Motivations are expressions of goals entrepreneurs seek to achieve by running a business venture. The European Commission's Green Paper on entrepreneurship (European Commission, 2003) posits that, individual's motivation to start entrepreneurial activities is highly vital (Atherton, 2007). Thus, good knowledge of what motivate persons to start their own business is of great importance (Yalcin & Kapu, 2008). Kuratko and et al (1997) asserts that, the motivation to start and sustain business venture permeates the entrepreneurial process. Carsrud and Brannback, (2011) add that, motivation is the link between the intention and action of entrepreneurs. Hence, knowing the motivating factors that trigger people to start their own business is important as it provides useful data to government or any institution in designing appropriate programmes and approaches to promote start-ups (Sihombing and Rachmawat, 2015). Despite efforts by the Chinese Government in promoting a serene and enabling environment to the development of start-ups, Chinese entrepreneurs still face considerable challenges in creating and running their businesses (Liao and Sohmen, 2001). Nonetheless, Chu, H.M, Kara, O., Zhu, X., Gox, K (2011) established that, motivational goals influences Chinese entrepreneurs' resilience to overcome the challenges they face while developing their business. In the light of the above, the researcher's interest is to analyse and understand the motivations of Chinese entrepreneurs for starting their own businesses amidst the perceived challenges to business creation. Thus, the overall objective of this paper is to analyse the motivations that lead entrepreneurs in China to create and sustain their own businesses, regardless of the prevailing and perceived challenges. 2. Literature Review; Theoretical Perspective The motivation to initiate one's own business has been viewed in a plethora of theories. These theories are usually categorized under content and process theories. Content theories show the motivation of people for a certain action. Content theories seek to understand the ''why'' of certain action (Beardwell & Claydon, 2007). Content theories allow us to understand what leads individuals to create their own business. On the other hand, Process theories term motivation as a rational cognitive process. People are motivated by a goal. Thus, people's behaviour is results of conscious decisionmaking process (Kisker, 2016). Process theories focus on understanding the ''how' thus, the intensity of dedication and persistence that the person is willing to put in the activities (Segal et al., 2005), and provide a description and analysis of how the behavior is initiated, sustained and stopped (Borkowski, 2009). All these theories, synthesized in Table 1,
