From Intentions to Actions: An Integrative Model of Internet Entrepreneurial Behavior

This paper is aimed at exploring the real reasons of “strong intention—weak action” in Internet entrepreneurship, excavating the key factors that affect the transformation of Internet entrepreneurial intention to Internet entrepreneurial behavior, and finally clarifying the transformation mechanism between Internet entrepreneurial intention and Internet entrepreneurial behavior. An integrated model of Internet entrepreneurial behavior was developed based on the basic idea of “intention-plan-behavior.” Based on the data collected from questionnaires, the factor analysis, correlation analysis, and regression analysis are used for conducting statistical tests on a sample of 778 records from China. It is shown from the results that (1) although there is an obvious “deviation” phenomenon between Internet entrepreneurial intention and Internet entrepreneurial behavior. However, compared with some individual trait variables, the Internet entrepreneurial intention still has a stronger predictor of the Internet entrepreneurial behavior. (2) The intermediary role of the Internet entrepreneurship implementation plan is significant, indicating that the transformation of Internet entrepreneurial intention into Internet entrepreneurial behavior should work through Internet entrepreneurship implementation plan, so the failure to implement the entrepreneurship implementation plan is the crux of the weak action under the strong intention. (3) Both entrepreneurial feasibility perception and entrepreneurial importance perception have a significant positive moderating effect on Internet entrepreneurship implementation plan, indicating that with the positive support of the moderating variables, the higher the possibility of individuals to carry out entrepreneurial actions. Therefore, it is suggested to strengthen the entrepreneurial feasibility perception and entrepreneurial importance perception through multiple ways, so as to guide potential entrepreneurs to transform their entrepreneurial intention into entrepreneurial actions.