ENTREPRENEURIAL MOTIVATION & SUCCESS

The Relationship Between Entrepreneurial Motivation & Entrepreneurial Success

The Relationship Between Entrepreneurial Motivation & Entrepreneurial Success

Introduction

Research on entrepreneurial cognition looked at what is now known as “trait research.” Emerging from the early psychological research on needs (McClelland, 1961), entrepreneurial trait research focused on the search for a set of stable personality characteristics that distinguished entrepreneurs from nonbusiness owners. Trait factors included characteristics such as age, marital status, and family background. Typically these traits were easy to identify and readily measurable (they included items such as gender, education, family, and race).

The objective behind this line of inquiry was to determine the individual's propensity to engage in entrepreneurial behavior based on the individual characteristics of an entrepreneur. While the best of these studies compared entrepreneurs to nonentrepreneurs (Collins & Moore, 1964) or compared groups of entrepreneurs (Smith, 1967), the general consensus is that research on entrepreneurial traits did little to advance our knowledge of entrepreneurship, and that entrepreneurship researchers would be better served focusing on what entrepreneurs did as opposed to who they were (Gartner, 1989; Shaver & Scott, 1991).

While trait research has largely been undercut by more recent scholarship, work in this area still exists on specific key individual dimensions. For example, the level of education has been explored in international studies of nascent entrepreneurs, with the general finding that individuals with medium to high levels of education are more likely to engage in start-up behaviors (Arenius & De Clerck, 2005; Delmar & Davidsson, 2000). Also, previous experience in starting one's own firm has been found to correlate with start-up behavior (Cooper & Gimeno-Gascon, 1992). However, traits such as previous management experience, and amount of work experience have not been found to lead to new venture start-up (Aldrich & Kim, 2005; Delmar & Davidsson, 2000).

More recent scholarship examines specific cognitive attributes of nascent entrepreneurs. For example, entrepreneurial intentions—individuals' beliefs influencing their intentions (Shapero, 1982)—has been explored in the theoretical work of Bird (1988), Katz (1992), and Krueger and Brazeal (1994). In addition, empirical work by Kolvereid (1997) provides support for the importance of entrepreneurial intentions to start-up success.

Another extension of the work on intentions is a recent study on the reasons why nascent entrepreneurs chose entrepreneurship as a career (Carter, Gartner, Shaver, & Gatewood, 2003). The study examined the importance of (a) financial success, (b) innovation, (c) recognition, (d) independence, and (e) self-realization by comparing nascent entrepreneurs to a control group of nonentrepreneurs. Counter to many of the common notions about entrepreneurship, the results found that financial success and innovation were not primary reasons why people started their own businesses. In fact, none of the variables studied were found to have a singular impact on the start-up motivations of nascent entrepreneurs, suggesting that motivations behind starting a new venture are complex and interrelated.

Moving away from intentions, other scholars use the idea of entrepreneurial cognition in their work as well. McGrath and MacMillan (1992) found that the content of entrepreneurial beliefs is similar across international ...