Individual belief-based factors influencing entrepreneurs’ intention to withdraw from their primary business

Entrepreneurial intention (EI) to start a venture received enormous attention in entrepreneurship research, but relatively less scholarly research focused on examining intention to withdraw from entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur's intention to withdraw can have a serious consequence for a business. This study applies intention research based on individual beliefs to understand the phenomenon of entrepreneurial withdrawal intentions from the primary venture (EWI-PV). In particular, the influence of three measures of individual beliefs (behavioral, normative, and control) on withdrawal intentions is examined. Using survey data from 233 business founders, it was found that control beliefs and normative beliefs significantly reduced EWI-PV, but behavioral beliefs had no effect. In addition to its implications for the practice of entrepreneurship, the results of this research contribute by extending the Theory of Planned Behavior in demonstrating the importance of individual beliefs to explain EWI-PV.