Abstract:
Previous research in work and organisational studies has found that
individuals may experience their work as a job, a career or a calling.
That experience, in turn, has a significant influence on their performance.
In the present study, we apply this framework to the field of entrepreneurship
and examine if the experience of aspiring entrepreneurs as a
job, a career or a calling impacts their ability to attract resources for a
new venture by considering two different resource attraction strategies
presented in the literature: network positioning and proactive search.
The results show that seeing entrepreneurship as a job has a negative
impact on both network positioning and proactive search strategies.
Experiencing entrepreneurship as a calling, however, has a positive
impact on proactive search strategy. Perceiving entrepreneurship as a
career is not related to resource attraction strategies. These findings
illustrate that the way aspiring entrepreneurs experience their role as
entrepreneurs affects their efforts as well as others’ confidence in terms
of attracting resources for their new ventures. Theoretical and practical
implications are addressed at the end of this work.
