Does Dispositional Positive and Negative Affect Predict Late-Career Entrepreneurial Intention? A Theory of Planned Behavior Perspective

Late-career entrepreneurship can be a good answer to the problems of an aging population—age discrimination experienced by mature workers or inadequate pensions. For this reason, it is gaining increasing interest among researchers and policymakers. However, to date, very little is known about the factors that favor or hinder intentions to become entrepreneur at the late-career stage, especially those taking a psychological perspective. The current study aims to fill this gap by testing whether dispositional affect is related to entrepreneurial intention at the late-career stage. To explain the mechanism of this relationship, we use the theory of planned behavior. We conducted a study that included 292 non-self-employed people aged 45–81. The results showed that neither positive affect nor negative affect are directly related to entrepreneurial intention, but these relationships are rather indirect and go through components of the theory of planned behavior. This provides insights into explanation of late-career entrepreneurial intention and can be used by researchers, policymakers and practitioners, for example in programs supporting business start-ups by people approaching retirement age.