Ambitious Entrepreneurship: A Review of Growth Aspirations, Intentions, and Expectations

In the study of entrepreneurial behavior types, “ambitious entrepreneurship” recently emerged as a new research concept. Unfortunately, a systematic overview of what is known (and not known) about this topic is missing. In particular, insights into the various definitions, measures, and antecedents of ambitious entrepreneurship are lacking. In this chapter, we offer a state-of-the-art review and analysis of extant research on ambitious entrepreneurship. We structure the literature review by providing insights into antecedents of ambitious entrepreneurship, and extensively discuss the conceptualization and operationalization of this research concept. We clarify the differences between related concepts such as growth intention, expectation, and aspiration, and argue how all these concepts fit into a unifying framework of ambitious entrepreneurship. We summarize promising future research avenues for the study of ambitious entrepreneurship, both from a methodological and a conceptual point of view.