Honors College Theses

Publication Date

4-23-2019

Major

Business Administration (MBA)

Document Type and Release Option

Thesis (open access)

Faculty Mentor

Dr. David Jiang

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is still regarded as a popular career choice across generations, however, the Millennial generation has seen the lowest rates of entrepreneurship among past generations. The purpose of this study is to identify psychological mechanisms that could explain this drop in entrepreneurship, discerning whether or not time perspective has a significant effect on an individual’s entrepreneurial intentions and attitudes. Two studies were conducted: (1) a 2x2 experiment that manipulated time perspective (open time vs limited time) and perceived certainty (perceived certainty vs. perceived uncertainty) to see what effects these variables had on entrepreneurial intentions and emotion regulation regarding entrepreneurial goals. The results suggest that open time perspective has a decreased effect on entrepreneurial attitudes or intentions if the individual is certain about the business opportunity they are considering. Furthermore, open time perspective may lead to a decrease in entrepreneurial intentions, initially at least, as the individuals may deem it safer to improve their knowledge and experience before pursuing entrepreneurship as they have perceived open time ahead of them. In contrast, counterintuitive to what most millennials generally think, those that are certain and have a limited time perspective have higher entrepreneurial intentions and positive emotions. This thesis accordingly offers important implications for entrepreneurial theory and practice.

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