Explaining entrepreneurial intentions, nascent entrepreneurial behavior and new business creation with social cognitive career theory – a 5-year longitudinal analysis

Scholars conceptualize entrepreneurial behavior (EB) as the actions taken for new venture creation, which are said to manifest from an individual’s intention to become an entrepreneur (EI). Though theoretically supported, predicting EB through EI faces many operationalization challenges, is rarely empirically reported, and presents methodological inconsistencies. Addressing these issues will improve our ability to identify emerging and successful new business venturers and facilitate further entrepreneurial stimulation of populations. Using both a cross-sectional and a 5-year longitudinal research design, we study the applicability of social cognitive career theory (SCCT) in explaining EI and EB for a sample of 1,149 Portuguese college students. The cross-sectional results support SCCT’s ability to explain students’ intentions in this large student population. Furthermore, with a smaller subsample, longitudinal analysis confirms intentions, as predictive of nascent EB, towards successful new business creation. In contrast to the theory’s propositions, we find that entrepreneurial self-efficacy beliefs and outcome expectations do not add to EI’s ability to predict EB. This study contributes to the currently scarce empirical support for SCCT as an appropriate model explaining EI and is the first to apply this theory’s core model to test the EI-EB link longitudinally. This study may be relevant to educators and policymakers who want to promote and assist college students in creating their own new businesses.