Senior Entrepreneurship: Definitions and Underlying Theories

Senior Entrepreneurship: A Selective Review and Research Agenda

“…Parker (2009), in his review of the personal and external factors affecting entrepreneurial behavior, argues that age is one of the main determinants of entrepreneurship and self-employment. Extending previous reviews of senior entrepreneurship (Ainsworth, 2015;Furlong, 2004;Gonçalves and Pifano, 2015;Halvorsen and Howell, 2016;Kautonen, 2013;Lewis and Walker, 2011;Luck et al, 2014;Maritz, 2015;Minola et al, 2014;Patel and Gray, 2006;Rogoff, 2007;Weber and Schaper, 2004), we discuss the profiles of the senior entrepreneurs and the potential contribution of senior entrepreneurship to create social wellbeing and economic value by surveying theoretical and empirical work in different fields. To the best of our knowledge, the present study is the first encompassing and systematic literature review specifically focused on senior entrepreneurship.…”

Entrepreneurship and self-employment for mature-aged people

“…Negative outcomes associated with age and gender stereotyped messaging remain ever present in the entrepreneurship zeitgeist (Luck et al., 2014). Australia is lacking policy and initiatives aimed at fostering and supporting mature-aged entrepreneurship generally.…”

“…Economic models on employment, policy implications, and education and training are also well represented in mature-aged entrepreneurship (Maritz, 2019). A separate theoretical foundation is yet to be developed on the research on senior entrepreneurship as a construct and research has yet to achieve a clear, unanimous definition or theoretical approach to explain the phenomenon of older people becoming self-employed or participating in entrepreneurial initiatives (Luck et al., 2014).…”

Senior Entrepreneurship. Self-employment by Older People – an Uncharted Territory

“…With respect to the determining factors which could be targeted by political measures, there are some theoretical approaches concerning self-employment in older age, which are trying to explain why older people become self-employed: The time allocation model, the opportunity-necessity model, the early retirement, self-employment model, the contingency model and the theory of planned behaviour (Funken, 2015;Luck, Kraus, & Bouncken, 2014;Solinge, 2014;Tornikoski & Kautonen, 2009). But none of these approaches is dominant in the literature (for an overview see e. g. Fachinger & Bögenhold, 2016).…”