Title: People's confidence in innovation: a component of the entrepreneurial mindset, embedded in gender and culture, affecting entrepreneurial intention

Authors: Shayegheh Ashourizadeh; Zohreh Hassannezhad Chavoushi; Thomas Schøtt

Addresses: Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Farshi Moghaddam St., KargarShomali St., 1439813141, Tehran, Iran ' Faculty of Entrepreneurship, University of Tehran, Farshi Moghaddam St., KargarShomali St., 1439813141, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Entrepreneurship and Relationship Management, University of Southern Denmark, Engstien 1, 6000 Kolding, Denmark

Abstract: People may have confidence in innovation, prone to try, buy and use new services and products. Expectedly, confidence in innovation is a component in the entrepreneurial mindset that promotes intention to become entrepreneur and is embedded in the micro-level context of gender and in the macro-level context of culture. - People's confidence in innovation is examined for a representative sample of 384,444 adults in 71 societies surveyed in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor. - Linear modelling shows that people's confidence in innovation is a component in the entrepreneurial mindset by being especially high for entrepreneurs and by being related to other components such as self-efficacy, opportunity-alertness, risk-propensity and role-modelling. People's confidence are unrelated to their gender, unexpectedly, but are especially high in traditional culture, as hypothesised. Confidence in innovation promotes entrepreneurial intention, as expected and the benefit is especially high for men and in traditional culture, as hypothesised.

Keywords: confidence; innovation; entrepreneurial mindset; entrepreneurial intentions; embeddedness; gender differences; culture; new services; new products; entrepreneurs; Global Entrepreneurship Monitor; GEM; HLM; hierarchical linear modelling; self-efficacy; opportunity alertness; risk propensity; role modelling; traditional culture; traditional societies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJESB.2014.065310

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2014 Vol.23 No.1/2, pp.235 - 251

Published online: 31 Oct 2014 *

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