Toward rigor and parsimony: a primary validation of Kolvereid's (1996) entrepreneurial attitudes scales. Issue 5 (26th May 2016)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: McNally, Jeffrey J.; Martin, Bruce C.; Honig, Benson; Bergmann, Heiko; Piperopoulos, Panagiotis
• Is Part Of: Entrepreneurship and regional development. Volume 28:Issue 5/6(2016)
• Page Start: 358
• Page End: 379
• Publication Date: 2016-05-26
• Subjects: Entrepreneurship education -- entrepreneurship attitudes -- entrepreneurship intentions -- scale validation -- methods; Industrial promotion -- Periodicals; Entrepreneurship -- Periodicals; Regional planning -- Periodicals; 338.04
• DOI: 10.1080/08985626.2016.1154985
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0898-5626

Abstract

Abstract: Questioning the validity of scholarly work is not a typical path to publication in the management field. However, although considerable scholarship assesses entrepreneurial attitudes and intentions models of behaviour, methodological weaknesses in scale development have hampered scholars' ability to rigorously interpret and build upon their research findings. We review 20 years of research and discover that the pioneer measure of entrepreneurial attitudes as a predictor of self-employment intentions, has yet to be empirically validated. We show that construct and measurement differences, one-off modifications to existing scales and a lack of adequate justification may partially explain why studies in the entrepreneurship education domain have produced inconsistent results. We address this limitation by performing factor analytic techniques on data from two sets of English-speaking university students from two North American countries. The result is a more parsimonious and streamlined 'mini-Kolvereid' scale. We further demonstrate that this scale is an effective predictor of entrepreneurial intentions.