Regulatory Focus and Executives' Intentions
To Commit Their Firms to Entrepreneurial Action
Jeffery S. McMullen
Baylor University - Hankamer School of Business
Shaker A. Zahra
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities - Carlson School of Management
January 21, 2009
Babson College Entrepreneurship Research Conference (BCERC) 2006
Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research 2006
Abstract:
Higgins (1997) suggests that strategic actions are influenced by an individual's regulatory focus, which consists of two distinct strategic orientations: promotion focus and prevention focus. Using survey data from senior executives of 275 telecommunications firms, we find that entrepreneurial intent is positively correlated with both the promotion focus and the prevention focus of the firm and that the positive correlation between promotion focus and entrepreneurial intent becomes even stronger at higher levels of environmental hostility. In contrast, we find that the positive correlation between prevention focus and entrepreneurial intent weakens and eventually reverses at higher levels of environmental hostility.
Number of Pages in PDF File: 14
Keywords: Entrepreneurship
JEL Classification: M13
working papers series
Suggested Citation
McMullen, Jeffery S. and Zahra, Shaker A. A., Regulatory Focus and Executives' Intentions
To Commit Their Firms to Entrepreneurial Action (January 21, 2009). Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research 2006; Frontiers of Entrepreneurship Research 2006. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1331053 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1331053
