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.   Think of platforms that enable entrepreneurs to create ventures that fit that very specific platform niche. Amazon, for example has millions of independent sellers, there's a whole cohort of software developers exploiting Apple's watch platform. Immediately after Apple first announced that the watch would have physical sensors on it, thousands of sport and medical tech startups flocked to the space. Thus, not only do new platforms create spaces for entrepreneurship, but changes to platform features can also create new spaces for entrepreneurial entry.   Unplanned melody No one is really in charge of scientific or engineering discoveries t...

  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 entry later in life. 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 a famine in China (1959–1961) and from war-torn Vietnam. Both studies find that individuals who endured childhood adversity are more likely to become entrepreneurs.  Churchill et al. measure adversity as the bombing intensity experienced by the entrepreneurs in early childhood. They find that as the bombing intensity increased, so did the chance that the children grow up to become entrepreneurs. The effect size is about 5% increase in entrepreneurial entry for a 10% increase in bombing intensity. Cheng et al. measure adversity as the experience of starvation during the societal upheavals of C...