Entrepreneurship, age, and social value creation: A constraint-based individual perspective

Brigitte Hoogendoorn, Lorraine Uhlaner, Peter van der Zwan and Ute Stephan

Journal of Small Business Management, 2024, vol. 62, issue 3, 1286-1322

Abstract: We advance research on social entrepreneurship by offering a constraint-based individual perspective of “who” (gender, education) chooses to create social value “when” in their life course (proxied by age). Integrating predictions from situational strength theory in psychology and the life course perspective in sociology, we theorize that resource constraints determine at what age entrepreneurs are likely to prioritize social relative to economic value creation goals when starting their enterprise. We examine the intersection of entrepreneur age with gender and education to account for distinct patterns of resource constraints over the life course. Multilevel analyses of nationally representative samples of 5,251 new entrepreneurs from 44 countries reveal a robust curvilinear (U-shaped) relationship between age and social value creation and a steeper U-curve for more highly educated women. Our study offers a springboard for future entrepreneurship research considering individuals’ constraints on prosocial value expression by applying intersectional analyses.

Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00472778.2022.2133128 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:ujbmxx:v:62:y:2024:i:3:p:1286-1322

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ujbm20

DOI: 10.1080/00472778.2022.2133128

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Small Business Management is currently edited by Eric Liguori

More articles in Journal of Small Business Management from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().