Embedded yet unbound: investigating the role of family system characteristics in fostering entrepreneurial intention and action

While the antecedents of entrepreneurial intention and its links to entrepreneurial behaviour have been the subject of intense scholarly attention, little is known about how this relationship is influenced by the social context of the family. The literature has highlighted the benefits of being embedded within a family, and specifically within a family business, for prospective entrepreneurs; yet the adoption of a family-based perspective can better explain what, besides the business-related antecedents, really translates intentions into actions. We specifically build on the role of self-efficacy. While family business background has been linked to an improved entrepreneurial self-efficacy, the underlying antecedents – as they explicitly pertain to the family system and its characteristics – remain to be further explored. While parental behaviour aimed at spurring interest in the family business has been previously proposed to impact self-efficacy related to competence in working within the family business, the same family embeddedness elements are yet to be investigated in connection with their possible role in shaping entrepreneurial self-efficacy.