The Power of Curiosity: Exploring the Relationship Between Joyous Curiosity, Self-Efficacy, and Entrepreneurship

This article explores the role of joyous curiosity in enhancing entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE), intentions, and startup project performance within practice-based entrepreneurship education programs. Grounded in self-determination theory and social cognitive career theory, we develop a theoretical model positing that joyous curiosity acts as a catalyst for ESE, which subsequently influences entrepreneurial intentions and startup performance. Additionally, we examine how intrinsic and extrinsic outcome expectations moderate these relationships. To test our hypotheses, we gathered longitudinal data over two-and-a-half years from a diverse sample of 198 undergraduate and postgraduate students enrolled in a practice-based entrepreneurship training program. This extended data collection allowed us to capture variations across different cohorts of participants and temporal contexts. These participants came from a wide array of academic disciplines and cultural backgrounds. Our findings provide novel insights into the influence of curiosity and outcome expectations within the context of entrepreneurship education, offering actionable strategies to cultivate future innovators in the engineering and technology sectors.