Entrepreneurial motivation to engage in new venture creation in a creative industry

This paper is aimed to explore entrepreneurial motivations in a creative industry and to identify the interactions between entrepreneurial and creative motivations in creative entrepreneurs. After a brief literature review on entrepreneurial motivation, the paper addresses the research question through the analysis of eleven case studies in the empirical field of haute cuisine, a creative industry where often the executive chef is at the same time the entrepreneur. The analysis shows that the roles and motivations interactions generate a tension that individual perceive either as a stimulus or as a constraint on creativity. Nevertheless, we illustrate that sometimes creativity influences also entrepreneurial choices. We propose that the differences in how individuals handle this tension depend on the hierarchical disposition of the motivations, as well on the degree of self-determination of the same motivations.