Article ID Journal Published Year Pages File Type
886969 Journal of Vocational Behavior 2013 11 Pages PDF
Abstract

•We study the biographical connection between entrepreneurship and antisocial tendencies.•We look at early antisocial rule-breaking behaviors and attitudes in adolescence and at registered crime.•We analyze prospective longitudinal data collected from a school grade cohort in a Swedish city.•Consistent with an existing retrospective study early modest (not severe) rule-breaking behavior predicted entrepreneurship.•The results support the early-unruliness-hypothesis of entrepreneurship for men, but not for women.

Is there an intimate biographical relationship between entrepreneurship and antisocial tendencies? Drawing from Zhang and Arvey's retrospective study [Zhang, Z. & Arvey, R.D. (2009). Rule breaking in adolescence and entrepreneurial status: An empirical investigation. Journal of Business Venturing, 24(5), 436–447], which found a link between entrepreneurship status of male adults and their recalled early antisocial rule-breaking behavior in adolescence, the present study utilized prospective longitudinal data from a Swedish cohort study to clarify the connection between antisocial rule-breaking, crime, and entrepreneurship by applying a developmental perspective. Regression results, which controlled for early socioeconomic background and intellectual competencies, indeed identified early antisocial rule-breaking behavior in adolescence as a valid positive predictor of a subsequent entrepreneurial career in adulthood in men (but not in women). In contrast, registered crime (teenage crime, adult crime, and prototypical trajectories of criminal behavior) as well as rule-breaking attitude in adolescence, as a more latent form of early antisocial tendencies, were relatively unimportant in the prediction of entrepreneurship in both genders. The results are discussed with a focus on rule-breaking and agency theories of entrepreneurship, youth theories, and the importance of looking at gender differences in entrepreneurial development.

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