THE ROLE OF REGRETFUL THINKING, PERSEVERANCE, AND SELF-EFFICACY IN VENTURE FORMATION

Shane and Venkataraman (2000) and Venkataraman (1997) suggest that the field of entrepreneurship seeks to understand how opportunities are discovered, created, and exploited, by whom, and with what consequences (italic added). Surprisingly and despite the fact that the person – the entrepreneur – is central to the creation of new ventures, entrepreneurship scholars are reluctant to explicitly include individual differences in formal models of new venture formation. For example, notwithstanding the important role that entrepreneurs play in forging new wealth and creating new jobs, research to identify cognitive processes, attitudes, behaviors, traits, or other characteristics that distinguish entrepreneurs from others who opt to work as employees remains somewhat marginal. Indeed, only very few studies on individual differences have been published in leading management journals. One possible explanation for this reluctance is that in the past researchers might have classified most individual differences as traits research and thus criticism spilled over to include all individual difference research, regardless of whether the focus was trait, cognitions, emotions, attitudes, behaviors, or other characteristics.