneurship. Here, raising an intention to become an entrepreneur does not equate to becoming an entrepreneur. Scholars often predict entrepreneurship by entrepreneurial intention. Thus, they assume that entrepreneurial intention is the best predictor of action. They use dominant intention models to predict entrepreneurial behaviour. However, there is compelling evidence that entrepreneurial intention alone is an insufficient predictor of subsequent entrepreneurial behaviour. Thus, it is inadequate to prepare people to deal with difficulties of initiating action and striving towards goal attainment. Hence, there is a need for a more proximal predictor of entrepreneurial behaviour that can promote goal striving. Self-regulation (simplistically thought of as ‘will-power’) has been shown to be a better and more reliable predictor of intention in other fields. In fact, it was found that supporting intention with self-regulation can enhance the action prediction by up to 18%. In entrepreneurship, self-regulation has been suggested to differentiate people with entrepreneurial intention from active entrepreneurs. Against this background, this thesis investigates the processes underlying the forming of entrepreneurial intention to identify predictors of self-regulation. Hence, it extends existing intention models with self-regulation that facilitate action initiation. Consequently, this study focuses on the link between entrepreneurial intention and self-regulation. In addition, due to the salient influence of culture in Saudi Arabia’s context, the study explores the effect of cultural values on entrepreneurial intention. The conceptual framework is developed to explain the link between entrepreneurial intention and self-regulation and the effect of cultural values. This proposed two main levels, namely, goal setting and goal striving. The former reflects forming entrepreneurial intention and deliberative mind-set. The latter reflects forming implementation intention and implemental mind-set. This model is then tested through questionnaires among 405 non-entrepreneurs working in the private sector in Saudi Arabia. The data collected are analysed using the statistical tool, partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The study found that several factors and their interactions are important to explain the relationship between entrepreneurial intention and self-regulation. First, concrete goal intention can be formulated through desirability, feasibility, and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. However, this firm goal intention does not lead to self-regulation. Second, after formulating concrete goal intention, people can increase their self-regulation through implementation intention and optimism. The effect of cultural values is important as they appear to reduce entrepreneurial self-efficacy and, hence, decrease self-regulation. The outcomes have theoretical implications and lead to policy recommendations that can support better self-regulation and bridge the entrepreneurial intention-action gap, making a valued contribution to the development of entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia.

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