Title: Cognitive effects on entrepreneurial intentions: a comparison of Chinese émigrés and their descendants with non-émigré Chinese

Authors: Kent Wickstrøm Jensen; Shahamak Rezaei; Frederick F. Wherry

Addresses: Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management, University of Southern Denmark, Engstien 1, DK-6000 Kolding, Denmark ' Department of Social Society and Globalisation, Roskilde University, Building 25.3, P.O. Box 260, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark ' Department of Sociology, Yale University, P.O. Box 208265, New Haven, CT 06520-8265, USA

Abstract: Cognitive characteristics of individuals have previously been established as important predictors of entrepreneurial intentions. Yet, we know little about this relationship in a transnational and ethnic entrepreneurship context. In this paper, we examine if and how émigrés differs from those individuals staying at home with regard to entrepreneurial intentions and with regard to their cognitive make-up. Also, we examine differences in the impact of cognitions of émigrés and homeland individuals respectively on their entrepreneurial intentions. We use data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor in 2012 on 3,681 adult homeland Chinese 111 adult first generation émigrés and 295 adult second generation émigrés from China. Findings suggest that second generation Chinese émigrées are less likely to have entrepreneurial intentions than Chinese staying in China. Contrary to our initial expectations, we also find that both first and second generation émigrés are less likely to have entrepreneurially oriented cognitions.

Keywords: transnational entrepreneurship; individual cognition; entrepreneurial intentions; China; Global Entrepreneurship Monitor; GEM; Chinese entrepreneurs; Chinese emigres; political migrants; cognitive characteristics; entrepreneurial predictors; ethnicity; descendants.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2014.065304

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2014 Vol.23 No.1/2, pp.252 - 277

Published online: 31 Oct 2014 *

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