On the use of configurational analysis in entrepreneurial research

The relevance of understanding entrepreneurial intention has been – and still is – a highly relevant research problem. Traditional approaches in this domain utilize theories rooted in the Theory of Reasoned Action and rely on tools offered by regression analysis-based approaches. In contrast to this widely used combination, in this article we reason why new theoretically justified constructs and a more causal explanation-oriented data analysis approach can complement and improve existing literature. In addition to the domain-specific contribution, we also show how Fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (FsQCA) can be used as a basis of performing classification tasks to identify individuals with entrepreneurial intention potential. The introduced approach also addresses one of the most important methodological shortcomings of FsQCA, namely parameter selection in deriving important sufficient rules. Our contributions are exemplified using a dataset collected from eight countries.