American Journal of Industrial and Business Management, 2013, 3, 746-753 Published Online December 2013 (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ajibm) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ajibm.2013.38085 Open Access AJIBM Entrepreneurship Motivation: Tunisian Case Jamel Choukir 1 , Mouna Baccour Hentati 2 1 Business Administration Department, Al-Imam University, Riyadh, KSA; 2 École Supérieure de Commerce de Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia. Email: jchoukir@yahoo.ca, mouna_baccour_hentati@laposte.net Received October 31 st , 2013; revised November 30 th , 2013; accepted December 7 th , 2013 Copyright © 2013 Jamel Choukir, Mouna Baccour Hentati. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In accordance of the Creative Commons Attribution License all Copyrights © 2013 are reserved for SCIRP and the owner of the intellectual property Jamel Choukir, Mouna Baccour Hentati. All Copyright © 2013 are guarded by law and by SCIRP as a guardian. ABSTRACT The entrepreneurship option was launched in Tunisia nearly one decade ago. The firm creation process seemed to be initiated especially to absorb the increasing number of undergraduates and graduates. Therefore, the main aim of the present research is to highlight the entrepreneurship motivation as a social issue and to understand the link existing be- tween motivator factors and economic and social success. Hence, a survey by questionnaire was conducted based on 100 respondents representing Tunisian entrepreneurs. The results revealed that there are links between motivator factors and entrepreneurship as well as some ties between entrepreneurship, motivator factors and the antecedents, especially concerning gender, age and family background. The results have shown some differences existing between male and female entrepreneurs. Male entrepreneurs’ motivator factors are in the same importance with push and pull ones. Fe- male entrepreneurs’ motivator factors are rather emotional. These results are statistically significance. Thus, the finding would be useful for the stakeholders to understand the entrepreneurship dynamic. Keywords: Motivation; Entrepreneurship; Emotion; Gender 1. Introduction Several studies have examined the women’s moti- vation to become entrepreneurs [1-4]. Some highlighted psychological reasons (personality), while others pointed sociological (constraints, incentives) ones. Reflecting these different attitudes point of view emphasis, a key point of debate emerges concerning the different types of motivator factors such as “pulled”, “pushed”, intrinsic, extrinsic, mixed. Three groups of motivations emerged from research conducted in Canada, the US and Great Britain. It is worth wondering here, which motivator factors seem to be the major determinant for Tunisian’s to become entrepreneurs? How prevalent are these moti- vations operating in Tunisian context? What motivates Tunisian entrepreneurs to start their own business? Our study sample was mixed regarding both women and men. It was composed of 100 entrepreneurs. The respondents are operating business or entrepreneurs for at least 3 years. Literature has shown that the 3-year period represents and reflects that the new company is over- taking the main critical steps. In order to evaluate the situation in the Tunisian context, the analysis of this article draws data to address several questions about the prevalence of various motivations for Tunisian entre- preneurs, the differences between women and men and the links existing between motivation and their economic and social success. The measures used in the analysis are the ability to escape salary carrier and the ability to create own employment and to respond to independence need or balance need. This paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we discuss the entrepreneurship motivation. Section three, we outline the methodology used in this research. Subsequently, we report and discuss the results. Finally, we conclude and suggest new directions for future research. 2. Research Background The most important studies in motivation put a great emphasis on the “pull” and “push” factors. In fact, lack of studies on entrepreneurship motivation in the Tunisian context is not the only reason for exploring and treating this phenomenon. We argue that there are four kinds of