From entrepreneurial intentions to behavior: The role of anticipated regret and proactive personality

Entrepreneurship is generally viewed as an intentionally planned behavior. As such, the formation of entrepreneurial intentions is often considered as an important step in the process of starting a new business. However, evidence suggests that not all intentions always translate to actual behavior which can be due to several contingent factors. Thus, drawing from the regret regulation theory and the proactive personality theory, the present study proposed two forward-looking factors (i.e. anticipated regret and proactive personality) that can play a vital role in the translation of entrepreneurial intentions to actions. Using a sample of 277 respondents and two waves of survey data, this study contributes to the emerging understanding of the entrepreneurial intention-behavior nexus by showing that anticipated regret and proactive personality positively moderates the link between entrepreneurial intentions and behavior.