The Entrepreneurial Personality: A Social Construction

313 Pages·2008·1.38 MB·English

by  Elizabeth Chell

The Entrepreneurial Personality
Is there such a thing as an ‘entrepreneurial personality’? What makes some-
one an entrepreneur is a question that has intrigued the lay person and the
scholar for many years, but can such a personality be identified or is it
simply a socially constructed phenomenon? Elizabeth Chell pursues an
alternative line of argument: to show that the entrepreneurial personality
is, on the one hand, socially constructed, but on the other hand, presents
consistency in behaviours, skills and competencies.
This second edition of the highly acclaimed The Entrepreneurial Personal-
ity revisits the topic and updates the evidence from a multi-disciplinary per-
spective. The book carefully weaves together the arguments and views from
economists, sociologists and psychologists in order to develop a strong con-
ceptual foundation. It discusses the inferences that these experts have made
about the nature of entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial process, and
explores whether such evidence has enabled psychometricians to develop
robust instruments for assessing the characteristics of entrepreneurs. The
evidence for a range of purported traits is reviewed and the models and
research designs of interested social scientists are explained and evaluated.
Throughout, Chell laces her argument richly with a set of cases derived from
primary and secondary sources.
This book presents a timely set of views on the entrepreneurial personal-
ity, and will be of great interest to academics in the fields of entrepreneurship,
economics, management, applied psychology and sociology. This accessible
text will also appeal to the interested general reader, as well as practitioners
and consultants dealing with entrepreneurs in the field.
Elizabeth Chell has held chairs at the universities of Newcastle, UMIST/
and Southampton. She is a Fellow of the Royal
Society for the Arts (RSA) and the British Academy of Management.
The Entrepreneurial
Personality
A Social Construction
Second edition
Elizabeth Chell
First published 2008 by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Chell, Elizabeth.
The entrepreneurial personality : a social construction /
Elizabeth Chell.—2nd ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978-0-415-32809-8 (hardcover)
1. Entrepreneurship—Case studies. 2. Small business—Case studies.
I. Title.
HB615.C62 2008
658.4′21019–dc22 2007046127
ISBN 978–0–415–32809–8
ISBN 0-203-93863-1�� Master e-book ISBN
Contents
List of tables vii
List of figures viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Who is an entrepreneur? 1
2 The economists’ view of the entrepreneur 17
3 The socio-economic environment 51
4 The search for entrepreneurial traits: ‘The Big Three’ 81
5 New entrepreneurial traits 111
6 Interactionism and cognitive approaches to personality 142
7 Paradigms, methodology and the construction of the
entrepreneurial personality 174
8 The heterogeneity of entrepreneurs: cases and colour 210
9 The entrepreneurial personality: the state of the art 244
Bibliography 269
Index 293
Tables
1.1 Disciplinary approaches to entrepreneurship compared 6
2.1 Timeline of economists in relation to developments in
entrepreneurship 38
2.2 Roles identified for the entrepreneur by economists 47
4.1 Trait theory of entrepreneurship: summary of findings 107–109
5.1 The ‘Big Five’ based on Costa and McCrae’s (1992)
model of personality structure 123
6.1 Cognitive-affective units 149
6.2 A summary comparison between the CAPS and
trait approaches 151
6.3 Potential heuristics and biases of entrepreneurs 159
6.4 Components of creative performance 167
6.5 Components of investment theory 169
7.1 Summary of key differences between nomothetic and
ideographic assumptions of social science paradigms 177
7.2 Local/emergent versus elite/a priori approaches 183
7.3 The positioning of personality theories in respect of
assumptions of social science 199
7.4 A comparison between social constructionist, social
cognitive and trait approaches to understanding personality 201–202
8.1 Summary of practical criteria for judging the existence of
entrepreneurial behaviour 211
8.2 Analysis of case study material using ‘expert terms’ derived
from interdisciplinary review 215
9.1 Entrepreneur–opportunity interchange characteristics
summarised 256
Figures
1.1 The entrepreneur and entrepreneurial process within the
socio-economic environment 7
1.2 Organisation of the book 11
3.1 A social constructionist view of the socio-economic and
political environment 58
6.1 Person and situation influences that shape entrepreneurial
behaviour 147
6.2 Factors triggering entrepreneurial potential 155
6.3 Thinking outside the box 168
6.4 Solution to the problem in Figure 6.3 173
7.1 Dimensions of contrasting social science approaches to
investigation 178
7.2 The four paradigms 180
7.3 Assumptions made in social science inquiry 181
9.1 The individual–opportunity interchange 253
Acknowledgements
I read recently of literary works that it is vogue to acknowledge just about
everyone, including the lady who serves one reviving cups of cappuccino at
the local café! Well, one can think of many ‘life savers’, but what I would not
want to do is write a list that appeared in any sense disingenuous. The first
edition of this book was published by Routledge in 1991 and so my acknow-
ledgements go further back than the work that has gone into this second
edition. There were, I would say, several significant events that led to the
earlier edition: first my move to Salford University in 1979, where I met Jean
Haworth and joined her in a small business research project, which resulted
in my meeting James Curran and John Stanworth at one of the first UK-based
Small Business Research Conferences. This started my professional interest
in small firms; the annual conferences became the Institute for Small Business
Affairs (ISBA), of which I was a founding member. In 1984, I attended one
such conference based at Nottingham Trent, where a person, who shall be
nameless, gave a poor account of the ‘entrepreneurial personality’. Being
young I was outraged and quit the conference. I spent the next day in the
kitchen of the friends I was staying with and drafted out the paper ‘The
entrepreneurial personality: a few ghosts laid to rest?’ published in 1985 in
the International Small Business Journal. I therefore record a wholehearted
vote of thanks to Jean, James, John and an unnamed individual for giving
such impetus to my early career.
I should also like to thank anonymous referees who supported my appli-
cation for research monies from the Economic and Social Research Council
and the Nuffield Foundation, which enabled Jean Haworth and I to con-
duct the original interviews that formed the basis of the empirical work of
the first edition of this book. I also thank Sally Brearley, Jean’s one time
research associate, who stimulated the thought of using neural networks
methodology in the original edition of this book. Her help in this aspect of
the book is much appreciated. Once I took my first chair at the University
of Newcastle, UK, I expanded my knowledge of entrepreneurship and
became involved in a number of projects. Several staff, research associates
and doctoral students helped to stimulate my thinking, including Norman
Jackson, Geoff Robson (who sadly died in a road accident), Ian Forster, Jane