What prevent you from stepping into the entrepreneurship? Evidence from Chinese makers

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to investigate the influence of three key categories of perceived entrepreneurial obstacles (perceived loss of financial resources, perceived loss of customer demand and perceived loss of social support) on entrepreneurial behavior tendency through fear of failure and negative emotion to shed light on why Chinese entrepreneurship has fallen into a decline from the individual level. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 256 Chinese makers who were achieving their innovative ideas in makerspaces was used to test the research model. Then, the structural equation modeling was adopted for data analysis. Findings The results indicate that fear of failure is the strongest psychological barrier to entrepreneurial behavior tendency and the strongest trigger for negative emotion; both negative emotion and fear of failure are affected by entrepreneurial obstacles of perceived loss of financial resources and perceived loss of social support. However, perceived loss of customer demand is not the inducement for both fear of failure and negative emotion. Originality/value This study adopts stressor-strain-outcome framework in studying entrepreneurship to help understand what prevent potential entrepreneurs from stepping into entrepreneurship. In addition, this study offers a new insight into entrepreneurship by emphasizing the decisive impact of inhibitive factors on personal entrepreneurship.