How Personal Values Predict Social but Not Regular Entrepreneurial Intentions: Deeper Insights via an Exploratory Bayesian Statistical Approach

Abstract

Calls have been made to expand understanding of the values and motivations underpinning entrepreneurial intentions among nascent entrepreneurs. This nuanced study takes a social psychological perspective to examine the relationship between personal values and both ‘regular’ and social entrepreneurial intentions. Personal values are important cognitive structures that influence choice and behaviors and constitute a new and rapidly growing area of research into entrepreneurial mindsets. Based on survey data from 344 students at a research-led university in the UK, comprising entrepreneurship-educated and non-entrepreneurship-educated treatment groups; a potent Bayesian analysis revealed that educational experience was a more important predictor of regular entrepreneurship than personal values. However, specific personal values were found to be fundamental in predicting social entrepreneurial intentions. These results help to unpack the personal value–intention link in entrepreneurship. Specifically, the distinction we have revealed challenges the completeness of models grounded in the theory of planned behavior, to anticipate alternative forms of entrepreneurship activity.