TY  - JOUR
A1  - Caliendo, Marco
A1  - Kritikos, Alexander
A1  - Stier, Claudia
T1  - The influence of start-up motivation on entrepreneurial performance
T2  - Small business economics
N2  - Predicting entrepreneurial development based on individual and business-related characteristics is a key objective of entrepreneurship research. In this context, we investigate whether the motives of becoming an entrepreneur influence the subsequent entrepreneurial development. In our analysis, we examine a broad range of business outcomes including survival and income, as well as job creation, and expansion and innovation activities for up to 40 months after business formation. Using the self-determination theory as conceptual background, we aggregate the start-up motives into a continuous motivational index. We show – based on a unique dataset of German start-ups from unemployment and non-unemployment – that the later business performance is better, the higher they score on this index. Effects are particularly strong for growth-oriented outcomes like innovation and expansion activities. In a next step, we examine three underlying motivational categories that we term opportunity, career ambition, and necessity. We show that individuals driven by opportunity motives perform better in terms of innovation and business expansion activities, while career ambition is positively associated with survival, income, and the probability of hiring employees. All effects are robust to the inclusion of a large battery of covariates that are proven to be important determinants of entrepreneurial performance.
KW  - entrepreneurship
KW  - push and pull theories
KW  - start-up motivation
KW  - survival
KW  - job creation
KW  - firm growth
KW  - innovation
Y1  - 2023
UR  - https://publishup.uni-potsdam.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/63412
SN  - 0921-898X
SN  - 1573-0913
VL  - 61
SP  - 869
EP  - 889
PB  - Springer Science+Business Media
CY  - Dordrecht
ER  -