Parental divorce in early life and entrepreneurial performance in adulthood
Journal
Journal of Business Venturing
ISSN
0883-9026
ISSN-Digital
1873-2003
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2024-05
Author(s)
Abstract
We examine how parental divorce in early life affects performance in entrepreneurship in adulthood. Drawing on life course theory and empirical analyses of US self-employment and childhood data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979, we show that entrepreneurs’ experience of parental divorce in childhood benefits their entrepreneurial performance in adulthood through a gain in self-efficacy while simultaneously suppressing entrepreneurial performance through a shortfall in human capital. We also show that whether the performance advantages or disadvantages from parental divorce dominate depends on parental human capital. While parental divorce is associated with underperformance for entrepreneurs whose parents have high levels of human capital, it is positively related to entrepreneurial performance for those with low parental human capital. Our study contributes new theory and evidence on the intertemporal relationship between past family contexts and present entrepreneurial performance.
Language
English
Keywords
Entrepreneurial performance
parental divorce
family context
life course theory
childhood adversity
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Volume
39
Number
3
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Contact Email Address
mateja.andric@unisg.ch
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
Andric_Hsueh_Zellweger_Hatak_2024_JBV_Parental divorce in early life and entrepreneurial performance.pdf
Size
3.32 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
261dbe1290c33b7f7b892acd225943ef