Childhood adversities: Mixed blessings for entrepreneurial entry

TY - JOUR

T1 - Childhood adversities: Mixed blessings for entrepreneurial entry

AU - Yu, Wei

AU - Stephan, Ute

AU - Bao, Jia

N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Financial support from Singapore Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 1 ( R-266-000-130-133 ). Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors

PY - 2023/3

Y1 - 2023/3

N2 - The developmental psychology literature has linked childhood adversities to detrimental development outcomes that can undermine labor market participation and performance. In contrast, emerging entrepreneurship studies raise the possibility that childhood adversities may positively affect entrepreneurial action with some diverging findings. We reconcile these opposing theoretical perspectives in their effects on entrepreneurial entry by theorizing that childhood adversities are a mixed blessing for entrepreneurship and affect entry through two countervailing theoretical mechanisms. Childhood adversities increase the likelihood of entrepreneurial entry by promoting rule-breaking tendency and simultaneously decrease the likelihood of entry by negatively impacting individual ability (self-efficacy and educational attainment). We further theorized that childhood adversities have different implications for different types of entrepreneurial entry (incorporated and unincorporated) and for men versus women. We tested our hypotheses on a longitudinal sample of 4,222 individuals from the NLSY79 child and young adult cohort data, which tracks the development of children born to a representative sample of U.S. young women from childhood through youth to adulthood. Our study offers new insight into the effects of childhood adversities on entrepreneurship, including gender-specific manifestations and outcomes of childhood adversities.

AB - The developmental psychology literature has linked childhood adversities to detrimental development outcomes that can undermine labor market participation and performance. In contrast, emerging entrepreneurship studies raise the possibility that childhood adversities may positively affect entrepreneurial action with some diverging findings. We reconcile these opposing theoretical perspectives in their effects on entrepreneurial entry by theorizing that childhood adversities are a mixed blessing for entrepreneurship and affect entry through two countervailing theoretical mechanisms. Childhood adversities increase the likelihood of entrepreneurial entry by promoting rule-breaking tendency and simultaneously decrease the likelihood of entry by negatively impacting individual ability (self-efficacy and educational attainment). We further theorized that childhood adversities have different implications for different types of entrepreneurial entry (incorporated and unincorporated) and for men versus women. We tested our hypotheses on a longitudinal sample of 4,222 individuals from the NLSY79 child and young adult cohort data, which tracks the development of children born to a representative sample of U.S. young women from childhood through youth to adulthood. Our study offers new insight into the effects of childhood adversities on entrepreneurship, including gender-specific manifestations and outcomes of childhood adversities.

KW - entrepreneur

KW - CHILDHOOD ADVERSITIES

KW - childhood neglect

KW - Childhood abuse

KW - rule-breaking

KW - adolescence

KW - Human capital

KW - EDUCATION

KW - SELF-EFFICACY

KW - gender

KW - longitudinal

KW - entrepreneurship

KW - USA

KW - incorporation

KW - self-employment

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85146560113&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2023.106287

DO - 10.1016/j.jbusvent.2023.106287

M3 - Article

SN - 0883-9026

VL - 38

JO - JOURNAL OF BUSINESS VENTURING

JF - JOURNAL OF BUSINESS VENTURING

IS - 2

M1 - 106287

ER -