Entrepreneurship is essential for international social and economic well-being, as new ventures are the dominant source of job creation, market innovation, and economic growth in many societies. In this book, a noted group of researchers use findings, methods, and theories of modern psychology as the basis for gaining important, new insights into entrepreneurship-and into the hearts and minds of the talented, passionate professionals who create new business ventures. The Psychology of Entrepreneurship, a volume in the SIOP Organizational Frontiers Series, is the first book written about the psychology of entrepreneurship, and includes over 60 research questions to guide industrial organizational psychology, organizational behavior, and entrepreneurship research about entrepreneurs. It seeks to answer questions such as, how and why do some people, but not others, recognize opportunities, decide to start new ventures, and organize successful, rapidly growing new ventures? Some topics addressed include: methods to help researchers explore the domain of entrepreneurship research; the entire process of starting a new business; characteristics of the individual entrepreneur; the history of entrepreneurship education; the cross-cultural effects of entrepreneurship; and the viewpoints of seasoned psychologists who analyze current entrepreneurship research methods. This book will appeal to teachers, students, and researchers in the areas of industrial organizational psychology, organizational behavior, entrepreneurship, and management.

øWithin an entrepreneurial context, what a person thinks and feels and how they behave are hugely consequential. Entrepreneurs often work in scenarios of considerable time pressure, task complexity, uncertainty and high performance variance. This fasci

Towards a Psychology of Entrepreneurship examines a theory of entrepreneurship, its empirical base and its implications. First, it argues that a psychological approach is necessary to understand entrepreneurship. Second, it argues that any theory of entrepreneurship should use active actions as a starting point - entrepreneurship is the epitome of an active agent in the market, rather than a reactive agent. Third, it discusses an action regulation theory to better understand the psychology of entrepreneurship. Fourth, it provides examples how this theory can help to understand entrepreneurial success. Finally, it suggests intervention programs to help entrepreneurs to be successful at growing their organizations. Towards a Psychology of Entrepreneurship presents a descriptive definition of the entrepreneur. It also emphasize that entrepreneurship does not necessarily imply the start-up and growth of business organizations but is a more general phenomenon of starting social organizations and changing organizations. Thus, it also includes social entrepreneurs in its definition of the entrepreneur - thus, founders of social service organizations are considered part of the entrepreneurship landscape.

Only if they do the right thing at the right time will owners of small businesses succeed. Simple enough, but what are the factors in their psychological makeup that enable them to do it? Frese and his contributors have studied small businesses in four African countries from a psychological perspective—the first time this has been done—and report that it's the psychological aspects of their strategies, not just the strategies themselves, that contribute significantly to their success. They also prove that many of the stereotypes that seem to characterize the owners of microbusinesses are clearly incorrect. Executives, analysts, bankers, international entrepreneurs, and their academic colleagues will discover that many of the conclusions they have drawn from previous studies can not be generalized. Only by separating those that can be generalized from those that can not, can we get a true understanding of the small business entrepreneurial dynamic. Frese and his colleagues focus on South Africa, Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Zambia to produce a clear overview of the research on microbusiness and entrepreneurship in developing countries. They find that psychological strategies are closely related to entrepreneurial success, but because conditions in these countries differ widely, the particulars of certain strategies and their effectiveness may also differ. They show that a number of ideas prevalent among professionals and entrepreneurship researchers in developing countries need to be challenged. Among them, that microenterprise owners who started their companies because they were unemployed do worse than those who started for other, more positive reasons. Also, that human capital (education) represents the most important set of variables to be considered for success (it isn't), or that employing family members decreases success (it doesn't). Well written and impeccably researched, the book is an essential contribution to corporate and academic libraries, as well as to the knowledge of individuals in business, psychology, entrepreneurial and regional studies, and related fields.

The challenge faced by family businesses and their stakeholders, is to recognise the issues that they face, understand how to develop strategies to address them and more importantly, to create narratives, or family stories that explain the emotional dimension of the issues to the family. The most intractable family business issues are not the business problems the organisation faces, but the emotional issues that compound them. Applying psychodynamic concepts will help to explain behaviour and will enable the family to prepare for life cycle transitions and other issues that may arise. Here is a new understanding and a broader perspective on the human dynamics of family firms with two complementary frameworks, psychodynamic and family systematic, to help make sense of family-run organisations. Although this book includes a conceptual section, it is first and foremost a practical book about the real world issues faced by business families. The book begins by demonstrating that many years of achievement through generations can be destroyed by the next, if the family fails to address the psychological issues they face. By exploring cases from famous and less well known family businesses across the world, the authors discuss entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial family and the lifecycles of the individual and the organisation. They go on to show how companies going through change and transition can avoid the pitfalls that endanger both family and company. The authors then apply tools that will help family businesses in transition and offer their analyses and conclusions. Readers should draw their own conclusions from careful examination of the cases, identifying the problems or dilemmas faced and the options for improved business performance and family relationships. They should ask what they might have done in the given situation and what new insight into individual or family behaviour each case offers. The goal is to avoid a bitter ending.

This book, first published in 2000, is a comprehensive survey of research and theory in personality psychology.

This book connects entrepreneurship and psychology research by focusing on the personality dimensions of entrepreneurs, entrepreneurial cognition, entrepreneurial leadership, and gender behavior. It features state of the art interdisciplinary research offering a unified perspective on entrepreneurial psychology. Individual chapters address advances related to entrepreneurial intentions, complexity management, personality psychology, intrapreneurial behavior, entrepreneurial communities and demographic changes, among others. Laboratory experiments that study entrepreneurial behavior round out the coverage.

Psychological characteristics are significant for various stages of the entrepreneurial process on both individual and group levels. Looking into the ‘psychological context’ in entrepreneurship, Martin Obschonka reviews and defines the field, exploring the role of regional and country-level entrepreneurial personality and new trends in the geography of entrepreneurial psychology influenced by technological advances.

This open access book investigates the inter-relationship between the mind and a potential opportunity to explore the psychology of entrepreneurship. Building on recent research, this book offers a broad scope investigation of the different aspects of what goes on in the mind of the (potential) entrepreneur as he or she considers the pursuit of a potential opportunity, the creation of a new organization, and/or the selection of an entrepreneurial career. This book focuses on individuals as the level of analysis and explores the impact of the organization and the environment only inasmuch as they impact the individual’s cognitions. Readers will learn why some individuals and managers are able to able to identify and successfully act upon opportunities in uncertain environments while others are not. This book applies a cognitive lens to understand individuals’ knowledge, motivation, attention, identity, and emotions in the entrepreneurial process.

Departing from the traditional approach of surveying current and future trends and developments, this unique Handbook brings phenomena, theories, and concepts from multiple disciplines together to advance entrepreneurship. With original contributions from authors who are experts in their fields, the collection offers state-of-the-art insights into generating new areas for research, new theories and concepts, and new questions for policy debates – all aimed at advancing entrepreneurship. Divided into four sections and covering perspectives such as neuroscience, theology, organisational behavior and education, The Palgrave Handbook of Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Entrepreneurship is a rich source of information for researchers, educators, entrepreneurs, leaders and managers.