Reconceptualizing Necessity and Opportunity Entrepreneurship: A Needs-Based View of Entrepreneurial Motivation

Abstract

In their recent paper, Dencker, Bacq, Gruber and Haas (2019) reconceptualize necessity entrepreneurship—sometimes referred to as necessity-motivated entrepreneurship (McMullen, Bagby & Palich, 2008)—through the lens of motivational theory, utilizing Maslow’s (1954) hierarchy of needs framework. Prior research often conceptualized necessity entrepreneurship within a push-pull framework (Storey, 2016), with necessity entrepreneurship occurring when individuals are pushed into entrepreneurship by negative forces such as job loss or even the need for food and clothing, and opportunity-motivated entrepreneurs pulled into entrepreneurship by its attractiveness (Uhlaner & Thurik, 2007). This push-pull framework resulted in a dichotomous view of necessity entrepreneurship that Dencker et al (2019) correctly describe as over-simplified, and unable to account for the wide array of antecedents, processes and outcomes that occur in developing and developed contexts.