Jill Kickul

Gender, Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy, and Entrepreneurial Career Intentions: Implications for Entrepreneurship Education

The relationships between gender, entrepreneurial self–efficacy, and entrepreneurial intentions were examined for two sample groups: adolescents and adult master of business administration (MBA) students. Similar gender effects on entrepreneurial self–efficacy are shown for both groups and support earlier research on the relationship between self–efficacy and career intentions. Additionally, the effects of entrepreneurship education in MBA programs on entrepreneurial self–efficacy proved stronger for women than for men. Implications for educators and policy makers were discussed, and areas for future research outlined.

Prospecting for Strategic Advantage: The Proactive Entrepreneurial Personality and Small Firm Innovation

Our study proposed and tested an entrepreneurial process model that examined the interrelationships among a small firm owners personality, strategic orientation, and innovation. In the first part of the model, it was posited that a proactive personality would directly influence a prospector strategic orientation. This type of strategic orientation would then be a key factor in determining the type of innovations introduced and implemented within the business. Using a sample of 107 small business owners, results revealed that the prospector strategy orientation mediated the relationship between proactive personality and three types of innovations: innovative targeting processes, innovative organizational systems, and innovative boundary supports. Implications for small business managers as well as future research directions are discussed.

The Role of Cognitive Style and Risk Preference on Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and Entrepreneurial Intentions

The purpose of the current study is to address the distinctive roles of cognitive style and risk preference on four types of entrepreneurial self-efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions. More specifically, we examine how both cognitive style and risk preference separately and interactively contribute to an individuals assessment of his/her own skills and abilities as well as to his/her own entrepreneurial intentions. This study investigated these relationships using an international sample of 528 entrepreneurial students across three universities. Results indicated that individuals with a high risk preference had higher levels of entrepreneurial intentions and opportunity-identification efficacy, whereas individuals with a low risk preference had higher levels of relationship efficacy, and tolerance efficacy. Individuals with an intuitive cognitive style were also found to have lower perceived self-efficacy concerning the establishment of relationship with investors, the economic management of the new venture, and their capacity to tolerate ambiguity. However, intuitive individuals who had a high preference for risk exhibited higher levels of opportunity identification efficacy. Finally, contrary to our final hypothesis, analytic individuals with a low preference for risk had higher levels of relationship and tolerance self-efficacy than intuitive individuals with a high risk preference. Implications of these findings and directions for future research are discussed.

Intuition Versus Analysis? Testing Differential Models of Cognitive Style on Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy and the New Venture Creation Process

This research revealed the significant role of two distinct cognitive styles as a determinant of perceived entrepreneurial self–efficacy regarding the different stages of the new venture process. The study found that individuals’ cognitive preference for analysis or intuition influences their perception and assessment of their entrepreneurial self–efficacy in their intentions to create a new venture. Individuals with the intuitive cognitive style were more confident in their ability to identify and recognize opportunities, without much confidence in their capacity of assessment, evaluation, planning, and marshalling of resources. Conversely, individuals with the analytic cognitive style were more confident in their abilities to assess, evaluate, plan, and marshal resources, but felt less confident in their abilities to search for and recognize new opportunities.

Emergent Leadership Behaviors: The Function of Personality and Cognitive Ability in Determining Teamwork Performance and KSAs

This study investigated the theoretical underpinnings of individual differences in emergent leadership behaviors and their relationships to teamwork processes and outcomes. Both personality and cognitive ability were utilized to examine behaviors of leadership emergence, team performance, and KSAs. Three hundred and twenty undergraduate psychology students completed personality and cognitive ability tests and then formed sixty-seven mixed-gender teams. Members rated each other on emergent leadership behaviors as well as their team on specific interpersonal and self-management KSAs. Results revealed that extroversion, openness to experience and cognitive ability were predictive of emergent leadership behaviors. Conscientiousness and cognitive ability were associated with team performance. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.

Organizational Dynamic Capability and Innovation: An Empirical Examination of Internet Firms

This paper extends the dynamic capability perspective into the study of innovation by entrepreneurial firms. Drawing from both the resource‐based view and the dynamic capability perspective, this paper explores theoretically and examines empirically the different roles played by a firms resource stock (endowment of resources and capabilities) and its integrative capabilities (ability to recognize opportunities as well as to configure and deploy resources) in the process of firm innovation. Our structural equation modeling results, based on a sample of 120 Internet‐based companies, indicate that both the firms resource stock and integrative capabilities affect its innovation. Additionally, we also found that the relationship between resource stock and innovation is mediated by integrative capabilities. That is, merely possessing well‐endowed resource stock per se is not sufficient for innovation. Thus, it is the firms ability to mobilize its resources and capabilities and align them dynamically with the changing opportunities in the environment that is of vital importance as the firm constantly innovates to survive and create its own competitive advantage. In the hypercompetitive and fast changing Internet‐based environment, such a need for dynamic capabilities is especially accentuated. Implications and suggestions for future research are provided.

Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: Achievement Orientation and Personality

The current study investigated the effects of personality variables as antecedents in predicting Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs), with the covenantal relationship as a mediating variable. 284 retail sales employees were administered 4 personality tests, a composite measure of the covenantal relationship, and a measure of citizenship behavior. Value for achievement, agreeableness, and conscientiousness predicted five types of organizational citizenship. Extraversion was not predictive across all citizenship behaviors. Implications for the relationship between personality and citizenship are discussed.

Attitudinal and Behavioral Outcomes of Psychological Contract Breach A Cross Cultural Comparison of the United States and Hong Kong Chinese

This study responds to the call for more cross cultural examinations of the psychological contract by investigating differences in: (1) the perceived importance of various psychological contract obligations, (2) the frequency of perceived psychological contract breach, and (3) employee attitudes and behaviors following psychological contract breach. A sample of 60 American and 76 Hong Kong Chinese employees completed measures related to the psychological contract, job satisfaction, intention to turnover, organizational commitment, job performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Results showed that the employees from both cultures differed in terms of perceived psychological contract importance and breach. Specifically, the American workers placed higher importance and perceived less breach of both intrinsic and extrinsic psychological contract outcomes than the Hong Kong employees. Additionally, American employees responded more negatively to perceived breaches of intrinsic outcomes, while their Hong Kong counterparts responded more negatively to perceived breaches of extrinsic outcomes. Limitations of the current study and suggestions for future cross cultural research are discussed.

Are misalignments of perceptions and self‐efficacy causing gender gaps in entrepreneurial intentions among our nation's teens?

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the reasons behind the significant gender gaps observed in entrepreneurial interest among adolescents. Specifically, the authors aim to test multiple models that analyze direct and indirect relationships between work and leadership experience, presence of a parental role model, self‐efficacy, and interest by teens in becoming entrepreneurs.Design/methodology/approach – A sample of over 5,000 middle and high school students participated in the larger study from which the data were drawn. Participants completed measures of entrepreneurial self‐efficacy, entrepreneurial intentions, work and leadership experience, and parental entrepreneurial role model. The authors analyzed the data using structural equation modeling.Findings – While the study confirmed previous empirical findings regarding the antecedents of entrepreneurial self‐efficacy and entrepreneurial intentions, significant differences across gender emerged. First, while boys and girls hold jobs outsi...

Promises Made, Promises Broken: An Exploration of Employee Attraction and Retention Practices in Small Business

Entrepreneurial organizations have undergone substantial workforce changes and transformations during the last two decades in order to compete successfully on a global scale. The ability to attract and retain reliable and competent employees has become a key component in developing an effective and sustainable competitive advantage. The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of the psychological contract and the types of promises made and communicated by small business organizations to attract and retain their employees. From a sample of 151 employees within small businesses, the results demonstrate that perceived unfulfilled promises can have a considerable impact on workplace attitudes, commitment, and intentions to leave the organization. Implications and recommendations for small businesses as well as directions for future research are discussed.