PERCEIVED BARRIERS OF EMPLOYEE TRANSITION TO ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A LITERATURE REVIEW AND RESEARCH AGENDA

Abstract

This paper aims to understand the perceived barriers in shaping the Employee Transition to Entrepreneur ship (ETE) in Sri Lankan context. Based on a systematic literature review, the authors identified the five factors namely; Demographic Factors, Motivational Factors, Human Capital Factors, Environmental Factors and Behavioural Factors as the perceived barriers in ETE in the shed of prevailing theoretical and empirical inventories. Age, gender, educational level, marital status, occupation and family are the decisive demographical factors that might be a perceived barrier for the ETE. Financial motive, intrinsic motive, passion and fear of failure may hamper opportunity evaluation and exploitation motives by lowering perceptions of the desirability and feasibility of entrepreneurial opportunities. Entrepreneurs equipped with appropriate human capital have a greater chance to survive weak institutions and successfully run their business ventures. Moreover, environmental factors refers to the government support, financial knowledge and skills, market knowledge, government programs, registration and credit requirments, and availability of supportive services. These found influencing people’s willingness and ability to undertake entrepreneurial activities and the availability of assistance and support services that facilitate the start-up process. The Social Learning Theory helps in identifying the fundamental determinants of entrepreneurial behaviour by how do the observations and models’ career choices influence the entrepreneurial career decision. Future researches are recommended in the areas of scale development for identified factors of ETE, empirically testing the same individually or collectively, and to compare such empirical evidences in the context of developing and developed countries.