Becoming an entrepreneur: an interpretive phenomenological study exploring how entrepreneurs describe their experience becoming entrepreneurs..

• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2047/D20324119

Abstract Although small business entrepreneurs make enormous economic contributions to local and national economies, extant research on entrepreneurship was focused more on objective and less on subjective factors, even though the latter offer more opportunities for theory development. In exploring the descriptions of lived experiences of entrepreneurs as subjective factors, this study departed from that usual tradition of research in entrepreneurship. Using the constructivist-interpretivist paradigm of the qualitative methodology, the study reconstructed the lived experiences of participants becoming entrepreneurs, and reinterpreted their experiences to bring to the fore the background theories at play while participants transitioned into entrepreneurs. Using the double hermeneutic lens, the study found that entrepreneurial idea and entrepreneurial identity emergence, cognitive capacity of participants, fear of failure, and mentor and family support systems were all at play in the lived experiences of participants as they became entrepreneurs. This study could contribute to efforts in designing psychological and practical mechanism to deal with the emotionality of fear of failure and inform the development of cognitive training programs to support both nascent and practicing entrepreneurs.