An Exploratory Study on the Constructs of Entrepreneurship and Growth Intention of Venture Businesses in Korea

摘要

This study explores the constructs of entrepreneurship and also attempts to identify the determinants of growth intention as one of performance variables of venture business. So far there has been a controversial issue as to whether entrepreneur' s personal psychological traits are constructs of entrepreneurship or antecedents of entrepreneurship. To achieve this purpose, we used a research design that involves an empirical study on the sample of 330 venture businesses in Korea. By making use of confirmatory factor analysis and path analysis, we found that personal psychological traits and entrepreneurship act as determinants of growth intention. Also, based on the confirmatory factor analysis, we could argue that entrepreneur' s personal traits such as pro-activeness and risk-taking are antecedents rather than constructs of entrepreneur-ship whereas innovativeness is a construct for entrepreneurship. As a result, this study proves that it is theoretically proper to measure the construct of entrepreneurship by using innovativeness as its proxy variable. Thus, this research contributes to expanding the area of interest in entrepreneurship for both theoretical development and practical application by employing the future-oriented measure of " growth intention" rather than the past-oriented measure of "growth" in venture business.