11202: What Makes Entrepreneurs Coachable?: The Double-Edged Swords of Control Attribution and Grit (session 26101)

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

15:30 - 17:00 CEST (GMT+2)

Location: Bella Center: Hall B- B4-m1

Session Type: Paper Session
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/B8X3P8

Author(s)

MM

Matt R. Marvel

Ball State University, United States
MW

Marcus Wolfe

U. of North Texas, United States
RS

Regan Stevenson

Indiana University Bloomington, United States
DK

Donald F. Kuratko

Indiana University Bloomington, United States

Entrepreneur coaching is central to startup ecosystems, yet the question persists as to what makes some entrepreneurs more coachable than others. We investigate the antecedents of entrepreneur coachability and develop a set of hypotheses based on expectations from the theory of planned behavior. Specifically, we investigate how individual control attribution (internal versus external) and grit relate to entrepreneur coachability. Leveraging a dyadic sample of entrepreneurs and coaches, we find an internal attribution is positively related, and an external attribution in negatively related to coachability. Findings reveal that grit has opposing moderation effects on the control attribution—coachability relationship.

view paper (if available)