A study on entrepreneurial success and the effect of parental styles.

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A study on entrepreneurial success

and the effect of parental styles.

Entrepreneurs in the watch market, what makes them tick?

MSc Business Administration Small Business and Entrepreneurship

S.J.C. DUIN

Master Thesis March 2021 University of Groningen Faculty of Economics and Business

Supervisor: Dr. E.P.M. Croonen Co-assessor: Dr. M.J. Brand Zaagmuldersweg 1-56 9713LA Groningen s.j.c.duin@student.rug.nl Student number: 2752395 Word count: 13.067

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Preface

I would like to sincerely thank my supervisor, Dr. E.P.M. Croonen, for her support and guidance. The short and concise meetings and concrete feedback motivated me throughout the process of writing my thesis. Her knowledge of regulatory focus and entrepreneurial orientation proved to be of great value in forming the research design and was very appreciated. Furthermore, I would like to thank Dr. M. J. Brand for her extensive feedback on structuring my thesis.

Also, I would like to thank all nine entrepreneurs who gave me a piece of their valuable time. I have experienced the interviews as very pleasant and helpful in exploring this underexposed research area. Lastly, I would like to thank my family, of course, for the continuous support over the last years.

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Abstract

For many years, researchers have been interested in the factors that influence the achievement of entrepreneurial success. Until now, their attention has been directed towards organizational and psychological factors, whereas family factors have been given little consideration (Staniewski & Awruk, 2021). This study takes an explorative look into events, habits, and family influences in entrepreneurs’ lives and how it affects their success. I found this more valuable than just focusing on the direct relationship between parental styles and success, as still little research has given attention to the factors influencing entrepreneurial success. The main goal is to explore whether parental styles affect the overall success score a respondent gives himself while taking the effects of regulatory focus and entrepreneurial orientation into account. In this study, I propose that parental styles lead to a base foundation of entrepreneurship, the regulatory focus. Those base foundations lead to a certain degree of success, influenced by behavior (entrepreneurial orientation).

For this study, I interviewed nine male entrepreneurs from the Dutch luxury vintage watch market. Mixed methods are used, where the quantitative data is descriptive, and interviews were conducted to delve deeper into what influenced their level of success. Ultimately, the way parental styles affect entrepreneurial success could not be defined, as several internal and external factors influence the effect of the different variables on each other. The most significant addition to the field of

entrepreneurial research is the fact that many recommendations for further research are made. This study concludes with a recommendation regarding the definition of entrepreneurial success.

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1. Introduction

The importance of entrepreneurial success research has been widely discussed among scholars (Staniewski & Awruk, 2021). The field of entrepreneurship research has long sought to tie entrepreneurs’ individual characteristics with their business performance (Gartner, 1989; Shaver and Scott, 1991), and multiple determinants of success (e.g., entrepreneurial orientation (Bolton, 2012)) have been identified and studied. However, limited attention has been given to parenting and the subsequent effect on entrepreneurial success. Although the effect of parenting has been studied in various other behavioral fields (e.g., drug use (Becona et al., 2012), the development of self-esteem (Heaven & Ciarrochi, 2008), and depression (Sharma et al., 2011)), it is still a barely researched subject in entrepreneurial (behavioral) literature.

Moreover, there is still little theoretical understanding of which social mechanisms lie beneath entrepreneurial success (Daspit et al., 2016). Social mechanisms are defined here as processes between important individuals that influence certain thinking and acting (Hedström and Swedberg, 1996). A parent-child relationship is an excellent example of a process between important individuals that influence certain thinking and acting.

As parenting is a broad term, this study focuses on parental styles: the degree of

demandingness and responsiveness a parent displays towards a child. These two dimensions result in three parental styles: authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parenting.

The idea that parental styles might affect entrepreneurs’ success comes from research by Holland (1985), who found that a person’s developmental process towards a particular career (i.e., becoming an entrepreneur) is fueled by the characteristics that children are born with, and contextual input. A gap in the current literature exists after that particular career has been reached: the effect of contextual input on one’s success in an entrepreneurial career has hardly been researched (Staniewski & Awruk, 2021). Contextual input is defined in this study as the degree to which parents encourage and

reinforce certain activities and provide opportunities, support, and resources to pursue them (Holland, 1985). When comparing Holland’s (1985) definition of contextual input to the different parental styles, an interesting observation can be made: Baumrind (1971) describes a term used for the phenomenon where support and rules are provided while simultaneously granting autonomy:

authoritative parenting. This shows that parental styles can be regarded as contextual input and should influence the development towards an entrepreneurial career. Moreover, research by

Schmitt-Rodermund & Vondracek (1999) showed that it’s safe to assume that authoritative parenting promotes expectations about entrepreneurial competence.

According to Hmielski and Baron (2008), it is complicated to tie individual characteristics to success, as both the mediating and moderating factors of how individuals influence performance must be considered. As the direct relationship between parental styles and success is not immediately evident from the existing literature, I propose the following, which is also in line with current views in entrepreneurship literature: parental styles lead to a base foundation of entrepreneurship: the

regulatory focus. Those base foundations lead to a certain degree of success, influenced by behavior (entrepreneurial orientation). In this study, regulatory focus and entrepreneurial orientation are used as mediating variables to link parental styles to entrepreneurial success.

This study explores whether entrepreneurial success is predictable by studying how entrepreneurs are raised. It contributes to the existing theory as it progresses our understanding of parental styles’ influence regarding entrepreneurial success. To my knowledge, this study is still among the first to investigate this influence. As the research area is relatively young and unexplored, the main goal is to promote future research in the field of parental styles and one’s subsequent success

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later in life. To facilitate this, extensive exploratory research recommendations are made. Based on the previous and the goal of this study, the following research question follows:

RQ: How do parental styles influence the success of an entrepreneur?

In this study, I am specifically interested in the underlying explanatory mechanisms (regulatory focus and EO), explaining the “how” in the research question and their role as mediating variables. In the next section, the concepts of parental styles, regulatory focus, entrepreneurial orientation, and

entrepreneurial success are elaborated on. Furthermore, the focus market characteristics are described and, after each of these sections, propositions are formed. After that, the method is presented, and the findings are shown. This study concludes with a discussion that ultimately tries to answer the research question.

2. Literature review and theoretical framework

This chapter will review the existing literature on parental styles, regulatory focus, entrepreneurial orientation (EO), and entrepreneurial success in the above order. But first, the link between parental styles and entrepreneurial success is explained to provide an overview of the theories used in this study.

2.1 Linking parental styles to entrepreneurial success

A parental style is defined as “a constellation of attitudes toward the child that are communicated to the child and that, taken together, create an emotional climate in which parents’ behaviors are expressed” (Darling & Steinberg, 1993, p. 488). Parental styles can be divided into two key dimensions:

- Demandingness: the extent to which parents show maturity demands, supervision, disciplinary efforts, and willingness to confront a child that disobeys (Baumrind, 1971). - Responsiveness: the extent to which parents show affective warmth, acceptance, and involvement (Baumrind, 1971).

These two dimensions result in three parental authority styles: authoritarian, authoritative, and

permissive. According to Baumrind (1971), parents employ one of the three parental styles when

raising their child. Table 1, based on Sokol et al. (2017), shows the different dimensions and their corresponding parental style in a concise way.

Table 1: Dimensions of, and corresponding parental styles

Degree of demandingness/responsiveness Low responsiveness Parent is parent-centered High responsiveness Parent is child-centered Low demandingness

Parent expects little of child

Not described by Baumrind (1971) and Buri (1991)

Permissive parenting

Parent is easy-going/tolerant

High demandingness Parent expects much of child

Authoritarian parenting

Parent is power-assertive over child

Authoritative parenting

Give-and-take relationship between parent and child

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Parents who encourage and reinforce certain activities provide opportunities, support, and resources, help children develop interests, preferences, and competencies. Doing this leads to preferences for some activities and aversions to others (Schmitt-Rodermund, 2004). In this context, parents that encourage and reinforce certain entrepreneurial-related activities, and provide

opportunities and resources to pursue them, are expected to give their children a preference for entrepreneurship. As a key to entrepreneurial competence, Schmitt-Rodermund (2004) found that the context someone grows up in might have an influence.

As covered in the introduction, I chose regulatory focus and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) as consecutive mediating variables to dig deeper into that context. Regulatory focus theory tries to explain the underlying motivational and strategic tendencies that affect human decisions (Palmié et al., 2018). One can distinguish two foci that influence someone’s strategic decision making:

promotion and prevention focus (Palmié et al., 2018). Multiple authors found that the distinction

between promotion and prevention focus provides a useful perspective in studying the entrepreneurial cognitive process and, consequently, the implications of those processes (Palmié et al., 2018).

Entrepreneurial orientation is generally defined as “a firm-level attribute that is recognizable through the exhibition of sustained entrepreneurial behavioral patterns” (Wiklund & Shepherd, 2005). EO consists of decision-making styles, methods, and practices. It comprises three dimensions

(Wiklund & Shepherd, 2005): innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness. Wiklund and Shepherd (2005) found that EO is always beneficial for performance, a part of success. However, they did note that this is context-specific, and the strength of the relationship between performance and EO depends on external and internal influences. Palmié et al. (2018) found that the characteristics of individuals with a promotion focus are in line with the three dimensions of EO.

Moreover, individuals with a prevention focus are expected to limit their firm’s EO and, according to Singh (2019), EO is a crucial component of entrepreneurial success. To give the reader a better illustration of the variables and associations used in this study, a simplified version of the conceptual model (figure 1) is presented. The complete conceptual model is presented at the end of this chapter.

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Figure 1 shows the expected positive (+) and negative (-) associations between the variables of this study. Entrepreneurial orientation is indicated by the abbreviation EO. Furthermore, the arrows’ numbers are used in the next sections to clarify the associations further.

2.2 Parental styles and regulatory focus

In the previous section, I made a start with the classification of the three parental styles. This section takes a brief look at the definitions of the styles and the link between parental styles and regulatory focus. The following sections will systematically follow the associations in the conceptual model (figures 1 and 2).

2.2.1 Parental styles

Authoritative parenting

Authoritative parenting is defined as a parenting form that provides support and rules while simultaneously giving autonomy (Baumrind, 1991). Authoritative parents “try to direct the child’s activities but in a rational, issue-oriented manner. They encourage verbal give and take, and share with the child the reasoning behind their policy” (Baumrind, 1971). Schmitt-Rodermund (2004) found that several authors described that authoritative parenting relates to exploratory activities,

achievement orientation, self-confidence, internal locus of control, and self-efficacy. Authoritative parenting has been studied in many different contexts, including adolescent drinking, smoking (Jackson, 1994; Piko and Balasz, 2012), and academic success (Steinberg et al., 1989; Strage and Brandt, 1999), among others. However, still, little research (Keller, 2007; Sharma & Pandey, 2015) has been conducted on authoritative parenting regarding entrepreneurship.

Authoritarian parenting

This parental style is characterized by a power-assertive way of discipline, described by Straus & Fauchier (2007) as corporal punishment, deprivation of privileges, psychological aggression, and penalty tasks (e.g., chores). With the authoritarian parenting style, children are expected to perform according to their parents’ demands. They “attempt to shape, control, and evaluate the behavior and attitudes of the child in accordance with a set of standards of conduct” (Baumrind, 1971). Lastly, children, where parenting is exercised in an authoritarian style, have fewer open conversations with their parents (Sharma & Pandey, 2015). Entrepreneurs who are raised in an authoritarian way will want to be more in control of their business and leave little room for consensus (Sharma & Pandey, 2015).

Permissive parenting

Permissive parents ‘‘try to behave in a non-punitive, acceptant, and affirmative manner towards the child. They make few demands for household responsibility and orderly behavior. They allow the child to regulate his activities as much as possible, avoid the exercise of control, and do not encourage him to obey externally defined standards’’ (Baumrind 1971). Starting a business may be more

challenging for people that are raised in a permissive environment. Sharma & Pandey (2015) found that people who took over a family business after being raised with a permissive parental style tended to disregard business needs and stakeholder interest; they wanted more control over the company. Bornstein (2007) found that “although authoritarian and permissive parenting styles appear to

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2.2.2 Regulatory focus theory

Regulatory focus theory aims to explain the underlying motivational and strategic tendencies that affect human decisions (Palmié et al., 2018). The Regulatory Focus Theory (RFT) by Higgins (1998) identified that specific patterns of caretaker-child communications make an essential basis for developing their regulatory focus (as cited in Keller, 2007). There are two forms of foci: promotion and prevention focus (Palmié et al., 2018). Translating this to entrepreneurship shows that

entrepreneurs with a promotion focus mainly focus on advancement, growth, and accomplishment. They seek gains and new achievements (Hmielski and Baron, 2008) and do not think detailed analyses are necessary before moving forward on opportunities (Brockner et al., 2004). These entrepreneurs are focused on what they might gain by moving forward (Higgins, 1987). On the other hand, entrepreneurs with a prevention focus are primarily concerned with protection, safety, and responsibility. They tend to avoid losses or setbacks (Hmielski and Baron, 2008). They are focused on what they might lose by acting, rather than what they might gain, and first want to estimate new ideas’ feasibility (Higgins, 1987). Palmié et al. (2018) found that the two regulatory foci are independent of each other. Thus, a high score on promotion focus does not automatically mean a low score on prevention focus: an individual can score high (or low) on both promotion and prevention focus.

2.2.3 Associations between parental styles and regulatory focus

Caretakers who appraise a child regarding their hopes and aspirations for the child guide the child towards a predominantly promotion focus. On the other hand, caretakers who appraise a child regarding their beliefs about the child’s duties and obligations commonly guide their child towards a prevention focus (Keller, 2007). When looking at these results in the RFT, one can say that it closely resembles the way authoritative (support) and authoritarian (critical) parental styles influence a child. Keller (2007) found that there is a positive relationship between authoritative parenting and a

promotion focus (1) which leads to the following proposition:

p1a: There is a positive association between an authoritative parenting style and an individual’s

promotion focus.

As caretakers, who use an authoritative parenting style, guide the child towards a predominantly promotion focus (Keller, 2007), it is not likely that those children will employ a prevention focus (2). Thus, proposition p1b logically follows:

p1b: There is a negative association between an authoritative parenting style and an individual's

prevention focus.

The same theory as for p1b applies here. It is not likely that children with authoritarian parents will employ a promotion focus (3). Proposition p2a follows:

p2a: There is a negative association between an authoritarian parenting style and an individual’s

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Keller (2007) also found a positive relationship between authoritarian parenting and prevention focus (4). This leads to proposition p2b:

p2b: There is a positive association between an authoritarian parenting style and an individual’s

prevention focus.

Lastly, Keller (2007) discovered that the permissive parenting style is not important concerning the development of regulatory foci as parents do not behave as active agents shaping the child’s behavior. Therefore, it is not likely that this parental style influences the need for growth (promotion focus) or security (prevention focus) (Keller, 2007). The regulatory focus of these children will not likely be affected by the way their parents raised them (5/6):

p3: There is no association between a permissive parenting style and an individual’s regulatory focus.

In the next section, the definition of entrepreneurial orientation will be explained in the context of this research. Furthermore, the associations between regulatory focus and EO are outlined.

2.3 Regulatory focus and entrepreneurial orientation

2.3.1 (Individual) entrepreneurial orientation

As illustrated in section 2.1, entrepreneurial orientation is defined as “a firm-level attribute that is recognizable through the exhibition of sustained entrepreneurial behavioral patterns” (Wiklund & Shepherd, 2005). However, Bolton and Lane (2012) found a disparity in the literature when

assessing EO on an individual level. As this study looks at the EO score of individual entrepreneurs, it is interesting to take a closer look at their research. Bolton and Lane (2012) propose a measure of EO on a personal level, which employs EO dimensions but simply measures the individual

entrepreneurial orientation (IEO). EO incorporates decision-making styles, methods, and practices

and consists of three dimensions: innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness (Wiklund & Shepherd, 2005). The definitions of those dimensions are perfectly described in a recent study by Singh (2019): “Innovativeness is referred to as the process of generating new ideas, innovative products or services, and experimentation, while proactiveness refers to anticipation and acting on future market demands, thus generating a first-mover competitive advantage. Risk-taking is referred to as the willingness to invest huge amounts of resources into new ideas or ventures” (Singh, 2019, p. 4). One can obtain a score on each of these dimensions, which shows their EO score, where a higher EO score leads to higher performance of the firm.

“Since one can also define an organization, particularly a small or entrepreneurially founded organization, as the result of an individual’s behaviors, the EO dimensions could be measured for an individual” (Bolton & Lane, 2012, p.221). The need to use the IEO in this study comes mainly from the differences between entrepreneurs and regular managers found in previous research. That study has found that entrepreneurs are generally more open, conscientious, extraverted, less neurotic, and less agreeable than traditional managers (Zhao & Siebert, 2006), while openness and

conscientiousness are highly correlated with entrepreneurial performance and -intentions (Zhao, Seibert, & Lumpkin, 2010). These findings show the need to use a different way to measure EO when looking at individual entrepreneurs and subsequently justify using this method in this study. As IEO is regarded as a way of measuring EO, the term EO is used throughout this document. More on the choice of scale can be found in the methods chapter (section 3.2). As this study proposes that parental

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styles lead to a base foundation of entrepreneurship (regulatory focus), which leads to a certain degree of success influenced by behavior (entrepreneurial orientation), the associations between regulatory focus and EO need to be outlined. The next section will elaborate on this.

2.3.2 Associations between regulatory focus and entrepreneurial

orientation

A very recent study by Palmié et al. (2018), in which they summarized the findings of earlier research on the subject, found that the characteristics of individuals with a particular regulatory focus are in line with either high or low levels of EO. The interesting part of this research is the fact that they described that the characteristics of individuals with a promotion focus are in line with the three dimensions of EO: individuals with a promotion focus are proactively looking for new opportunities, are stimulated in their openness to new ideas and creativity and are willing to take on substantial risk (7). On the other hand, individuals with a prevention focus are expected to limit their firm’s EO (8). They try to avoid losses, and failed opportunities more impact their decision-making. Thus, they tend to be more conservative (Palmié et al., 2018). These findings lead to proposition 4:

p4: Entrepreneurs with a promotion focus score higher on EO than those with a prevention focus.

2.4 Entrepreneurial orientation and entrepreneurial success

This section discusses the definition of entrepreneurial success in this context and outlines the associations between EO and success.

2.4.1 Entrepreneurial success

Many definitions of success exist among scholars. However, multiple authors defined

entrepreneurial success as a complex phenomenon that includes multiple criteria of both financial and non-financial character (e.g., Gorgievski et al. 2010; Orser & Dyke, 2009; Powell and Eddleston, 2013; Wach et al., 2016; Singh et al., 2019). This is in accordance with the findings from Dej (2010): the diversity of aspects that entrepreneurs value and seek to achieve makes for a need to extend the traditional economic success definitions into a more comprehensive one, taking both financial and non-financial factors into account. Dej (2010) found that entrepreneurs define success using various success criteria. While economists rely predominantly on organizational performance indicators, challenging to obtain in entrepreneurial settings, entrepreneurs’ non-organizational data are more straightforward to collect. This kind of information is often freely disclosed by entrepreneurs. Moreover, Singh et al. (2019) called for future studies that include these measures to achieve a complete entrepreneurial success measurement. Considering the limited actual benefit of organizational success indicators, as the availability of objective financial data is limited in

entrepreneurial settings (Schenk, 1998), this study’s definition of entrepreneurial success is based on personal success. Personal success is measured by all aspects of entrepreneurial success on an individual level: personal success is measurable by intangible indicators such as personal fulfillment, self-enhancement, work-related social relationships, social recognition, and contributions to society. But also by personal financial rewards or security (Dej, 2010). In the methods chapter (section 3.4), one can find more information on how entrepreneurial success is measured in this study.

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2.4.2 Associations between entrepreneurial orientation and success

Various authors use the terms success and performance in one breath (e.g., Krauss et al. 2007). As multiple studies discuss the relationship between EO and performance (Singh, 2019), it is interesting to determine whether this is also the case for entrepreneurial success. Tehseen and Ramayah (2015) found multiple studies that saw the entrepreneur's psychological, behavioral,

demographic characteristics, and managerial and technical skills as key determinants in his company’s performance and success or failure (e.g., Rasmussen et al., 2011; Man et al., 2002). In addition, Martin and Staines (1994) argued that personal qualities, self-confidence, leadership, innovativeness, and risk-taking abilities are essential for entrepreneurial success. The similarity of those personal qualities with the dimensions of EO (innovativeness, risk-taking, and proactiveness) is quickly recognized. As these personal qualities are essential for entrepreneurial success (Martin and Staines, 1994), one can argue that a high EO level should be equally important for entrepreneurial success. This is further supported by Bolton (2012), who found that entrepreneurs classified with a high EO level described their business success as higher than those classified with a low EO level (9). Proposition 5 follows logically from these findings:

p5: EO has a positive effect on entrepreneurial success.

Thus far, all arrows between the variables in the simplified conceptual model have been discussed. However, one more interesting finding can be derived from previous research. As the regulatory foci are independent of each other, it is possible to score high on both regulatory focus dimensions. The next section discusses this phenomenon.

But first, to give a clear overview of the relations discussed in this chapter, Table 2 is presented where the expected degree of EO and success is based on an entrepreneurs’ parental style and expected regulatory focus. This table summarizes the earlier presented propositions of this study.

Table 2: Summary of the propositions

Parental style Regulatory focus EO Success

Authoritative Promotion focus High EO More successful

Authoritarian Prevention focus Low/moderate EO Successful

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2.5 Collective presence of regulatory foci

Brockner et al. (2004) suggested that both promotion and prevention foci are necessary for entrepreneurial success. They found that certain aspects of entrepreneurship, such as generating ideas or doing due diligence, require different foci. The collective presence of both would result in a greater motivation in response to the highs and lows of the entrepreneurial process. In addition, Palmié et al. (2018) found that the two regulatory foci are independent of each other. Thus, an individual can score high on both promotion and prevention focus. Building upon the findings of Brockner et al. (2004) that both promotion and prevention foci are necessary for entrepreneurial success, a logical outcome would be that entrepreneurs who score high on both promotion and prevention focus should be more successful. However, prevention focus is expected to harm the firm’s EO (Palmié et al., 2018), while EO positively affects entrepreneurial success. The theory is not aligned here. According to the theory, a combination of promotion and prevention focus should balance out and have no impact on EO. Is the positive effect of promotion focus larger than the negative effect of prevention focus? Or does regulatory focus have a direct impact on entrepreneurial success? The latter is particularly interesting, motivating me to explore whether regulatory focus directly influences entrepreneurial success

regardless of an entrepreneur’s EO score. I expect the positive effect to be related to the risk-taking characteristics of a promotion focus while having the “conscientiousness” (responsibility and estimation of feasibility (Higgins, 1987)) of the prevention focus. This study will explore the

combined positive effect of prevention and promotion focus on entrepreneurial success. This leads to the following proposition:

p6: Individuals that score high on both prevention and promotion focus score higher on entrepreneurial success than those who score low on one of the foci

2.6 Conceptual model

To summarize the previous sections, the following conceptual model (figure 2) is presented:

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In this conceptual model, the positive (+) and negative (-) associations between the variables used in this study are shown, using arrows on which the corresponding propositions are displayed. The combined effect of both regulatory foci is added, which theoretically should result in an even bigger positive and direct effect on success (p6). In the remainder of this study, I will explore whether the research question can be answered. I am specifically interested in the underlying explanatory mechanisms (regulatory focus, EO and their relationship, which explain the “how” in the research question and their role as mediating variables. The following chapter shows the method used to explore this field of research.

3. Method

This study uses two research methods: a quantitative (descriptive) approach to determine the scoring on the different variables and a more in-depth qualitative (interviews) approach to explore the effect of the explanatory mechanisms on how parental styles influence success. More on this method can be found in the next section.

3.1 Mixed-Methods

The choice of using quantitative and qualitative data came primarily from the fact that the entrepreneurs in this study needed to be categorized based on scores of all variables, i.e., parental style, regulatory focus, EO score, and success score. One could say that this research is essentially a qualitative study that uses quantitative results, the descriptives, to classify the entrepreneurs in terms of their scores on this study’s variables. This is further justified by how the two methods reinforce each other: a quantitative approach would have made it possible to determine if there is a relationship between parental styles and success, but combining this with a qualitative approach complements and develops the theory more strongly. Complementarity in this context means an elaboration, illustration, and a clarification of the results (Greene et al., 1989). The new topics that logically arise from the conversations are used to enhance the existing research on the subject and open up possibilities for future research. In other words, this research seeks to use the quantitative analysis results to help develop the qualitative data, a method supported by Greene et al. (1989:259). In addition, a very recent call by Staniewski and Awruk (2021) proves that a qualitative method is valuable in this case. They studied a similar subject, but their study’s design was mainly correlational, which ceased the ability to draw cause-and-effect conclusions. According to many in the qualitative research community, cause-and-effect conclusions and qualitative research don’t often go hand in hand. However, this research aims to deepen, rather than simply broaden or triangulate, the understandings gained (Maxwell, 2011).

Furthermore, if you want to determine how parental styles influence success, you need to determine what causes (Maxwell, 2012) the success score to be influenced by parental styles. In other words, the insights gained by the qualitative part of this study can be essential for future research to draw causal conclusions; it helps to develop a conceptual framework for thinking about the mechanisms

(Maxwell, 2012) that influence the effect of parental styles on entrepreneurial success. Lastly, success is subjective. In the field of small business and entrepreneurship, where the availability of objective company data is almost non-existent as these companies are not publicly listed, objective (financial) success scoring is impossible. This makes it necessary to dive deeper into what success means for these entrepreneurs, which makes the choice for qualitative data reinforced by quantitative data obvious. The aforementioned allows for a deeper understanding of the factors that influence success.

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3.2 The focus market

Because of my experience and interest in this market, this study’s scope was set on the luxury vintage watch market. The luxury vintage watch market has seen rising interest over the last few years and sees a strong upward trend in sales and prices (Fondation Haute Horlogerie, 2018). The term vintage is used to describe products of a particular era (Turunen & Leipämaa-Leskinen, 2015), which reminds us of past designs (Cassidy & Bennett, 2012). Due to their rarity, superior quality, and uniqueness, vintage products may rise in value over time. This is visible in the vintage watch market. Brands like Rolex, Omega, and Patek Philippe see the prices of some of their vintage pieces exceed the prices of new watches ("2018 Vintage Watch Market Update – FHH Journal", 2020). In turn, this price increase combined with (artificial) scarcity means a more valuable brand (Turunen & Pöyry, 2019). For brands, the vintage watch market is therefore vital, and for entrepreneurs, a lot of money can be earned. In this case, only Dutch entrepreneurs in this market were chosen to prevent

geographical influences. This study’s small scope allows for in-depth interviews to determine who the entrepreneurs are that decided to start a business in this market.

Moreover, I operate in the vintage watch market myself, allowing for a deeper connection (more in sections 3.3 and 3.6) with the respondents, resulting in more vivid conversations and extensive answers. My network and experience resulted in a straightforward process of finding the required sample, which I will elaborate on in section 3.3. The fact that I could level with the respondents made them talk more freely, which also transcended the interview questions and gave new insights.

3.3 Data collection

The respondents were selected based on two criteria: geographical location and business size. All respondents lived in the Netherlands and were characterized as individuals operating small businesses (sole proprietors) to keep this study’s scope as small as possible. I selected only professionals in the vintage watch market. A total of 28 watch dealers were approached via social media and email, of which ten, nine males and one female, were willing to participate. Unfortunately, the female participant revoked her participation at a late stage of the research. As the participants were all knowledgeable professionals in their field, I selected the best-practice approach of expert

interviews as a general guideline. Please note that the interviews were regarded as qualitative case studies. The interview style was based on the best-practice for expert interviews as this was best fitting for the specific knowledge level of the entrepreneurs in this study. For expert interviews, the researcher has to achieve a quasi-normal conversation (Honer, 1993). The researcher should create an interview setting that approaches the conversation situation among experts as closely as possible (Pfadenhauer, 2009) which is further elaborated on in section 3.6.

The participants received four standardized Likert scale questionnaires before the interview. These were distributed in two sets of two questionnaires to prevent fatigue when answering many questions at once. The answers to these questionnaires allowed me to calculate the participants’ scores on each of the variables in this study. The first two questionnaires were about the entrepreneur’s parental style and regulatory focus, and the second two questionnaires were about their success and entrepreneurial orientation. I will discuss the contents of these questionnaires in section 3.4.

Furthermore, to avoid common method bias, I placed regulatory focus (dependent variable) first and parental styles (independent) last in the first set of questionnaires. I used the same strategy in the second set, where I measured success (dependent) before EO (independent). After the respondents filled in the questionnaires, I invited them for an interview. The interviews took 30-90 minutes, with a standard set of questions but with the ability to diverge from them when needed. The interviews were

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scheduled a few weeks after their initial online questionnaire answers so that the participants would forget the aim of the study and were held on- or offline (based on the preference of the participant). I used the interviews to dive deeper into their responses and determine if other factors played a role in developing entrepreneurial behavior and success. One can find an easy overview of the way the data was collected in figure 3:

Figure 3: Data collection timeline

After the initial data collection, some clarification was needed regarding the basic case descriptors. These descriptors have been collected in a follow-up call with the entrepreneurs after the initial data collection’s lack of these descriptors. The next section (3.4) explains the way the variables were measured in the four questionnaires. These questionnaires’ scores resulted in the participants’ parental style, regulatory focus, EO score, and success score. After that, section 3.5 explains how I formed the interview questions.

3.4 Measurements

The predefined variables in this research were mainly used as descriptives and as the basis for answering the research question. Here, the measurements of those variables are being explained in a logical order.

3.4.1 Parental styles

The respondents received the Parental Authority Questionnaire (PAQ) developed by Buri (1991) to measure parental styles. The PAQ was designed to measure Baumrind’s (1971)

authoritarian, authoritative, and permissive parental styles. The PAQ consists of 30 items on a 5-point Likert scale and was used in this study as other measurements of parental styles (e.g., the 20-item short version of the PAQ by Alkharusi et al., 2011) had severe limitations, and validity could not be guaranteed. The PAQ in this research has been slightly adjusted to limit the number of questions that respondents needed to answer. Previous research has shown that according to adolescents, their parents are more likely to employ the same parenting style than any combination of styles (Simons & Conger, 2007). That’s why, following the research by Trinkner et al. (2012), each item was reworded to display both parents instead of mother and father separately. I made one other adjustment; the statement “As I was growing up, my father/mother found that I did not needed to obey rules and regulations of behavior simply because someone in authority has established them.” was rewritten to: “As I was growing up my parent(s) did not feel that I needed to obey rules and regulations of behavior simply because someone in authority had established them.” to make the question better

understandable. In Table 4 and 7 of this research, I set the sum of all three parental styles at 1; The score that a respondent could get on all the dimensions of parental styles combined could not exceed 1 (i.e., 0.33 on all three dimensions was possible and 0.4, 0.3 and 0.4 on the three dimensions was not a possible score).

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3.4.2 Regulatory focus

The participant’s regulatory focus was measured using the Regulatory Focus Scale (RFS) by Fellner et al. (2007). In the RFS, the regulatory focus is found using a quick test with ten questions on a 7-point Likert scale. The authors developed the RFS using a previous study and a second

confirmation study. They came to the following dimensions for the test: Openness to New Things (ONT), Autonomy (A), Sense of obligation (SO), and Orientation to the expectations of others (OEO). A high score on ONT and A means that the participant has a promotion focus, and a high score on OEO and SO implies that the participant has a prevention focus. An important note here is that the participant can score high (or low) on both dimensions. Giving the possibility of having both a promotion and prevention focus. The scores were converted to a score from zero to one, and I used the same rating system as the one used by Bolton and Lane (2012a) for the IEO scale (section 3.4.3) to classify respondents into Low to High success scores (e.g., ≤ 0.64 is Low, 0.65 ≤ 0.76 is Moderate and ≥ 0.77 is High). This makes the results more coherent and easier to interpret.

3.4.3 Entrepreneurial orientation

Entrepreneurial orientation is generally measured on a firm-level; for this study, I needed a measure on the individual level. In this research, I used the Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation (IEO) scale by Bolton and Lane (2012a) to measure how an individual scores on EO, making use of the same dimensions as described by Wiklund and Shepherd (2005). The IEO scale is a reliable and valid measure of EO at the individual level, according to further investigative research by Bolton and Lane (2012b), where they verified external validity for the IEO scale. IEO is measured on three dimensions: Risk (3 items), Innovativeness (4 items), and Proactiveness (3 items) and on a 5-point Likert scale. A respondent was classified as Low EO if the sum of the items for that individual was 32 or less out of a possible 50. I gave a Moderate EO score to participants who scored 33-38, and one achieved a High EO by scoring 39 out of 50. In this study, the EO scores were converted to a score from 0-1 as all variables then use the same rating system. This allows for a better understandable overview in Table 7.

3.4.4 Entrepreneurial success

Based on the selected industry, turnover and profits are not necessarily the right criteria for firm performance due to the broad price ranges and market characteristics. Simultaneously,

considering the limited actual benefit of organizational success indicators in entrepreneurial settings and the limited availability of objective financial data (Schenk, 1998), this research will take a subjective success score as the main parameter for organizational performance. I used the method by Richard et al. (2009) to gain an organizational performance overview. The respondents were asked to report on economic parameters and to evaluate their company’s performance. Considering cognitive biases as the halo effect or the tendency to over-rate one’s performance (Taylor & Brown, 1988), this research will only use the organizational performance parameters for extra insight into how these entrepreneurs stack up to each other. Entrepreneurs’ non-organizational data are less problematic to collect than organizational data as this kind of information is often freely disclosed by entrepreneurs. Personal success is measurable by intangible indicators such as personal fulfillment,

self-enhancement, work-related social relationships, social recognition, and contributions to society. But also, by personal financial rewards or security (Dej, 2010).

Based on the findings of Dej (2010), Richard et al. (2009), and Schenk (1998) and the characteristics of the focus market, the respondents were given a questionnaire developed by Dej

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(2010): The Subjective Entrepreneurial Success Scale (SESS). This scale consists of 24 items on a 5-point Likert scale. Six items were removed (item 7-12) to reflect the target respondent group better. Those items were about employees (e.g., employee satisfaction, etc.), as no respondents had employees. The SESS was developed to measure both subjective organizational performance indicators as subjective personal success scores, which is in line with the findings of Richard et al. (2009) and Dej (2010). In the SESS, no distinction is made between Low, Moderate, and High levels of success. Instead, an abstract score can be deducted from the questionnaire. The scores were converted to a score from zero to one, and I used the same rating system as the one used by Bolton and Lane (2012a) for the IEO scale to classify respondents into Low to High success scores (e.g., ≤ 0.64 is Low, 0.65 ≤ 0.76 is Moderate and ≥ 0.77 is High). One can find the items of all questionnaires

in Appendix (II). The next section explains how I formed the interview questions.

3.5 Translating the variables to interview questions

To be able to answer the research question, several interview questions were derived from the variables. I made Table 3 to give a structured overview of the interview questions and their

corresponding variables. Please note that the full (original) interview guide is attached in Appendix I. The questions’ goal is described to give the reader an idea of the way of thinking when forming the questions. The linkages between the variables were used in the interview as shown in the conceptual model (the link between success and EO, EO and regulatory focus, and regulatory focus and parenting styles). In the table, the arrows display those linkages. The interviewees were all Dutch, and therefore I conducted the interviews in Dutch. In Table 3, the questions regarding the link between regulatory focus and parental styles were moved up one position. Thus, the grey and white areas distinguish the different categories as the question numbers may confuse. Overlap exists in the questions about regulatory focus and EO; these questions are indicated in bold.

Table 3: Structured overview of variables and corresponding interview questions

Success 1. What does success as an entrepreneur mean to you?

2. Do you consider yourself successful at the moment (to what extent)?

Goal: determining the participant’s definition of success and validating the score of the SESS.

↓ - Where do you think your

success as an entrepreneur comes from?

- Or) How can you reach this?

Goal: finding out more about what made the entrepreneur successful (was it their EO?)

EO 3. What do you think are the most important skills for entrepreneurs? 4. Which of these skills has had the

greatest impact on your success? - Why?

Goal: determining out if the answers of a participant were in line with one of EO’s three dimensions.

↓ 1. Can you tell me a bit about the risks you took to get to where you are now?

2. What makes your approach unique? - Why?

Goal: finding out whether the participant’s answers were mostly promotion/prevention-focused and if they were in line with the dimensions of EO and: (next goal)

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Regulatory focus

3. Do you often act based on impulses, or do you first do thorough

research?

4. Does this differ per situation? Buy watches, business decisions, etc.?

- Why?

5. Which of the two do you think explains most of your success?

Goal: same as the above plus validating the answers of the IEO scale and RFS while linking it to their success level.

↓ 6. And to what extent do other factors influence this (how you behave as an entrepreneur)?

7. Can you name one? - Why?

8. Are there certain events in your life that gave you a different view of business?

- Which?

Goal: determining if other (contextual) events or factors played a role in their way of doing business (is there

something besides their parental style, regulatory focus, and EO).

Parental styles 1. Can you tell me a bit about how you grew up? (parents together, divorced) 2. Are your parents (or have been)

entrepreneurs?

- If so, what have they done, and what have you learned from them?

3. How would you describe your upbringing?

4. To what extent were you encouraged by your parents to become an entrepreneur? (did they expect it or often say it?)

5. To what extent do you think the way you were raised influences your entrepreneurial style (how you behave as an entrepreneur)? (permissive should not affect this)

- Why?

Goal: finding out more about how they were raised and what their parents’ influence was on the way they behave as

entrepreneurs.

3.6 Conducting the interviews

The interviews were held at the business location of the entrepreneur or through a video call. Before starting the interview, small talk was held to make the respondent feel comfortable and get to know each other. I did not communicate the exact research goal until the interview was finalized to prevent biased answers. I used the interview style for expert interviews. My primary goal was to create a setting that resembled a dialogue between experts as this comes closest to a normal conversation for the expert interviewee. The fact that I am an entrepreneur in the same field as the interviewees made this easy to achieve. According to Meuser and Nagel (1991), the goal of a quasi-normal conversation needs to be approached with a flexible interview guideline. A loose interview guide (Appendix I) was made, which was, in most cases, just used as a general guideline for the interviews as the entrepreneurs already gave most answers during the conversation. The book of Emans (2004), which describes the process of writing an interview guide, was used as a reference.

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I made the interview guide to be reasonably basic; I mentioned the main questions but approached the interviews with an open mindset and the simple goal of getting the needed answers while leaving plenty of exploring room to elaborate on any subject. This resulted in friendly conversations that did not feel like interviews at all.

The interview’s main themes were interchanged by a knowledge exchange on the market and business in general while also commenting on each other’s work. The latter is in line with Trinczek’s (2009) findings, who found that, in expert interviews, the interviewer needs to confront the

interviewees with opposing views regularly. This earned the trust and respect of the entrepreneurs and made the conversations flow smoothly. A clarification question followed up all questions to the interviewees. By doing that, I was able to obtain more in-depth answers. One should keep in mind that none of the interviews followed the exact order of the interview guide. Nonetheless, I made sure that all questions were answered. The interviews were finalized by explaining the research goal, an insight into the questionnaire scores on all variables for the interviewee, and keeping the option for further contact or follow-up questions open.

3.7 Analyzing the interviews

When the interviews were finalized, I transcribed them verbatim. A total of 9.08 hours of interview time was transcribed in a total of 152 pages. I chose to transcribe the interviews verbatim to ensure that no valuable information would be lost and provide extensive information for researchers interested in researching this subject. Thematic analysis was chosen as an approach to analyze the data. I uploaded the transcriptions into ATLAS.TI, where each interview was separately coded into a better comprehensible overview per interviewee. The codes were identified using open coding, where each interviewee was regarded as a separate case. Open coding was used to provide a more complete and unbiased analysis. I broke down each case into smaller samples, and codes were created that covered that sample: I identified 1009 codes the first time. After that, I reread all samples, and the codes were applied to those samples. Then, I gave additional codes to samples that had no existing matching codes. After that, duplicate codes and codes that could be combined into overarching themes were combined. I repeated this step until no codes could be combined anymore. Each interview now had several overarching themes describing the case. An overview of the open coding process and the themes is presented in Appendix III. I used these themes to provide case descriptions of every participant. Section 4.3 (Table 6) and Appendix IV show these case descriptions.

3.8 Quality criteria

Semi-structured interviews were held with entrepreneurs in the vintage watch industry. These entrepreneurs, some from the researcher’s network, were invited to talk about their background. I never mentioned the purpose of the study. In the interviews, a range of topics were discussed,

including how they grew up, how they tackle certain business situations, what success means to them, and how one could best describe said entrepreneur. I included personal and background questions to form a complete overview of who the entrepreneur is and where they come from. Asking their parents to fill in a self-report on parental style has been considered to achieve higher validity. However, Parker (1981) found that children’s reports correspond closely to their parents’ reports. Thus, this was not deemed necessary. The generalizability of this research is low. This study is meant to explore what factors influence entrepreneurial success and what success entails for entrepreneurs. I tested the propositions in the male-dominated luxury vintage watch market, which provides no adequate

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representation of the whole population. However, scholars in long-term, extensive sample research can use the insights gained from this study to investigate the generalizability of them.

4. Results and discussion

4.1 Introduction

This chapter will present the newly gained insights from the questionnaire data and interviews and compare them to the literature review findings. The results are based on the outcome of the online questionnaires combined with the findings from the interviews. As this study explores the field of research, other interesting findings that transcend the interview answers are also considered valuable to this study. To present the results in a structured way, the respondents will be considered as separate cases. In these cases, this study’s variables (i.e., parental styles, regulatory focus, EO, and success) will be presented in tables. The cases show who the respondents are, their youth, what drives them, and how they view success. The names of these entrepreneurs have been altered to provide anonymity to them. The nine most popular English boys' names of 2020 were used as substitutes. First, section 4.2 will briefly explain the questionnaires’ descriptives to provide a general profile of the sample. Then, I will introduce the respondents by providing extensive case descriptions derived from the qualitative interviews. The findings of these cases will be presented as a whole in a cross-case description in section 4.3. The results section will be concluded by section 4.4, which describes and discusses the analyses’ findings.

4.2 Descriptives from the questionnaires

Table 4 gives a quick overview of the questionnaires’ outcomes for the sample used in this study. Table 4 shows the mean score, standard deviation, and minimum and maximum scores of the respondents for each variable or corresponding dimension. The EO dimensions: proactiveness, innovativeness, and proactiveness were calculated together to form an overall EO score. The scores were calculated in the following way:

- Mean score: the mean scores were recalculated from the original number of points to a score from zero to one to make them easier to read. The type of scoring is the same as how I explained the scoring in section 3.4. For example, in Table 4, a moderate (0.74) success level was the average result of all respondents. The scoring of the parental styles was recalculated to show a total maximum score of 1 (0.38+0.32+0.30), which allowed for a quick interpretation of the dominant parental style. - SD: the standard deviations were calculated by taking the standard deviation of the recalculated mean scores.

- Minimum/maximum points: a respondent was able to receive, for example, a maximum of 42 points on both the promotion and prevention dimensions. The scores displayed are the sum of points a respondent scored on all questions of that dimension. The minimum and maximum points are shown as the original number of points the respondents actually got, clarified by the maximum possible scores.

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Table 4: Overall descriptives of the variables and their dimensions

Mean Score SD Minimum points Maximum points

Authoritative 0.38 0.03 24 / 50 39 / 50 Authoritarian 0.32 0.06 20 / 50 35 / 50 Permissive 0.30 0.06 24 / 50 37 / 50 Promotion 0.74 0.15 25 / 42 35 / 42 Prevention 0.69 0.07 17 / 42 33 / 42 EO 0.78 0.08 31 /50 47 / 50 Success 0.75 0.11 50 / 90 72 / 90

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4.3 Cases

This section presents an overview of the nine cases with information about their

corresponding parental style, regulatory focus, EO characteristics, and success level. This section starts with the important descriptives of the cases (Table 5), followed by an overview of the important qualitative data (Table 6). It ends with a structured overview of the quantitative and qualitative data per respondent (Table 7).

Table 5: Case descriptions

Case # Name Age group # of years

in business Business size Online/ Offline business 1 Jesse 20-25 2 1 Online 2 Vince 20-25 3 1 Online 3 Noah 25-30 1 1 Online 4 Liam 35-40 3 1 Both 5 Aaron 20-25 5 1 Online 6 James 25-30 2 1 Online 7 Julian 25-30 3 1 Both 8 Finn 35-40 9 1 Both 9 Jayden 20-25 1 1 Online

This table displays all entrepreneurs’ age groups, followed by the number of years they are active. All entrepreneurs are sole proprietors, displayed here with a business size of one. Furthermore, all

entrepreneurs are active online and some of them have a brick-and-mortar store or office. Table 6 presents the interviews’ findings. All relevant findings from this table are discussed in sections 4.4 and 5.3. One can find the full case descriptions in appendix IV.

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Table 6: Cross-case qualitative description table

Case Parental styles Regulatory focus EO Success Extra

Jesse 1. Supportive Parents

2. Parents encouraged assertiveness 3. and independence 4. They were strict in chores

5. Verbal give and take was hard

1. Focused on long term growth 2. He is confident 3. Needs some kind of structure to be productive 1. Risk-taking 2. Assertive 3. Dares to be different 1. Being successful is to do what you love and be able to support yourself 2. Finds himself successful at the moment: he is happy and enjoys contacts

1. Parents are still together

Vince 1. Different parental

style at

mother/father: father was strict, direct, and structured.

2. At his mother, he had a lot of freedom but within limits

1. Perseverance 2. Independent 3. Impulsive 1. Risk-taking 2. Proactive

1. Being successful is being happy and able to support yourself

2. He is happy (successful) 3. Sees room for

improvement success-wise

1. Parents are divorced 2. He learned to adapt from his parents’ divorce

3. Parents were entrepreneurs 4. Cooperation over competition

Noah 1. His parents

encouraged independence 2. Supportive parents 1. Looks at potential profits instead of losses 2. Lack of capital prevents growth (but focused on growing) 3. Perseverance 1. Risk-taking 2. Acts on opportunities

1. Being successful is being independent/free

2. Doing research is key to success

3. Current job limits him from being successful

1. Parents are still together 2. Older brother set limits in his youth

3. Adrenaline lover

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4. Holds full-time job for the certainty it gives

5. Sense of responsibility

Liam 1.Very strict father

who determined the rules

2. Mother had no voice in the family

1. Enjoys the (creative) freedom 2. Impulsive 3. Positive Mindset 1. Not afraid to take risks 2. Enjoys the process and keeps going

3. Proactive

1. Being successful is being mentally free

2. Financial freedom is key to overall success

3. Having enough to do what you want is the basis for success

4. Sees room for

improvement, success-wise

1. Father was an entrepreneur

2. Brother and sister are also adventure seekers 3. Moved 25 times in his life

4. Aware of his own strengths and weaknesses

Aaron 1. Caring mother

2. Strict in values and principles 3. Free choice of hobbies 4. Supportive parents 1. Holds part-time job next to business for the certainty it gives 2. Wants to be in control 3. Confident in the outcome 1. Risk-taking

2. Has the drive to create something new

1. Being successful is adding value to people’s lives

2. He finds himself not successful enough yet

1. Enjoys being in a state of discomfort

2. Having sufficient money to put ideas into reality is success/his goal

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James 1. Responsible

parental care 2. Show don’t tell, that was what his parents propagated 3. Nudging parents 1. Confident in his entrepreneurial activities (risk-taking) 2. Strong focus on rewards 3. Wants to be in control 4. Analytical 1. Takes calculated risks 2. Problem solver 3. Takes initiative

1. Being successful is being free

2. Reflecting is key to success

3. He finds himself successful for his age

1. Comes from a family of entrepreneurs

2. Money-making is his hobby

3. Collaborative

Julian 1. Parents focus

more on security (but want the best for him and let him decide) 2. Supportive parents

1. Just tries a lot of things 2. Building relationships (long term) 3. Growth mindset 1. Diversified portfolio (calculated risk) 2. Actively looking for opportunities 1. Achievement-oriented look at success

2. Money is not the most important thing

3. Not satisfied with current success level

1. Mother is an entrepreneur

2. Siblings have good jobs as well 3. Focuses on outsourcing everything he can Finn 1. Parents encouraged him to be an entrepreneur 2. Problem solving 3. Social lessons from his parents 4. There were predefined rules but also room for freedom 1. Independent 2. Looking for opportunities 3. Wants control over administration 1. Takes calculated risks 2. Enjoys being different than his competitors

1. Being successful means selling enough

2. Independence and freedom is inherent to entrepreneurship to him 3. Happy with success level

1. Family business

2. Confident in the current business model

3. Cooperation over competition

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Jayden 1. His parents

encouraged independence 2. Enjoyed a lot of freedom 3. Father: discipline, self-sufficient, buffers 4. Mother: social

1. Trial and error 2. Looking for opportunities 3. Long-term vision 4. Wants to be in control 5. Keeps administration well 6. Wants certainty of a regular job 1. Takes calculated risks 2. Takes action 1. Being successful is having a healthy and professional business 2. Helping people

3. He is not successful yet

1. Immigrant family: had to find out a lot for himself as parents did not understand Dutch culture

2. Eager to learn

Color indications for Table 6 and 7:

-Parental styles: Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive

-Regulatory focus: Promotion, Prevention -EO: Risk-taking, Proactiveness, Innovativeness

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Table 7: Cross-case description table

Quantitative results Qualitative results

Case Parental

style(s)

EO score Success Parental style Regulatory focus EO (shows characteristics of) Successful? Jesse AT: 0.39 AN: 0.36 P: 0.25 Promotion: 0.79 High Prevention: 0.72 Moderate 0.67 Moderate 0.77 High Authoritative / Authoritarian Promotion / Prevention Risk-taking / Innovativeness / Proactiveness Yes Vince AT: 0.39 AN: 0.28 P: 0.33 Promotion: 0.67 Moderate Prevention: 0.63 Low 0.70 Moderate 0.72 Moderate Authoritative / Authoritarian Promotion Risk-taking / Proactiveness Yes

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Case Parental style(s)

EO score Success Parental style Regulatory focus EO (shows characteristics of) Successful? Noah AT: 0.43 AN: 0.24 P: 0.33 Promotion: 0.60 Low Prevention: 0.38 Low 0.57 Low 0.73 Moderate

Authoritative Promotion Proactiveness No

Liam AT: 0.29 AN: 0.42 P: 0.29 Promotion: 0.74 Moderate Prevention: 0.65 Moderate 0.94 High 0.73 Moderate

Authoritarian Promotion Risk-taking / Proactiveness

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EO score Success Parental style Regulatory focus EO (shows characteristics of) Successful? Aaron AT: 0.41 AN: 0.28 P: 0.31 Promotion: 0.69 Moderate Prevention: 0.69 Moderate 0.90 High 0.79 High Authoritative Promotion / Prevention Risk-taking / Innovativeness No James AT: 0.40 AN: 0.28 P: 0.32 Promotion: 0.81 High Prevention: 0.61 Low 0.84 High 0.69 Moderate Authoritarian / Authoritative Promotion / Prevention Risk-taking / Proactiveness Yes

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EO score Success Parental style Regulatory focus EO (shows characteristics of) Successful? Julian AT: 0.38 AN: 0.22 P: 0.40 Promotion: 0.74 Moderate Prevention: 0.59 Low 0.84 High 0.80 High

Authoritative Promotion Risk-taking / Proactiveness No Finn AT: 0.37 AN: 0.30 P: 0.33 Promotion: 0.84 High Prevention: 0.82 High 0.74 Moderate 0.80 High Authoritative Promotion / (Prevention) Risk-taking / Innovativeness Yes

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EO score Success Parental style Regulatory focus EO (shows characteristics of) Successful? Jayden AT: 0.33 AN: 0.33 P: 0.34 Promotion: 0.71 Moderate Prevention: 0.69 Moderate 0.62 Low 0.56 Low Authoritative Promotion / Prevention Risk-taking / Proactiveness No

Parental style abbreviations: -Authoritative: AT -Authoritarian: AN -Permissive: P

The qualitative results of Liam and Finn might be confusing. Liam is free in what he does, which is a criterion for him to be successful. However, he sees room for improvement success-wise. From the interview it did not directly become clear if Liam found himself successful, thus being successful is indicated with Yes / No. Finn shows three characteristics of a promotion focus (1. Independent 2. Looking for opportunities 3. Long-term vision) however, he also showed to possess one characteristic of prevention focus (4. Wants control over administration). This made me decide to put prevention in parentheses as it did not come up clearly in the interview. In the next section, the findings are presented and discussed.

A study on entrepreneurial success and the effect of parental styles.