Essays on explicit and implicit motives, entrepreneurial orientation,
and behavior
This dissertation
investigates the relationship between motive dispositions and entrepreneurial
intentions, orientations, and behaviors in an emerging economy. To do so, we
collected data from 176 SME owners and 410 students in Indonesia during 2018
and 2019 and conducted four empirical studies. In four empirical studies, we
examine how the entrepreneurs’ implicit and explicit motive dispositions are
related to the internationalization of SMEs, the sustainability orientation of
the SMEs, and the Long Term Orientation of the SMEs. In addition, we also
tested how implicit and explicit motives of students are related to their
intentions to establish a social enterprise. We used advanced methods, both to
assess implicit motives and to analyze the data, including Tobit regression
models for curvelinear and polynomial effects, surface analysis and simple
slope analyses. Our results show that implicit and explicit motives explain a
unique portion of entrepreneurial outcomes. They also provide novel insights
into how Western entrepreneurship theories are implemented in a developing
country.
The first empirical
study focuses on the internationalization of SMEs. The study shows that an
entrepreneur’s implicit need for achievement, in combination with her/his risk
perception, plays an essential role in SME internationalization. More
specifically, we found a U-shaped moderation effect of risk perception on the
relation between implicit need for achievement and internationalization. That
is, for entrepreneurs with a high need for achievement, the level of
internationalization of their SMEs is at the highest when risk perception is
either very low or very high. In conclusion, an integrated and complex view of
the entrepreneur’s motives and risk perception are indispensable to better
understand firm internationalization.
The second empirical
study showed that the environmental orientation of an SME is simultaneously
affected by both the implicit and explicit motive dispositions, need for power
in this case, of the owners. Different from our hypotheses, the results depict
that divergent levels of implicit and explicit need for power motivate
entrepreneurs to orient their company toward more sustainable business
practices.
The third empirical
study confirms that entrepreneurs with a high implicit need for achievement
tend to focus on the long term consequences of the behavior of their SMEs. Yet,
we find that this long-term orientation only takes place if the achievement
motivated entrepreneur beliefs that the country’s institutions are well
regulated and supportive for entrepreneurial activities.
The fourth empirical
study shows that students with a strong internal locus of control (ILOC) have
higher intentions to establish a social enterprise. We also find that this
relationship is even stronger for students with a low-level of explicit need
for power.
Finally, the last
chapter concludes that the implicit and explicit motives of the entrepreneur
are the essential factors for understanding various types of entrepreneurship.