Entrepreneurship Theories

Distinct from the popular medical/psychological definition of generativity, which defines the concept as a need to nurture and guide younger people and contribute to the next generation, the generativity theory in relation to entrepreneurship focuses on the development of technology stemming from the foundations set by previous innovations. According to Zittrain (2006, p. 1980) generativity refers to “technology’s overall capacity to produce unprompted change driven by large, varied, and uncoordinated audiences”. The keyword here being ‘unprompted’. Zittrain suggests that the innovations and outcomes are unintentional and occur without purposeful intent. He also notes that the outcomes of these activities in turn become the basis for future innovation. Yoo et al. (2010) expands on Zittrain’s definition and illustrates generativity as a layered model where innovation on one layer’s technology can have a cascading effect on other layers. An example of this is a camera using available

Another biological theory is the childhood adversity theory. While researchers have looked at resilience in adults, few have examined the how childhood adversity may affect entrepreneurial intentions.  Using a variant of the underdog theory, which looks at how negative experience shape an individual's resilience. Recent research has looked at samples of entrepreneurs from the Great Chinese Famine of 1959–1961 and war-torn Vietnam. Both studies find that individuals who endured childhood adversity are more likely to become entrepreneurs.  Both paper use the ‘underdog’ theory of entrepreneurship proposed by Miller and Le Breton-Miller (2017). The gist of the underdog theory is that "negative personal circumstances of an economic, sociocultural, cognitive, and physical/emotional nature may have a … powerful role to play in getting people to become effective entrepreneurs" (p. 3). The theory suggest that life challenges require the development of coping and adaptive skil