Inequality and Entrepreneurial Agency: How Social Class Origins Affect Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy
研究发现，社会阶层出身与成年后的创业自我效能感相关，早期创业经历会复制阶层差距，但社会流动或创业成功等掌控经历能增强低阶层出身的创业能动信念。
Entrepreneurial agency—the individual power to change environments—is central to entrepreneurship research. Yet, from a social inequality perspective, beliefs in an entrepreneurial agency might differ based on the social class environments individuals are born into. Drawing on social cognitive theories, our findings across three data sets among students from Germany and entrepreneurs from the United States indicate that social class origins are associated with entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) beliefs in adulthood. Exploring the underlying mechanisms, we find that students’ early entrepreneurial experiences in education and practice are indicative of reproducing the class gap in ESE. When individuals collect mastery experiences such as social mobility or entrepreneurial success, their lower social class origins turn out to be associated with enhanced entrepreneurial agency beliefs. We discuss the implications for further research on social class, inequality, and entrepreneurship.