Pre-entrepreneurs’ perception of the technology regime and their entrepreneurial intentions in korean service sectors

Abstract

Startups and established firms in service sectors mostly fall into the supplier dominated or information intensive categories of Pavitt’s taxonomy. Entrepreneurs in these categories are not isolated from the technological environment because they can also be innovative (at least) by adopting technologies from outside. However, it has hardly been studied whether the entrepreneurial intention of pre-entrepreneurs in service sectors can be influenced by how they perceive technological environment. In this paper, using the theory of the planned behavior and technology regime, we examined the role of pre-entrepreneurs’ perception of the technology regime (opportunity, accessibility, and cumulativeness) on the formation of entrepreneurial intention in Korean service sectors. The results show that pre-entrepreneurs’ perception of the technology regime influences entrepreneurial intention via personal attitude and perceived behavioral control. Opportunity influenced personal attitude and subjective norm; accessibility influenced personal attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control; and cumulativeness influenced personal attitude and perceived behavioral control. Personal attitude and perceived behavioral control influenced entrepreneurial intention.