**From Entrepreneurial Intentions to Behaviors: Wandering In-Between and Wondering about Challenges and Avenues Wandering In-Between and Wondering about Challenges and Avenues**

**From Entrepreneurial Intentions to Behaviors:** 

DOI: 10.5772/intechopen.70836

Wassim J. Aloulou Wassim J. Aloulou Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

Additional information is available at the end of the chapter

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.70836

#### **Abstract**

In order to wander and understand the chasm between intentions and actions/behaviors, this chapter presents and discusses the leading theories (such as theory of reasoned action and theory of planned behavior), alternative ones (such as implementation intention theory and theory of goal-directed behavior), potential concepts bridging the intentionbehavior gap (entrepreneurial motivation and commitment) and empirical intentionbased models and their applicability and predictive validity in entrepreneurship field. For that purpose, it is argued that a socio- and cognitive psychological approach is the most suitable to understand entrepreneurship and in particular the intention-behavior link. This chapter invites entrepreneurship scholars to wonder about challenges in entrepreneurship research and education field and about potential research avenues. At the end, the chapter re-launches the debate by pointing out certain questionings for future research on entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors to produce novel knowledge.

**Keywords:** intentions, actions, behaviors, entrepreneurship, goal intentions, implementation intentions, motivation, volition, commitment

## **1. Introduction**

Entrepreneurship is a young academic field [1] and the research on it remains without any substantial progress [1–3]. Being an emergent field of scholarly inquiry in the social sciences, entrepreneurship is considered as a complex and dynamic phenomenon [2, 4, 5]. And due to its dynamic and complex nature, this challenging research field has to be understood by solid foundations from the social sciences as suggested by Bygrave and Hofer [2]. And what made social sciences distinct from other sciences was related to its basic unit of explanation. In fact,

© 2016 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee InTech. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

its basic building block was (and is) that individual action is guided by intentions. As mental states, human intentions matter (Ghoshal, 2005, cited in [6]).

entrepreneur, we introduce the concepts of intentions and behaviors as main concepts in the

From Entrepreneurial Intentions to Behaviors: Wandering In-Between and Wondering…

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.70836

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Several scholars attempted to define entrepreneurship and the entrepreneur. In fact, [34] emphasized the importance of innovation and novelty and considered the entrepreneur as performing the function of innovation throughout the power of creation-destruction. Indeed, [31] defined entrepreneurship as the emergence of a new organization by the action of entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is about individuals who perceive/create opportunities where other do not, and who attempt to exploit those opportunities through various modes of organizing, without regard to resources currently controlled [32]. It's also about the study of opportunities to create future goods and services that are discovered, evaluated, and exploited by these individuals [33]. In addition, it was argued that the scientific object studied in entrepreneurship field is the dialogic between individual and new value creation, within an

Dealing with its essential features, entrepreneurship is seen as essentially variable, heterogeneous, discontinuous, complex and dynamic phenomenon that is likely to be unpredictable and sensitive to initial conditions [2, 4, 5]. It is also characterized by uncertainty, risk and novelty, resource constraints, and financial as well as psychological ownership [35]. Consequently, being as a potential alternative to the trait approach, the processual approach of entrepreneurship makes possible to understand better intentions, actions, activities and behaviors of entrepreneurs. It considers entrepreneurship as a process of change, emergence and creation [2]. Accordingly, [15] consider this approach shifting when some researchers turned to entrepreneurial intentions recognizing that understanding the link between ideas and actions of entrepreneurs was critical for understanding the entrepreneurial process [7, 8]. Others turned to the study of entrepreneurial decision making and behavior and viewed entrepreneurship as process of causation [33], effectuation [37], and bricolage [38]. Moreover, the decision to become an entrepreneur may be considered as conscious and his behavior as an intentional, planned and goal-directed behavior [36]. In this chapter, we will refer to entrepreneurship in the sense of starting a new business and the entrepreneur as the main actor in

ongoing process and within an environment that has specific characteristics [2].

**2.2. Entrepreneurial intentions and behaviors and the mysterious link**

According to [7], intention(ality) is a state of mind directing person's attention (and therefore experience and action) toward specific object (goal) or a path in order to achieve something (means). Entrepreneurial intentions are defined as entrepreneurs' states of mind that direct attention, experience, and action to toward starting a business. They guide their goal setting, communications, commitment, organization, and other kinds of work [7]. In the same way, [39, 40] defined classically entrepreneurial intentions as the cognitive state temporally and causally prior to the decision and action of starting a business. Thus, in an intentional action the intention functions as a mediator. For several scholars, intentionality seems to be central

entrepreneurship literature.

the entrepreneurial process.

**2.1. Defining entrepreneurship and entrepreneur**

Researches like [7, 8] stated that understanding the link between ideas/intentions and actions was critical for understanding the entrepreneurial behavior, process and phenomenon. Notwithstanding, understanding this behavior is difficult enough and predicting it presents so many challenges. Considerable progress has even been made toward understanding critical antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions, and, toward considering entrepreneurial behavior as intentional and planned behavior predicted by intentions [9] and goal-directed leading to an outcome [10, 11]. In the line with several researchers [12–15], we adopt a theoretical approach based on social and cognitive psychology to understand the complexity of entrepreneurial behavior, to study the link between intentions and behaviors, and to bridge the gap between the two. In this chapter, we present several concepts that are seemingly proposed from such literature in order to bridge this gap: goal intentions, implementation intention, desire and emotions, motivation, volition, and commitment [16–20] and with some empirical studies from entrepreneurship literature [14, 15, 21–27].

The chapter shows that several researchers asked if the antecedents of entrepreneurial intentions were known according to the different conceived and tested intentions-based models, the factors that facilitate the translation of intention into actions and behaviors are still unknown [28, 29]. Intentions may be still the best predictor of human behavior, including entrepreneurial behavior, but scholars have understudied how intention is translated into action and become reality, and this can become a promising issue challenging the entrepreneurship research and education field [28]. Thus, the chapter proceeds on a critical review of the literature (leading and alternative theories, conceptual and empirical models) to define the different challenging concepts between intentions and behaviors. The central question is why do some people act on their entrepreneurial intentions, whereas others do not in spite of favorable perceptions of desirability and feasibility of the entrepreneurial actions? After emphasizing the importance of advancing main concepts and reviewing literature from social and cognitive psychology perspective, the chapter challenges future research about adding new conceptual and empirical work in order to enhance our understanding of the whole process. The chapter discusses, at the end, some avenues for future research related to entrepreneurship research and education.
