Abstract:

Entrepreneurship is often presented as a rational and opportunity-driven career path, yet this perspective provides limited insight into how professionals from technical and managerial backgrounds experience the transition into entrepreneurship as a lived and identity-shaping process. Much existing research prioritises venture outcomes and entrepreneurial traits, overlooking the emotional, cognitive, and identity-related challenges associated with leaving structured organisational roles. This study addresses this gap by examining how individuals experience, interpret, and sustain their transition into entrepreneurship under conditions of uncertainty, identity disruption, and shifting forms of professional legitimacy. Adopting a qualitative, interpretivist approach informed by career construction theory and drawing on perspectives from human capital, entrepreneurial cognition, resilience, and legitimacy, the study is guided by three research questions: how individuals experience entry into entrepreneurship, how prior expertise is reinterpreted in uncertain contexts, and how resilience, legitimacy, and social capital support ongoing entrepreneurial engagement. Data were generated through six semi-structured interviews conducted between October and November 2025 with professionals transitioning into entrepreneurial or consulting roles, complemented by secondary qualitative material from publicly available podcast interviews with female technology founders. Inductive thematic analysis supported by reflective interpretation revealed that entrepreneurial transition is driven less by opportunity recognition and more by identity misalignment, that prior experience becomes entrepreneurial capital only through reflective reinterpretation, and that resilience, legitimacy, and social capital operate as interdependent and relational processes. The study concludes that entrepreneurial transition is best understood as a gradual process of becoming rather than a discrete career decision, with implications for theory, practice, and policy.

Please choose your submission type: Full Paper

Primary Track: Entrepreneurship

Keywords: Entrepreneurship Theories;International Entrepreneurship;International entrepreneurship

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Mrs. Shilpa Shivakumar