Students’ Entrepreneurial Identity Construction: Role and Social Identity Influences

Abstract

Identity directly impacts how university students behave and make decisions in entrepreneurial practice. Therefore, it is significant to explore the factors influencing the identity construction of student-entrepreneurs to understand how processes are internalized by students, which may then affect their entrepreneurial identity. This article interrogates the formation and transition of the entrepreneurial identity of student-entrepreneurs in a Chinese research university. This paper argues that identity formation is a dynamic and nonlinear process where both role and social identities are involved in its development. Factors that would promote the desired identity formation would include, among others, a tolerant atmosphere across universities, integrating identity issues into the process of entrepreneurship education, and providing university-wide support for entrepreneurship which will be beneficial to improving and sustaining entrepreneurial identity among students.