Triggering the process of creating or taking over a company: the case of French engineers.

Summary We focus our research on the entrepreneurial process and more precisely on its trigger phase. Based on Bruyat's model (1993), we take up his definition of the triggering phase: the individual seriously considers creating, he devotes time and resources to his research, and he acts. In order to model this triggering phase, we use two main notions (intention and displacement) as well as different works: Shapero and Sokol (1982), Ajzen (1991) and Krueger and Carsrud (1993). The starting point of our research is the database created by Fayolle (1996). Two groups of engineers interest us. The first group consists of non-entrepreneurial engineers who, at the time of the survey, had the objective of becoming entrepreneurs in the short term. The second subset includes non-entrepreneurial engineers who have never had the objective of becoming an entrepreneur. Our methodology consists of two parts: a quantitative survey and a qualitative study. We test the two antecedents of triggering retained in our conceptual modeling. We also identify eight career paths. We then explore each pathway in more detail through semi-structured interviews. Two decisive dimensions emerge from the analysis of the results. First, the triggering paths are constructed differently over time. Secondly, the intensity and consequences of possible displacements are perceived in different ways by the individuals. This leads us to propose a mapping that allows us to identify four triggering processes.