Self-regulation and entrepreneurial career choice

Why certain people choose to pursue an entrepreneurial career has been identified as one of the defining questions of entrepreneurship (Shane & Venkataraman, 2003). Recent studies of entrepreneurial career choice have focused on the role of 'entrepreneurial cognition' which incorporates the use of mental models, heuristic thinking, intuition and pattern recognition (Baron, 2004). Another important cognitive factor in career selection is self-regulation, which refers to setting goals and then self-directing cognition and behavior towards the achievement of those goals (Vancouver, 2000). Like a number of earlier studies, I explored entrepreneurial self-regulation and career choice in terms of self-efficacy (e.g. Forbes, 2005). However, I also investigated two other important self-regulatory constructs, known as regulatory pride (Higgins & Friedman, 2001) and metacognitive awareness (Schraw, 1994), which have not been studied previously in relation to entrepreneurship (Baron, 2004). The literature suggests that all three constructs are related to career choice in terms of goal-setting and pursuit. Therefore, the investigation of these additional aspects of self-regulation extends and deepens previous research into entrepreneurial career choice and cognition.