Reconceptualizing Necessity Entrepreneurship

Recent scholarly work on necessity entrepreneurship has highlighted shortcomings in theoretical development underlying the construct and, by extension, limitations in our understanding of the behaviors of individuals we assign to this category. While necessity entrepreneurs compose a sizable proportion of the world’s entrepreneurs (approximately 30% according to Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data), theory about their behavior remains sparse, and our understanding of who they are, their motivations and their outcomes remains limited. Often conceptualized within a push-pull framework, necessity entrepreneurship occurs when individuals are pushed into entrepreneurship by negative forces, as opposed to opportunity-motivated entrepreneurship, which occurs when individuals are pulled into founding a venture by the attractiveness of an opportunity. This push-pull framework has resulted in a dichotomous view that, despite being widely used, some scholars have described as over-simplified, and unable to account for the wide array of antecedents, processes and outcomes. In this symposium, we convene established scholars who routinely use these constructs in the field. We highlight recent work to develop the constructs, identify use cases where a dichotomous framing of entrepreneurial motivation is insufficient, and suggest ways to develop a more meaningful framework moving forward. This symposium aims to contribute by further developing our understanding of the necessity entrepreneur, by considering new frameworks to better explain the nuance in nascent entrepreneurial motivation, and by discussing practical steps for measuring these constructs in the field. Entrepreneurial Processes Under the Condition of Basic Needs Presenter: Marc B. Gruber; Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Blurred Lines: NE and OE Amongst Rural Coffee Farmers Presenter: Robert Nason; McGill U. - Desautels Faculty of Management Presenter: Pierre-Yann Dolbec; John Molson School of Business, Concordia U. Entrepreneurship in Response to the COVID-19 Crisis: The Fine Line Between Necessity and Opportunity Presenter: Angelique Slade Shantz; U. of Alberta School of Management Presenter: Madeline Toubiana; U. of Alberta Necessity Entrepreneurship: A Construct Cut Adrift? Presenter: Philip James O'Donnell; Dublin City U. Presenter: Margot Leger; Utrecht U. School of Economics The (Not-So) Bare Necessities of Entrepreneurship Presenter: David Gras; U. of Tennessee Presenter: Ace Beorchia; U. of Tennessee A Needs-Based View of Entrepreneurial Motivation Presenter: Sanwar A. Sunny; U. of Baltimore Presenter: Chad David Coffman; U. of Missouri, Kansas City