Are the Creative Individuals More Likely to Start a Business? A Behavioral Study Based on Experimental Data From College Students

The research focus of this paper revolved around the relationship between individual creativity and entrepreneurial intention. Based on the social cognitive theory and the trait activation theory, we conducted experimental analyses and questionnaires on 212 undergraduate students from Zhejiang Province. By comprehensively applying multiple regression analysis, hierarchical regression analysis and the SPSS-based Bootstrap method, we empirically analyzed the mechanism of action and boundary conditions of individual creativity on entrepreneurial intention. The empirical results indicated that individual creativity played a positive and promoting role on entrepreneurial intention. Opportunity recognition exerted a partial mediating effect in the mechanism of how creativity influenced entrepreneurial intention. Risk preference not only played a positive moderating role between opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial intention, but also further moderated the mediating effect of opportunity recognition. However, perceived entrepreneurial culture did not play a moderating role. The research results were not only beneficial for thoroughly exploring the influencing factors of entrepreneurial intention, but also further revealed the effective paths and contextual factors for the transformation from creativity to entrepreneurial intention.