From Entrepreneurial Aspirations to Founding a Business: The Case of Russian Students

The formulation of entrepreneurial aspirations represents one of the key stages of the entrepreneurial process. In practice, however, not every declared intention is eventually translated into a viable enterprise, creating the phenomenon of the intention-action gap. This study is based upon the key principles of embeddedness perspective and the theory of planned behavior, considering a variety of factors that are able to increase or diminish the probability of an actual shift from entrepreneurial intentions to concrete start-up activities. These factors include the presence of a family business, support from a university entrepreneurial environment, and the level of development of regional entrepreneurial institutions. An analysis of data on 4,484 students from 32 Russian universities gathered over the course of the international project, the Global University Entrepreneurial Spirit Students’ Survey (GUESSS), in 2013–2014 revealed a negative correlation between a family business and the probability of a potential entrepreneur’s shift from entrepreneurial aspirations to the actual creation of a start-up enterprise. The development of regional entrepreneurial institutions, on the other hand, exhibits a positive link.