Entrepreneurial intention through the lens of the Pareto rule : a cross-country study

The overall economic progress of a society is highly dependent on the entrepreneurial action of its individuals. Entrepreneurial venture is governed by contextual, social, and individual drivers. Despite the many variables involved, we posit that cognitive traits (which belong to individual factors) are responsible for the largest share of anteceding entrepreneurial intentions. We look into this issue by means of a sample of 1901 respondents from four developed countries-Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Spain-combined with data from secondary sources. We find partial support for our hypothesis. While cognitive traits prove to be the most important drivers of entrepreneurial intention, they are only able to explain between 49% and 68% of its variability. Respondents have been divided into two partitions: a decile (10% highest to 10% lowest in entrepreneurial intention) and a quartile (25% highest to 25% lowest in entrepreneurial intention). Our results show that the highest entrepreneurial intention decile and quartile are populated by respondents springing from countries with lower development level, lower inequalities, lower economic freedom, higher exposure to catholic values, and higher values of the Masculinity/Femininity factor as defined by Hofstede.