Nascent Entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy, and the Moderators of Race, Gender, and Government Support

In a better attempt to understand nascent entrepreneurship, this paper explores the relationship between opportunity recognition and the entrepreneurial intent of nascent entrepreneurs. Contrary to conventional wisdom, research on this relationship is fragmented and empirically underdeveloped. In addition, the contextual and perceptual boundary conditions of government support, gender, and minorities are explored. We surveyed 1246 nascent entrepreneurs in the state of Florida, which is the largest data set on this topic in Florida. Respondents answered 55 survey questions on potential barriers to entrepreneurship to help understand how their context impacts their intent to start a new business. Our empirical results indicate that opportunity recognition by nascent entrepreneurs significantly affects entrepreneurial intent, the strength of which is moderated by government support and gender, but not by minorities. Our study is a direct response to the call-in existing entrepreneurship literature for new research in geographically narrower contexts as the largest survey-based study at the state level in the US that we know of. We extend and demarcate entrepreneurial self-efficacy into a new context while clarifying boundary conditions. Lastly, our dependent variable measures intensity of intention to start a business along a time dimension which empirically narrows the gap between studies on entrepreneurial intention and studies on entrepreneurial action.