To achieve herd immunity against COVID-19, it is crucial to know the drivers of vaccination intention and, thereby, vaccination. As the determinants of vaccination differ across vaccines, target groups and contexts, we investigate COVID-19 vaccination intention using data from university students from three countries, the Netherlands, Belgium and Portugal. We investigate the psychological drivers of vaccination intention using the 5C model as mediator. This model includes five antecedents of vaccination: Confidence, Complacency, Constraints, Calculation and Collective Responsibility. First, we show that the majority of students have a positive propensity toward getting vaccinated against COVID-19, though only 41% of students are completely acceptant. Second, using the 5C model, we show that ‘Confidence’ (β = 0.33, SE = 03, p < .001) and ‘Collective Responsibility’ (β = 0.35, SE = 04, p < .001) are most strongly related to students’ COVID-19 vaccination intention. Using mediation analyses, we show that the perceived risk and effectiveness of the vaccine as well as trust in the government and health authorities indirectly relate to vaccination intention through ‘Confidence’. The perceived risk of COVID-19 for one’s social circle and altruism, the need to belong and psychopathy traits indirectly relate to vaccination intention through ‘Collective Responsibility’. Hence, targeting the psychological characteristics associated with ‘Confidence’ and ‘Collective Responsibility’ can improve the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns among students.

Entrepreneurship has been connected to several socio-economic issues. However, despite the growing conjectures, the links with democracy have yet to be substantiated. By using a country-level panel dataset over the 1972–2010 period, we find evidence that democracy is conducive to entrepreneurship. We shed light on the intensity and multidimensionality of democracy by showing that the promotion of free social interchange and the direct involvement of civil society in political processes are two dimensions of democracy driving such effect. We additionally observe that entrepreneurship is sensitive to both contemporaneous and historical values of democracy. By providing the first systematic empirical evidence that entrepreneurship and democracy are directly connected, this study suggests to consider their ongoing concomitant retreats as two related phenomena.

During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, governments set recommendations and restrictions that have given rise to new situations that require residents to deliberate and respond nonautomatically. For highly impulsive individuals, dealing with these situations may be harder, as they tend to deliberate less about the consequences of their behaviors. In this study, we investigate the relationship between impulsivity and delay discounting on the one hand and compliance with COVID-19 restrictions on the other hand. We distinguish between compliance with social distancing measures and compliance with hygiene measures. Regression analyses of an international sample of 6759 students from seven European countries reveal that the self-reported personality construct of impulsivity is negatively related to both types of compliance behavior. However, and unexpectedly, we also find a weak positive association between the discount rate—as measured by a behavioral task—and compliance. Our study highlights the importance of individual differences in impulsivity in regard to compliance with public health measures during a pandemic.

Secularization processes alongside supposed tensions between science and religion may partly explain the slow development of literature on the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, the overwhelming number of submissions we received for the present special issue of Small Business Economics suggests a profound interest in this topic by researchers from all around the globe. In many of these submissions, the researcher’s own personal values or beliefs explicitly or implicitly motivated the research question, shaped the research design, and steered the interpretation of outcomes – regrettably, although this engagement often being at the expense of the study’s analytical rigor. We explain how the Weberian distinction between value-neutrality and value-relevance can help to increase the rigor of studies on the relationship between religion and entrepreneurship. Moreover, we propose a mechanism-based approach to explain and test the multiple interrelationships between religion and entrepreneurship because such mechanisms are often assumed rather than empirically tested. By drawing on and extending Saroglou’s religious dimensions model, we structure potential mechanisms between religion and entrepreneurship as well as between entrepreneurship and religion.

This study challenges the assumption that well-balanced and bottleneck-free entrepreneurial ecosystems (EEs) are the sole drivers of high regional economic performance. Using a comprehensive dataset covering 125 regions across 24 European countries, we find that high regional economic performance does not universally necessitate the presence of every ecosystem component. Rather, contextual nuances across European macro-regions show that both balanced and unbalanced ecosystems can lead to significant economic success, emphasizing the importance of recognizing uniqueness. Our research contributes to the EE literature by integrating individual and institutional factors through the REDI conceptual model. The nuanced macro-regional analysis underscores the need for region-specific assessments. We conclude that policy efforts should focus on acknowledging and leveraging the uniqueness of regional ecosystems rather than striving for a one-size-fits-all approach to enhance economic performance.