Date of Award
Summer 8-22-2026
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Ph.D. in Business
Organizational Unit
Daniels College of Business
First Advisor
John Sebesta
Second Advisor
Daniel Baack
Third Advisor
Kellie Keeling
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Keywords
Entrepreneurial intention, Execution feasibility, Intention-action gap, Model calibration, Theory of Planned Behavior, Venture emergence
Abstract
To better understand why entrepreneurial intentions often fail to translate into entrepreneurial action, this dissertation examines whether intention-based models of venture emergence are systematically misspecified when they omit observable execution-context conditions that shape whether intentions are feasible to enact. Prior research documents the entrepreneurial intention-action gap, but dominant explanations emphasize volitional and psychological mechanisms and typically treat feasibility through perceptual constructs such as perceived behavioral control or self-efficacy. This study advances a diagnostic argument that entrepreneurial action reflects not intention alone, but intention under conditions of execution feasibility. Using longitudinal data from the Panel Study of Entrepreneurial Dynamics II (PSED II), the study models entrepreneurial intention at Wave 1 and venture-emergence action at Wave 3. It compares an intention-only benchmark, an intention-plus-controls specification, and an execution-context specification incorporating observable execution-context indicators of time demands, employment intensity, financial slack, household obligations, dependent burden, and collaboration support. The analysis evaluates coefficients, average marginal effects, common-sample model diagnostics, and subgroup calibration among intention-present respondents, with robustness checks for baseline Wave 1 action, intention-by-context interactions, stricter action thresholds, and Wave 3 missingness. Results provide diagnostic support for the execution-feasibility argument rather than support for a simple direct-constraint model. Binary intention presence is a weak standalone predictor in this analytic sample, while the execution-context specification modestly improves discrimination and probabilistic accuracy and substantially reduces subgroup calibration gaps among intention-present respondents. The coefficient pattern does not support a uniformly negative direct effect across all execution-context indicators; instead, execution-context domains operate in mixed and domain-specific ways. The study contributes to entrepreneurship theory by specifying execution feasibility as a boundary condition on intention-action inference, distinguishing perceived feasibility from actual executability, and showing that omitted execution context can appear empirically as subgroup miscalibration rather than merely as unexplained variance. This calibration improvement matters because it reduces the risk that differences in executable opportunity are misread as differences in motivation or readiness among otherwise intentional respondents. More practically, the findings suggest that intention-only models can make structurally different people appear psychologically different by translating unequal executability into apparent differences in motivation, readiness, or follow-through.
Copyright Date
8-2026
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Rights Holder
R. Ty Shandy
Provenance
Received from ProQuest
File Format
application/pdf
Language
English (eng)
Extent
127 pgs
File Size
767 KB
Recommended Citation
Shandy, R. Ty, "Entrepreneurial Intention Is Not Self-Executing: Execution Feasibility as a Boundary Condition on Intention–Action Inference in Venture Emergence" (2026). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 2804.
https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/2804
Included in
Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Entrepreneurial and Small Business Operations Commons