'Watch out, Isaac!!' - re-constructing entrepreneurial intentions

The rise of entrepreneurship as a field of study has been marked by a parallel rise in theoretically-sound, empirically robust formal measures and models. One highly visible class of models has been those directed at explaining and predicting entrepreneurial intentions. The basic intentions model, drawn from Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (1991) and Shapero’s model of the entrepreneurial event (1982), has proven widely useful to researchers (Krueger & Brazeal, 1994; Krueger, 2000; Krueger Reilly & Carsrud, 2000). However, recent evidence suggests that the entrepreneurial intentions may require considerably more sophisticated modeling (e.g., Krueger & Kickul, 2006; Brannback et al., 2006). Moreover, even the most robust linear model of intent does not fully capture the dynamics of intentions per se, nor do they necessarily capture the deeper cognitive structures and processes that lay beneath the intentions model as presently conceptualized. Our paper will present a series of research findings that address multiple aspects of how entrepreneurial intentions evolve and coalesce, from a variety of perspectives and experiences. Doing so affords us the opportunity to explore some fascinating anomalies in recent tests of the intentions model.