Intentions to reenter venture creation: The effect of entrepreneurial experience and organizational climate

Abstract

We identify and examine an important but overlooked group of entrepreneurs – individuals who have started one or more business ventures in the past but are currently employed in established organizations. We label these individuals as ‘organizationally employed former entrepreneurs’ (OEFEs). Our goal is to provide insight into the factors affecting their serial entrepreneurship intentions, that is, their intentions to re-enter entrepreneurship by re-engaging in venture creation. Applying Schneider’s attraction-selection-attrition theory, we identify factors that are likely to affect serial entrepreneurship intentions of OEFEs: the length of their venture creation experience and the climate of their employing organizations. Using survey data from 196 OEFEs, we show that the length of OEFE venture creation experience is positively related to their serial entrepreneurial intentions and that this relationship is negatively moderated by the organizational structure and entrepreneurial orientation of the organization in which the OEFEs are employed.