IDENTIFYING GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES: TESTING A PERSONAL ‘ENTREPRENEURIAL ORIENTATION’
Norris Krueger, Jr.
Principal Topic
Does there exist a personal (individual-level) ‘entrepreneurial orientation’ analogous to Covin’s and Slevin’s (organization-level) entrepreneurial orientation? If the entrepreneurial organization tends to reflect strong organizational biases toward being proactive, innovative, risk-accepting, and aggressively competitive, it would make sense that its managers would share these biases. Hamel and Prahalad (1989, 1994) argue persuasively that the attitudes and actions of senior managers are absolutely vital to a firm developing and maintaining a ‘strategic intent.’ Managers must devote considerable attention toward continuously seeking out new opportunities, often outside the firm and usually beyond present conditions. They argue that for an organization to have a strong strategic intent, its managers must also have their own strategic intent. Covin and Slevin map out three dimensions: Innovativeness, Proactiveness, and Risk-Taking. Lumpkin and Dess suggest the inclusion of competitiveness and autonomy. Hamel and Prahalad argue for including measures of future orientation and orientation to boundary-spanning. A significant resilience to setbacks (e.g., in the opportunity search process) requires a healthy optimism and is highly associated with opportunity-seeking (Krueger, 1999). Finally, effective entrepreneurial behavior (including opportunity identification) requires healthy thought processes. To identify and manage growth opportunities is typically impaired by hubris (Kets de Vries, 1984; Miller, 198?). Similarly, we included a measure of critical thinking skills.
Method
Design: We collected data on opportunity-seeking from multiple sources, then analyzed each proposed measure separately and collectively. We tested subjects by comparing scores on PEO measures to scores on opportunity identification. Sample: 103 Ss (46 entrepreneurs; 57 non-entrepreneurs), diverse across age, gender, education, ethnicity, and SES. Sample was drawn from a population of self-reported intending entrepreneurs seeking training. The measures used have demonstrated exceptional validity, stability, and reliability in other managerial and entrepreneurial samples and were pretested in pilot studies.
Implications
Past research has often failed to identify predictors of individual entrepreneurial behavior. However, one culprit has often been a lack of theory, leading to measures selected ad hoc (Krueger & Carsrud, 1994). Second, psychometric properties (reliability) have often been wanting, leading to either disappointing effect sizes or, again, spurious results. Finally, “entrepreneurship” is a broad construct; a more specific domain enhances predictability (Epstein, 19??). A focus on growth-seeking entrepreneurs (and using well-validated, reliable scales) has proven fruitful in the past (e.g., Sexton & Upton’s work). The results here add a well-developed theoretical basis to psychometrically-sound measures and a more specific focus and yields a reliable, valid measure of personal entrepreneurial orientation.
CONTACT: Norris Krueger, Jr., 107 South Yellowstone Ave., Apt. C, Bozeman, MT 59718; (406) 587-5664; (406) 586-0396; nfkrueger@rocketmail.com
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