A model to explain entrepreneurial motivation based on a well-known physical equation

JOSÉ PORRAS; GUADALUPE OLIVERAS

Oldenburg

Conferencia; 18th Forum Entrepreneurship Research (G-Forum) ? Annual Interdisciplinary Entrepreneurship Conference; 2014

The reason which leads a person to undertake the creation of a new venture, has been widely discussed in the literature. Recent works identify motivation as a force that drives individuals to and through the process of venture creation. Also, some authors claimed that ?a fuller understanding of the role of motivations in the overall process would require consideration of factors other than motives. Both perspectives are addressed in the present work, through an innovative model that assumes that while entrepreneurial motivation (EM) itself is the reason which leads to entrepreneurship, EM is not strictly a force, but the resultant of a system of ?forces? acting simultaneously on the individual. This assertion is developed by analogy with a basic principle of physics. The term "force" is used to define a well-known physical concept. In a simplified interpretation, according to Newton's second law, a force (in a given direction) applied to a body, will lead it to move in this same direction. This concept of the resultant of a system of collinear forces applied to a given object will be used, by analogy, in the development of the proposed model. This model is based in explaining the EM as the resultant (R) of the sum of all motivational components or factors (system of "psychological" forces) that are applied to a given individual (equivalent to body C at the figures). Each of these factors, which in sake of simplicity from now on will be referred to as forces or components, pulls or pushes the individual in the entrepreneurial direction (dotted line d), either in the sense of creating a new venture, or in the opposite sense (i.e., acting in practice as a resistance to continue with the entrepreneurial process). Under this definition, it must be assumed that individuals which have positive resultant (ME>0) at this very moment are performing any of the activities leading to the creation of a new venture, or looking to start doing so. Contrarily, all individuals with negative resultant (ME