Do academic entrepreneurs differ? Assessing the moderating role of university affiliation on the entrepreneurial intention formation

How individual career-paths relate to the enactment of entrepreneurial intentions? Does the public affiliation of some entrepreneurs differently enact their entrepreneurial intentions? In an attempt to provide answers to such questions, we study the role that individual public affiliation has on the foundation and formation of entrepreneurial intentions. We demonstrate that idiosyncratic individual features, developed as a result of public career-paths differently enact entrepreneurial intentions. We compare the intentional processes of a matched-pairs sample of 52 academic entrepreneurs and 52 private entrepreneurs. After employing multivariate regression analyses and structural equation modelling techniques, our empirical results are confirmed, showing that entrepreneurial intentions are differently enacted within the two samples. These findings provide us new theoretical and empirical evidences on impact that individual features, developed as a result of different career paths, have on the foundation and formation of entrepreneurial intentions.