ENT 2.1
06/03
Abstract
The Prevalence of Family Businesses in Our Economy
Prepared
by: Glenn
Muske
Home-Based
and Micro Business Specialist
104
HES,
(405)
744-5776
muske@okstate.edu
Robinson, P. B., Stimpson, D. V., Huefner, J. C.,
& .Hun, H. K. (1991). An attitude approach to the
prediction of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship
Theory and Practice, 15(4), 13-31.
Implications for
Cooperative Extension. Helping to recognize those individuals
who may desire an entrepreneurial career and who may be successful in that
effort is valuable in helping individuals best utilize their personal resources
of talents, skills and financial resources.
In this research, an individual’s entrepreneurial attitude, as measured
by achievement in business, innovation in business, perceived self-control of
business outcomes, and perceived self-esteem in business, were examined to see
if they could correctly identify entrepreneurs.
Often writers have commented that passion or one’s commitment to
business may be the best predictors of business success. This research begins to explore the reality
of that statement. Overall all four
elements were found as potentially good indicators of entrepreneurship.
Overview. Much of the literature examining the
development of entrepreneurs has focused on one of two major ideas, trait
theory or demographics, as the significant predictor in who will become an
entrepreneur. And while these ideas work
in some instances and across broad populations in general, these two ideas have
failed in the micro setting, predicting the entrepreneurial tendencies of the
individual.
The purpose of this
article is to evaluate the concept of entrepreneurship attitudes as a predictor
for who may become and entrepreneur. The
idea of attitude fits well with other writings that suggest that passion or
commitment are key factors in predicting
which businesses will succeed in the long term.
Background information. Because
of the significant cost in terms of time and money involved with starting a
business and due to the limited amount of resources
available to help fledgling businesses, researchers have tried to identify
significant predictors that would help in identifying those individuals who may
become successful entrepreneurs. The
earliest work in this area identified common traits among existing
entrepreneurs. These traits were then
used to attempt to identify future entrepreneurs. The results were “ineffective.”
A second approach was
to examine the demographic characteristics of entrepreneurs assuming that
people with similar backgrounds possess similar entrepreneurial abilities. Among the issues studied were items such as birth
order, gender, race, etc. With this
knowledge, it would then be possible to predict entrepreneurs in the general
population. Like trait theory, this
method also found little success as it was not necessarily the demographic
characteristic itself that seemed to lead one towards entrepreneurship but
instead came from how one responded to that characteristic. Secondly, the demographic characteristics are
often a surrogate for personality characteristics already found ineffective.
In their work, the
researchers for this paper decided to explore one’s attitude, or predisposition
towards responding favorably or unfavorably towards an idea, object or
person. In this case, the item of
concern was how the individual would respond towards entrepreneurship. In a review of previous work, they identified
four separate attitudes that would seem to predict the desire to own and
operate one’s own business. Those four
attitude scales included:
1.
Achievement in business,
2.
Innovation in business,
3.
Perceived personal control of business
outcomes, and
4.
Perceived self-esteem in business.
The
research focused on identifying individuals who desired to create an
organization and who were innovative.
Results. Using a sample of entrepreneurs and
non-entrepreneurs, a 75-item survey was given that tested for the four attitude
scales. By themselves,
each subscale proved significant in predicting the degree or level of
importance on the four scales.
Entrepreneurs tended to rank themselves higher on all four
categories. When examining how the
scales interacted together, three of the scales proved to be highly
significant, innovation, perceived personal control and perceived self-esteem
in predicting who was an entrepreneur.
Achievement in business was important but at a lower level of
significance.
Summary. The study suggests that an individual’s
attitude towards the four separate business concepts may be a factor that could
help identify potential entrepreneurs.
The authors argued that attitude would be a better approach in this
effort. This work fits well with that
suggesting that passion and/or level of commitment may represent one of the
more significant factors in predicting long-term business success.
The research only
represents a first step however in the process.
Other attitudes, such as tolerance for ambiguity, autonomy, and proactivity, may also need to be included. It would also be important to understand how
and if these scales would work with nonprofit leaders and intrapreneurs.