Self-Efficacy in Disrupted Environments: COVID-19 as a Natural Experiment

Carsten Bergenholtz, Kim Klyver and Oana Vuculescu

Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 2023, vol. 47, issue 3, 724-750

Abstract: In two studies, we investigate whether the link between entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions depends on outcome expectations. In Study 1, we exploit the COVID-19-induced lockdown as a natural experiment in a two-wave student sample. We compare the efficacy–intention link in survey responses submitted right before and right after the lockdown. In Study 2, we conceptually replicate and extend the findings via an online vignette experiment. Together, these studies show that a disruption of stable institutionalized outcome expectations implying increasing risk and uncertainty makes self-efficacy a weaker predictor of entrepreneurial intentions, particularly among those with pessimistic perceptions.

Keywords: Entrepreneurship; self-efficacy; entrepreneurial intention; Covid-19; uncertainty; disrupted environment; efficacy expectation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10422587211046548 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:entthe:v:47:y:2023:i:3:p:724-750

DOI: 10.1177/10422587211046548

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().