Hybrid entrepreneurs' second-step choice: The nonlinear relationship between age and intention to enter full-time entrepreneurship

• Studies the choice where entrepreneurs enter full-time entrepreneurship.
• U-shaped relationship between age and intention to enter full-time entrepreneurship.
• Effects of age may be opposite in first-step and second-step entrepreneurial choices.

Entrepreneurs who run venture startups parallel to wage employment engage in so-called hybrid entrepreneurship. Not all hybrid entrepreneurs, however, eventually leave the wage employment to become a full-time entrepreneur (second-step entrepreneurship). Significant research has focused on first-step entrepreneurial choice (to engage in a business start-up), but much less has focused on a second-step entrepreneurial choice, which captures the transition to full-time entrepreneurship. The present study, which examines the second-step entrepreneurial choice, reveals a U-shaped relationship between age and the intention to enter full-time entrepreneurship. Interestingly, this contrasts with prior studies on the effects from age in the first-step entrepreneurship choice, demonstrating an inverted U-relationship between age and venture startup.