Entrepreneurship, age, and the lifespan: Taking stock and avenues for future research
Lévesque,Moren Stephan,Ute Kautonen,Teemu Bakker,René
Lévesque,Moren
Stephan,Ute
Kautonen,Teemu
Bakker,René
Abstract
Entrepreneurship is deeply shaped by age, influencing who enters, how ventures perform, and whether entrepreneurs persist. Youth offers resilience and innovation yet is constrained by limited resources; midlife combines strong skills and experience with tensions around financial security and competing demands; later life brings accumulated expertise and networks but also ageist barriers. This editorial synthesizes a decade of research and the five articles in this special issue, identifying ten themes that illuminate the age-entrepreneurship relationship. We distill key insights and outline future research avenues, underscoring the wealth of exciting topics and the need for nuanced understanding of entrepreneurship across the lifespan.
Description
Date
2026-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
age, entrepreneurship, lifespan perspective, entrepreneurial life stages
Citation
Lévesque, M, Stephan, U, Kautonen, T & Bakker, R 2026, 'Entrepreneurship, age, and the lifespan: Taking stock and avenues for future research', Journal of Business Venturing, vol. 41, no. 1, 106548. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusvent.2025.106548
License
info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess