Revisiting a Contextual Model of Entrepreneurial Intentions

This update on our original chapter on the contexts of intentions will focus on what additional work has been done on the topic since we wrote the original chapter in 2008–2008. Before we begin this update review it may be helpful to remind the reader of some assumptions we made in the original chapter and which focuses the efforts of this update. When writing the original chapter a primary purpose was to point out to researchers the need to constantly challenge, test, and develop the models we are using to study entrepreneurial concepts, especially intentions. The model proposed in the original chapter particularly addressed the role that goals and motivations play in intentionality and suggested that a better understanding of their role is essential for understanding entrepreneurial intentions and would concurrently help us see the whole picture and understand the role of context. Certainly we want to acknowledge that one cannot look at intentions in isolation from other cognitive aspects like motivation (which we address in another chapter update on that topic). We also want to be clear that we have not listed here every study done since 2009 on entrepreneurial intentions that had some mention of context. What we have done is to look at what we feel are studies which drive this discussion forward.