Entrepreneurial Tenacity and Self-Efficacy Effects on Persisting Across Industry Contexts

This study examines trait and context antecedents of entrepreneurial persistence in new venture creation. Two personality traits, entrepreneurial self-efficacy and tenacity, differently impact subsequent entrepreneurial persistence behavior in different industry contexts. These relationships are tested using logistic regression in a sample of entrepreneurs from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics (PSED-II; Curtin & Reynolds, 2018). In developing the PSED-II dataset, 31,845 individuals were screened using phone interviews in order to identify a sample of 1,214 nascent entrepreneurs. Results of the current study identify significant relationships between entrepreneurial persistence in efforts to launch a new business and entrepreneurial self-efficacy and tenacity. However, the relationships have diminishing returns and vary with the industry context of the business (manufacturing, retail, services). In the retail industry sector, neither trait was significant; however, in manufacturing industry contexts, tenacity seems to matter more for continuing to pursue new ventures than self-efficacy, while in services industries, self-efficacy seems to matter more than tenacity.