This collection includes most of the ASU Theses and Dissertations from 2011 to present. ASU Theses and Dissertations are available in downloadable PDF format; however, a small percentage of items are under embargo. Information about the dissertations/theses includes degree information, committee members, an abstract, supporting data or media.
In addition to the electronic theses found in the ASU Digital Repository, ASU Theses and Dissertations can be found in the ASU Library Catalog.
Dissertations and Theses granted by Arizona State University are archived and made available through a joint effort of the ASU Graduate College and the ASU Libraries. For more information or questions about this collection contact or visit the Digital Repository ETD Library Guide or contact the ASU Graduate College at gradformat@asu.edu.
Entrepreneurship entails a transition from status quo to a founder/leader of a new organization, and the dominant view in the literature focuses on opportunities in a hypothetical situation, namely an entrepreneurial option. This study shifts the attention from an entrepreneurial option to a current situation and proposes that a perception…
Entrepreneurship entails a transition from status quo to a founder/leader of a new organization, and the dominant view in the literature focuses on opportunities in a hypothetical situation, namely an entrepreneurial option. This study shifts the attention from an entrepreneurial option to a current situation and proposes that a perception of costliness in status quo as a driver of entrepreneurial decisions and strategies. Specifically, I propose that a perception of inequality due to the local hierarchy of an organization engenders motivation of disadvantaged employees to become a leader of his/her own entrepreneurial organization. Utilizing hierarchy-based power dynamics and attribution biases, I theorize that i) status gap between a leader and a member and ii) status distinctiveness of a leader in the current organization affect an entrepreneurial decision because of inequality perception. Furthermore, I hypothesize that entrepreneurial organizations driven by such status inequality are more likely to replicate the local structure of the previous employer in terms of status hierarchy to compensate for the perceived disadvantages in the previous employer. The empirical analyses of this study investigate entrepreneurial decisions and entrepreneurial team formation of jazz musicians from jazz discographies between 1950 and 2018, and I found supportive results. This study contributes to the entrepreneurship and inequality literature by bridging two research spaces. It first uncovers the roles of a negative perception of the status quo in entrepreneurship, in addition to the established idea of a positive perception of an alternative option. It also suggests a novel explanation of the long-standing question of inequality reproduction by looking at whether and how inequality spreads via entrepreneurship.
