• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.19 no.5
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• pp.29-44
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• 2024

Recently, with the retirement of baby boomers, middle-aged and older people's entrepreneurship has become an issue that is receiving attention as a second career. However, existing literature has mainly focused on the entrepreneurial intention or entrepreneurial performance of middle-aged and older people, and above all, there is insufficient understanding of the antecedent factors that make it difficult for middle-aged and older people to start a business. Therefore, this study aimed to explore the effect of middle-aged and older people's indecisiveness preparing for starting a business on their fear of failure in starting a business. In addition, it aimed to verify the effects of public self-awareness and negative external evaluation as antecedent factors that affect the fear of failure of prospective middle-aged and older entrepreneurs. For empirical analysis, a survey was conducted on 221 men and women aged 45 to 64 who were willing to start a business. The results of the empirical analysis showed that indecisiveness significantly affected public self-awareness, negative external evaluation, and fear of failure in starting a business. In addition, public self-awareness and negative external evaluation were confirmed to be related to the fear of failure in starting a business. All hypotheses were supported as a result of the hypothesis verification. The significance of this study lies in the fact that it reinterprets the negative aspects of middle-aged and older adults' indecisiveness and fear of failure in starting a business from a positive perspective, and based on the results of this study, it provides practical implications for resolving the indecisiveness and fear of failure in middle-aged and older adults preparing to start a business.