Investigation of influential factors on individuals to become entrepreneurs

Becoming an entrepreneur depends on numerous aspects that influence individuals regarding to their decision. This thesis focuses on entrepreneurial factors triggering people to start thinking and acting entrepreneurially. The purpose is to investigate the relationship between the fact of becoming an entrepreneur and selected driving factors which are grouped into psychological and non-psychological ones. Here, a closer look is taken on the factors ‘risk- taking’, ‘fear of failure’, ‘age’ and ‘education’ that can affect a person, if someone is more likely to be an entrepreneur or not. For investigating this question, a quantitative research using a secondary data set which was collected with a questionnaire and provided by GEM is conducted. The data set contains information of 558 nascent entrepreneurs in three different countries and is examined with the help of the statistical program SPSS. The analysis of the findings points out that the factor ‘age’ does not have an influence in any country and in contrast, the factor ‘risk taking’ is the most influential one compared to all investigated factors. It is not possible to make a general statement if a factor is influential or not because a country-specific consideration is therefore necessary. A ranking of these factors concerning the strength of their influence illustrates that it is different for each country. These results provide a foundation which can be used for future research to examine this topic in a broader and deeper way