A Psychological Perspective on Entrepreneurship: Insights from Micro-, Meso- and Multilevel Analyses

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is a vital force in the economic development of societies, with small and medium-sized enterprises providing the majority of employment in many countries. For this reason, research in management and economics is interested in analyzing entrepreneurship from a macro-level perspective. However, enterprises are created and managed by people, which is why micro- and meso-level perspectives, specific to psychological research, offer valuable insights into entrepreneurship as well. We explain these three levels of analysis to demonstrate how psychology can shed light on entrepreneurship at each of them and extend these insights through multilevel investigations. We also introduce the collection of papers included in this special issue, which provides new findings from quantitative and qualitative studies representing different levels of analysis and presents new advancements in psychological measurement of entrepreneurship-related constructs.