China Europe International Business School (CEIBS), China
Nurturing has been a significant explanation for the intergenerational transmission of entrepreneurship—that is, people with entrepreneurial parents often become entrepreneurs themselves. However, extant studies adopting the nurturing perspective appear disparate and lack evidence of the effectiveness of different nurturing approaches. To address these issues, we conceptualize major nurturing explanations into two overarching mechanisms: cognitive and instrumental supportiveness. The former suggests that entrepreneurial parents shape their children’s attitudes, preferences, values, and self-efficacy toward entrepreneurship, while the latter posits that entrepreneurial parents equip their children with the necessary financial, human, and social capital for entrepreneurship. By integrating the findings of 99 studies through a meta-analysis, we find that, on average, the effect size of cognitive supportiveness is roughly twice that of instrumental supportiveness.
