Senior entrepreneurship : late call or new beginning?

Abstract

The importance of senior entrepreneurship is attracting increasing attention from academia and policymakers. Longer life expectancy, reduced retirement pensions, and enhanced well-being in older age which allows individuals to stay active in the workplace until later in life, are some of the main drivers of this growing trend. While some studies have explored senior entrepreneurship, the field remains underdeveloped, with several gaps yet to be addressed. One such gap concerns the intentions and motivations of senior entrepreneurs, which are plausibly different from those of younger entrepreneurs, but which are not yet adequately understood. This study addresses this gap by exploring the motivations and intentions underlying older individuals’ decisions to pursue senior entrepreneurship. The study adopts an exploratory qualitative design that allows a deeper understanding of senior entrepreneurs’ perspectives and the discovery of aspects of their journeys still unobserved. The aim is to distinguish and link the intentions and motivations of senior entrepreneurs, thereby deepening understanding of these two key antecedents to senior entrepreneurship. A theoretical model was constructed to underpin the study by building on and extending transferable theory from psychology and entrepreneurship, using the Theory of Planned Behavior and elements of the Entrepreneurial Event Model for intentions, and the Theory of Self-Determination for motivations. The field research was based on semi-structured interviews involving 28 participants (14 senior entrepreneurs and 14 younger entrepreneurs) that were conducted to explore the initial framework. Data were analyzed through a process of Thematic Analysis and comparative analysis between seniors and younger entrepreneurs using Directed Content Analysis. Four themes were identified, namely: (i) ‘Autonomy and Aspirations’; (ii) ‘Entrepreneurial Intentions (EI) and Trigger Events’; (iii) ‘Hierarchy of Constructs’; and (iv) ‘Entrepreneurship as ‘Therapy’’. The study contributes to the literature on senior entrepreneurship by developing, empirically testing, and refining a comprehensive conceptual model of intentions and motivation in senior entrepreneurship. In so doing, it reveals insights into the complex journeys of senior individuals who decide to become entrepreneurs by shedding light on the different roles played by motivations and intentions and how they relate to one another in the senior entrepreneurial journey.