The Proactive Personality Disposition and Entrepreneurial Behavior among Small Company Presidents

Abstract

Much of the effort to understand and new venture creation has focused on the characteristics of individual entrepreneurs. From the early work of McClelland (1961) which focused on the need for achievement as a personality characteristic of entrepreneurs, the field has examined a number of different traits like locus of control, propensity to take risks, personal values, and tolerance for ambiguity in a variety of different studies (see for example, Hornaday and Aboud 1971; Timmons 1978; Brockhaus 1980; Brockhaus and Horwitz 1986; Carland, Hoy, and Carland 1988; Hebert and Bass 1995). This trait-oriented line of research has come under fire as inadequate to explain the phenomenon of entrepreneurship (Gartner 1988, p. 12). As the preoccupation with individual traits has been de-emphasized, several other elements of have been proposed to define the entrepreneur. Behavior has been argued as the best method to identify an entrepreneur (Gartner 1994), and it is suggested that founding a business is one behavior which certainly defines (Stewart, Carland, and Carland 1996). Another type of behavior which has been linked to entrepreneurial activity is strategic planning (Olsen 1985), as entrepreneurs plan in more depth than small business owners (Carland et al. 1984). Other studies have identified a number of elements that define and entrepreneurial behavior including: leadership and dimensions of teamwork, organizational creation, opportunity recognition, innovation, risk assumption, marshaling of resources, and the creation of value (Stearns and Hills 1996). While many studies have enumerated the wide variety of elements that may define an entrepreneur, it has recently been posited that perhaps we can identify several types of entrepreneurs (Stewart, Carland, and Carland 1996). This variety of perspectives is best understood through the integrative approaches that have recently evolved to explain entrepreneurial behavior. They suggest that is an activity that can only be understood by simultaneously combining several of the individual elements of the phenomenon. A model developed by Gartner (1985) integrated four major dimensions of entrepreneurship: characteristics of the individual who starts the venture, the organization which is created, the environment surrounding the new venture, and the process by which the new venture is started. He emphasizes that it is the interaction of these variables that result in varying patterns of new business creation. Shaver and Scott's (1991) psychological model based on the person, the process, and the choices also attempts to explain entrepreneurial activity in terms of variable interaction. In their theoretical framework, these researchers strongly reject the solo role of personological approaches to understanding and propose that we must also understand both how the external environment is perceived in the mind of the potential entrepreneur (the process of social cognition) and whether the person chooses to act. They emphasize that it is critical to understand how cognitive representations in the mind of the potential entrepreneur get translated into action. More recently, other models have been developed which recognize the importance of the interaction among several variables. Herron and Sapienza (1992) propose a model of new venture creation which links individual traits with the situational context experienced by the potential entrepreneur. Similarly, the role of personal characteristics interacting with perceptions of situational factors serve as the basis for a model of entrepreneurial motivation developed by Naffziger, Hornsby, and Kuratko (1994). All of these recent multi-dimensional models reflect the importance of the interface between the environment or situation and the personal characteristics of the potential entrepreneur in understanding the process of venture creation. …

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