Abstract/Summary

This conceptual paper explores a potential entrepreneur’s intention to start a new venture, but not necessarily realising it. From the perspectives of actor-network theory and affective events theory, we argue that latent entrepreneurship is underpinned by micro- and macro-level factors. First, the would-be entrepreneur is inescapably connected to a heterogeneous network of relations in an entrepreneurial context that may enable or constrain entrepreneurship. Second, contextual risks and uncertainties impact the would-be entrepreneur’s cognitive appraisals of and behavioural responses to fear, to either lead to latent entrepreneurship or emergent entrepreneurship. We propose a framework to depict the interplay between the individual and context in the dynamics of latent and emergent entrepreneurship. Our contribution is twofold: First, we contribute to actor-network theory, by suggesting that fear is one of the tokens in a would-be entrepreneur’s heterogeneous network of relations that must be negotiated either for latent or emergent entrepreneurship. Second, we advance the understanding of the role of fear in the entrepreneurial process, by conceptualising fear as a context-specific phenomenon, and highlighting its dualistic nature by showing how it could be both negative and positive in the shift from latent to emergent entrepreneurship.