Testing the Competing Models of Gender and Creativity on Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy

The following thesis adapts Schlaegel and Koenig’s integrated model of entrepreneurial intent (2014) to answer the question: “Why are some people and not others able to discover and exploit particular entrepreneurial opportunities?” (Mitchell et al, 2002). Based on past research utilizing the social role theory and the social cognitive theory, it is proposed that gender and self-perceptions of creativity have a role in determining entrepreneurial self-efficacy. The research aims to determine what happens to entrepreneurial self-efficacy when gender and creativity interact. Survey data is collected from a sample of 184 respondents across Canada and the United States through the Ted Rogers School of Management’s student research pool as well as Amazon Mechanical Turk. A hierarchical linear regression is used to analyze the data. Results from statistical analyses indicated that creativity is very strongly related to entrepreneurial self-efficacy, with gender having an unexpectedly low correlation and magnitude. The results indicate that the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial self-efficacy was not as strong as the relationship between self-perceptions of creativity and entrepreneurial self-efficacy. These findings suggest that there are other variables that influence entrepreneurial self-efficacy more so than gender, providing opportunities for future research.