City Research Online

Abstract

Entrepreneurial inspiration has been widely acknowledged as a motivating force behind entrepreneurial intentions and behaviours, but it remains conceptually and empirically underdeveloped in the entrepreneurship literature. This thesis comprises three interrelated studies that collectively advance our understanding of entrepreneurial inspiration across educational and active entrepreneurship contexts.

The first study is a systematic literature review of 40 articles published in ABS-listed journals, aimed at providing an updated understanding of what we currently know about inspiration in entrepreneurship. The review identifies that while inspiration has been explicitly studied as a motivational construct within entrepreneurship education context and primarily in relation to intention formation, it remains a peripheral and inconsistently defined concept in active entrepreneurial contexts. Moreover, the mechanisms underlying why students and entrepreneurs feel inspired remain underexplored. These gaps collectively highlight the need, first, for an exploratory study to investigate the nature and conceptualisation of inspiration in active entrepreneurship, and second, for further research to examine the mechanisms through which inspiration is evoked.

Building on these gaps, the second study adopts an inductive qualitative approach to explore how inspiration is experienced by active entrepreneurs. Drawing on interviews with 40 active entrepreneurs, this study conceptualises entrepreneurial inspiration as a process rather than a static motivational state. The findings highlight the contextual and socially embedded nature of inspiration in the entrepreneurial process, and unpack the feelings, thoughts, and motivational components of the experience of inspiration.

The third study addresses another gap identified in the literature review—the underexplored mechanisms through which entrepreneurial inspiration is evoked in educational settings. Based on social comparison theory, this study examines the effect of perceived similarity and attainability in shaping entrepreneurial inspiration. Notably, this mechanism also emerged in the interviews conducted in the second study, confirming the soundness and necessity of further investigation. Through three lab experiments, we find that exposure to entrepreneurial exemplars increases students’ inspiration, and that perceived attainability of the entrepreneur’s success, rather than similarity, emerges as the driver of entrepreneurial inspiration. These findings offer theoretical insights into the mechanisms underlying entrepreneurial inspiration and provide practical guidance for designing entrepreneurship education interventions.

Together, these studies contribute to a more nuanced and context-specific understanding of inspiration in entrepreneurship.

Publication Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management
Departments:	Bayes Business School Bayes Business School > Faculty of Management Doctoral Theses

Export

Downloads