This dissertation deals with the investigation of success factors in the field of entrepreneurship, especially entrepreneurship training, from a psychological perspective. In particular, I argue that the identification of certain psychological aspects helps to better understand the underlying mechanisms for successful entrepreneurship trainings and thus, enables successful entrepreneurship. In the second chapter I theoretically examined planning as a fundamental action an entrepreneur hast to undertake in order to succeed. Scholars are in disagreement about the question if planning is crucial for the entrepreneurship. Thus, I provide a comprehensive overview of the advantages and disadvantages of planning in entrepreneurship from a psychological perspective. I explain negative aspects (e.g., lack of knowledge, difficulty to predict the future, and inflexibility) as well as positive aspects (e.g., legitimating, action-regulatory, and learning function) about planning in entrepreneurship. Furthermore, I develop a theoretical model that combines both the positive and negative aspects of planning in entrepreneurship. With this theoretical model, I integrate different types of planning (e.g., formal and informal plans) as well as positive and negative functions of planning (e.g., learning or stickiness, inflexibility) to provide a first approximation for a theory of entrepreneurial planning. In the third chapter, to focus on the field of entrepreneurial trainings, I empirically examine the under-researched field of the relation between trainer and trainee. I use the transformational leadership theory (Bass, 1985) and a theory of learning outcome (Kraiger, Ford, & Salas, 1993), to hypothesize that the trainers´ charisma has a positive effect on the trainees´ entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Additionally, I search for possible moderators for the hypothesized trainer-trainee-relationship in an explorative manner, using insight from different research areas (e.g., pedagogy, philosophy). To test the hypotheses, I conducted a 12-week entrepreneurship training by which I had 12 measurement waves across four classes with 161 students and 12 trainers, which lead to 919 observations. In the fourth chapter, to broaden the perspective on the mechanisms within entrepreneurship training, which lead to a successful outcome, I empirically examined the short- and long-term effects of entrepreneurship training on life satisfaction. To do so, I developed a theoretical model based on theories of life satisfaction, that explain the underlying mechanisms of the short- and long-term effects of the entrepreneurship training on life satisfaction. With this model I hypothesize, that entrepreneurship training has a positive short- effect on life satisfaction, which is mediated through entrepreneurial self-efficacy. I furthermore hypothesize, that the long-term effect of the entrepreneurship training is mediated through self-employment. The short term-effect acts like a boost and vanishes over time, whereas the long-term effect holds in the long run. To test these hypotheses, I conducted entrepreneurship training as part of a randomized controlled field experiment with five measurement waves over a total period of 2.5 years. Using discontinuous growth modeling to take into account the temporality of our hypothesized effects we statistically analyzed the 1,092 observations from 312 students. Chapter 5 concludes this dissertation with general discussion of the three chapters.
