Abstract
Entrepreneurship research increasingly conceptualizes venture creation as a staged process rather than a discrete event. Taxonomy-based models distinguish between abstainers, dreamers, procrastinators, and doers, demonstrating that entrepreneurial engagement unfolds through identifiable phases. While ecosystem research highlights the importance of university climate and institutional infrastructure, comparatively less attention has been given to the micro-foundations that explain why some individuals progress across stages while others remain stalled. This study shifts the analytical focus from environmental symbolism to individual capability and educational investment as drivers of entrepreneurial stage progression.
Drawing on Social Cognitive Theory and Human Capital Theory, we conceptualize entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE) as the primary psychological mechanism underlying stage advancement. We further examine resilience and subjective well-being as complementary psychological resources, and assess the role of structured entrepreneurship education and program learning as capability-enhancing investments. In contrast to climate-centered explanations, we test whether perceived university entrepreneurial climate retains explanatory power once psychological and educational drivers are incorporated.
Using survey data from 11,150 university students, we estimate generalized ordered logit models predicting entrepreneurial engagement stage (0 = Abstainer, 1 = Dreamer, 2 = Procrastinator, 3 = Doer). Variables are entered hierarchically to reflect theoretical layering: demographic controls, psychological resources, educational exposure, and structural embeddedness.
Results indicate that entrepreneurial self-efficacy emerges as the most powerful and consistent predictor of stage progression. A one-standard-deviation increase in ESE substantially increases the likelihood of advancing to higher engagement stages. Entrepreneurship education intensity and program learning outcomes also demonstrate strong positive effects. In contrast, perceived university entrepreneurial climate exhibits a negative association with stage advancement when psychological and educational variables are included, suggesting that favorable climate perceptions may stimulate aspiration without necessarily facilitating enactment. Subjective well-being similarly shows a negative relationship with progression, indicating that entrepreneurial movement may be driven more by perceived capability than by psychological comfort.
By identifying the micro-foundations of entrepreneurial stage progression, this study advances entrepreneurship-as-process research from descriptive taxonomy toward explanatory mechanism. It contributes to ecosystem scholarship by demonstrating that structured capability-building investments exert stronger influence on stage advancement than climate alone, thereby reorienting attention from symbolic support to enacted capacity in university entrepreneurship.