Entrepreneurial Intentions towards Individual vs. Corporate Entrepreneurship

An individual’s intention to behave entrepreneurially will have attitudinal and self-efficacy antecedents. Nascent entrepreneurs also have the choice to behave entrepreneurially in their own new business or to behave entrepreneurially in an existing business (as an intrapreneur). When faced with choice, intentions are driven by attitudes towards elements of the outcomes associated with the choice items. Since the outcomes of self-employment and employment as an intrapreneur typically differ in terms of level of decision-making autonomy, degree of ownership and degree of risk exposure, we might expect the choice between these alternative career paths to depend on the individual’s attitudes to autonomy, ownership and risk. We also expect self-efficacy to moderate the effect of attitudes on intentions, since self-employment involves considerable risk and greater personal decision responsibility. Our empirical tests confirm these expectations, with the intention to engage in individual entrepreneurship or corporate entrepreneurship having different attitudinal antecedents, with one of the attitude variables interacting with entrepreneurial self-efficacy.