THREE ESSAYS ON ENTREPRENEURS AND THE HETEROGENEITY IN ENTREPRENEURIAL DECISIONS

This dissertation investigates how entrepreneurs make significant decisions during the progressive stages of business development and evaluates how the unique psychological traits of entrepreneurs influence these key decisions from initialization to exit.

The first essay, which is based on current literature exploring organizational identification, theorizes that an entrepreneur’s exit decision depends upon the strength of his/her organizational identification with his/her specific business endeavors. This work suggests factors that reduce or enhance organizational identification (e.g., prior entrepreneurial experience, the number of co-founders, the status of the core founders, and the duration of the organization as a private firm) and summarizes how these factors affect an entrepreneur’s voluntary succession.

Next, the second essay sheds light on the relationship between hybrid entrepreneurship and performance at the initial stage of entrepreneurial activities. Drawing upon the entrepreneurial threshold literature, this paper develops a theory of how hybrid entrepreneurship, regardless of the status of an entrepreneur’s transition to full-time employment, may affect the financing and commercialization of entrepreneurial activity.

Finally, a third significant essay reflects on the topic of the new era with multiple financing sources (e.g., crowdfunding and peer-to-peer lending), examining how hybrid entrepreneurship influences an entrepreneur’s financing preference (i.e., financing goal amount, financing schedule, and staged financing decision). Starting from the atypical contextual background of hybrid entrepreneurs (i.e., low self-confidence and considerable resource limitation), this essay theorizes that hybrid entrepreneurs prefer to request smaller amounts of financing over either a longer term or with staged financing, compared to full-time entrepreneurs. Furthermore, in order to delve into the mechanisms behind the given association, the moderating effect of prior entrepreneurial success is also investigated.