Journal of European Industrial Training
Towards a search for the meaning of entrepreneurship
Margaret Kobia Damary Sikalieh
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JEIT
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Towards a search for the meaning
of entrepreneurship
110
Strathmore University and Kenya Institute of Public Administration, Nairobi,
Africa, and
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Margaret Kobia
Damary Sikalieh
Received 5 January 2009
Revised 24 March 2009
Accepted 2 July 2009
United States International University, Nairobi, Africa
Abstract
Purpose – The primary purpose of this literature review paper is to address the question why it is
difficult to define entrepreneurship despite the amount of research that has taken place in the field. In
addition, the paper also aims to demonstrate how the struggle to define entrepreneurship has impacted
on entrepreneurial careers in Kenya.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviewed literature on different approaches used by
researchers in the struggle to define entrepreneurship. It focused mainly on the trait, behavioral and
opportunity identification approaches. It critically examined the extent to which each approach has
attempted to explain what entrepreneurship is, and suggests research questions, methodologies and
techniques that will do justice to the complexity of defining entrepreneurship.
Findings – The findings of the literature review showed that none of the approaches used to define
entrepreneurship gives a comprehensive picture of entrepreneurship. There is a lack of a common
definition of entrepreneurship. Following the absence of this common definition, professionals in
Kenya do not see themselves as entrepreneurs. The researchers and educators must define what they
mean when attempting to define entrepreneurship. Rather than concentrate on one part – the
entrepreneur; behavior or opportunity identification – they must focus on the whole entrepreneurial
process. In addition, researchers and educators need to study the entrepreneur before, during and after
the entrepreneurial process.
Research limitations/implications – Further research should be conducted to relate entrepreneurship
to other occupations. Each approach needs to expand in this direction.
Originality/value – Research on the impact of the meaning of entrepreneurship on careers in Kenya
and other contexts so far has not been conducted.
Keywords Entrepreneurialism, Small to medium-sized enterprises
Paper type Literature review
Journal of European Industrial
Training
Vol. 34 No. 2, 2010
pp. 110-127
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0309-0590
DOI 10.1108/03090591011023970
Introduction
Interest in entrepreneurship education has heightened in recent years, especially in
business schools. Much of this interest is driven by students’ demand for courses in
entrepreneurship, either because of genuine interest in the subject, or because students
see entrepreneurship education as a useful edge given uncertain corporate careers.
However, is demand for entrepreneurship education the same as being enterprising?
This necessitates a distinction between entrepreneurship and enterprise. To some
people, these two terms mean one and the same thing, while for others, they are quite
different. For those to whom the terms are similar, “entrepreneurship is the process
whereby an individual or a group of individuals use organized efforts and means to
pursue opportunities to create value and grow by fulfilling wants and needs through
innovation and uniqueness, no matter what resources are currently controlled”
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(Coulter, 2001). In this regard, entrepreneurship is a dynamic process of vision, change
and creation (Kuratko and Hodgetts, 2004); suggesting enterprise is the ability to use
organized effort to create value in which case, the creation of value is entrepreneurship.
In this regard, enterprise and entrepreneurship are intertwined.
For those to whom these terms mean different things, “enterprise involves measures
to encourage individuals to become entrepreneurs and equip them with the necessary
skills to make a business successful” (Mason, 2000). In essence, enterprise is about
spotting opportunities, creating new ideas and having the confidence and capabilities
to turn these ideas into working realities (Nixon, 2004). In other words, for some people,
enterprise is about a culture of making things better. Enterprise therefore precedes
entrepreneurship (Chitty, 2009). He further argues that enterprising individuals and
communities understand their current position and have a good idea of what “better”
looks like. They also have the courage, confidence, skills, organization and support to
take action to narrow the gap between their current position and where they would
want to be. In this regard, when individuals become enterprising, then
entrepreneurship occurs. However, this paper sees the two as intertwined, but will
occasionally draw a line between these terms, where applicable.
On the other hand, this paper takes cognizance of the nexus between the
enterprising individual and opportunity. Opportunity, and particularly,
entrepreneurial opportunity in this paper is considered a prerequisite
for entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial opportunities take on different forms and
come into existence in different ways. In other words, developing an idea, assessing it
for its attractiveness, using the most appropriate strategies in implementing it and in
managing and growing it are core for successful entrepreneurship. However, it must
also be understood that, that which may be perceived as an entrepreneurial
opportunity will differ among individuals and that individuals also respond differently
to entrepreneurial opportunities. In this regard, we make a brief distinction between
opportunity and necessity driven entrepreneurship.
Opportunity-driven entrepreneurship argues that opportunities exist in the form of
business ideas and individuals who are able to see them, go on to exploit them by
creating new ventures to pursue these ideas (Bygrave, 1997) or by seizing the initiative
through innovative developments within existing organizations (intrapreneurship).
This relies heavily on the discovery arising from one’s ability to have a continuous
understanding of the business environment, as well as prior experience such as
parental business background, education, networks and the existence of role models. In
this regard, economic growth can also motivate individuals to go into business. It is a
fact that the extent to which a nation’s economy is expanding necessitating a higher
demand for goods and services does reflect the likelihood that people do and will
exploit existing opportunities to start a new venture or to enhance intrapreneurship.
On the other hand, necessity entrepreneurship is closely linked to the need for self
realisation and independence as well displacement circumstances that one finds
him/herself in such as, the lack of employment (Murray, 2001). The need to survive
drives individuals to engage in entrepreneurial activity thereby bringing about
entrepreneurship. So what then is entrepreneurship?
There exist issues and challenges in attempts to define entrepreneurship. In the past
decade or so, researchers and educators in this field have had and still have to confront
the question “what are we talking about when we talk about entrepreneurship?” The
answer to this question however, has been and still is unclear, delayed and overlaps with
other sub fields. This seriously threatens the legitimacy and our very survival in the
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world of business research and education because entrepreneurship has been studied
within different disciplines, a variety of opinions regarding its meaning have arisen.
Attempts to define it have focused on; using the skills that characterize the entrepreneur;
using those processes and events which are part of entrepreneurship; and using those
results that entrepreneurship leads to (Davidsson, 2003). Most of the existing definitions
are a mix of these three. For instance, “entrepreneurship is an activity which leads to the
creation and management of a new organisation designed to pursue a unique, innovative
opportunity” (Hindle and Rushworth, 2000). In this respect, enterprise is an outcome of
entrepreneurship, i.e. the organization created is an enterprise. However, to other people,
entrepreneurship is fundamentally, about using enterprise to create new business, and
“can-do” organisations and services (Nixon, 2004). In this regard, enterprise is a means of
entrepreneurship. It is important to note here that it is generally accepted
that entrepreneurs “serve as agents of change; provide creative, innovative ideas for
business enterprises; and help businesses grow and become profitable” (Kuratko and
Hodgetts, 2004). The act of being an entrepreneur “is the ability to create and build a
vision from practically nothing” (Timmons, 1994, p. 7), thus, being enterprising.
Therefore, to allow governments to foster and encourage entrepreneurship through
targeted policy initiatives, it is essential that policy makers have a clear understanding
about what constitutes an entrepreneur and entrepreneurial activity.
Whereas these definitions assist in the understanding and conceptualizing of
entrepreneurship, its operationalization in empirical research and the academic field
of entrepreneurship still begs the question. In Murray’s (2001) words, why does
entrepreneurship as an academic field receive so much attention yet so little respect. Is it
because entrepreneurship researchers are not as smart enough, as the subject they study,
or are they so much action oriented to commit to scholarly demands? Does the problem
lie with a larger academy that is parochial, conservative, and overly critical, or is it
simply that the field is too young? The answer lies in the nature of the diverse definitions
attached to entrepreneurship by diverse researchers in the field. In addition, Kirby (2004)
suggests that the entrepreneurship phenomena can be predictably investigated from
disciplines as varied as economics, sociology, finance, history, psychology and
anthropology each of which uses its own concepts and operates with its own terms of
reference. So is entrepreneurship a branch of these disciplines or what is it?
Over the past decade, significant research effort has been expended as evidenced by
the proliferation of entrepreneurship journals, professional associations, conferences
with a modest level of academic legitimacy (Low and Macmillan, 2001). Furthermore,
recent reviews of entrepreneurship research have indicated the lack of an agreed on
definition of entrepreneurship as a field of study (Gartner, 1989). The lack of a
well-accepted definition of entrepreneurship as a field of study, may pose a research
problem of identifying what will be studied and why (Venkataraman, 1997). For
example, Markku (2002) points out that the lack of a basic agreement as to who is an
entrepreneur has led to the selection of samples of “entrepreneurs” that are hardly
homogeneous.
While acknowledging that entrepreneurship is a relatively new field of study and its
definition still remains a debate, this paper reviews literature on the three different
approaches that scholars have pursued in the struggle to define entrepreneurship.
Three approaches namely; trait, behavioral and opportunity identification have been
used by various researchers in the struggle to understand entrepreneurship.
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The traits approach
This approach is within the personality framework and in turn the psychological and
behavioral school. Personality can be defined in terms of patterns and regularities in
action (Bjerke, 2007). Because the entrepreneur is the catalyst for entrepreneurship, this
school posits that individuals are more likely to exploit opportunities, thus behave
entrepreneurially, because traits lead them to make different decisions about
opportunities than other people with the same information and skills (Frese, 2007;
Shane, 2007). In this regard, much research in the entrepreneurship field has focused on
the personality traits of the entrepreneur, asking the questions, “why do certain
individuals start firms when others under similar conditions, do not? Are individuals born
with certain characteristics that predispose them to entrepreneurial endeavors? Is there a
set of traits that can be attributed to an entrepreneurial personality” These kinds of
questions force researchers to answer the question, who is an entrepreneur (Gartner,
1989)? In the trait approach, the entrepreneur is assumed to be a particular personality
type, have particular motives and incentives. As noted by Kamineni (2002), the use of
psychological attributes “has found a prominent place in the entrepreneurship literature
and hence cannot be ignored”. The focus here has concentrated on the need for
achievement; locus of control and risk-taking propensity; (Carland et al., 1984; Long, 1983;
Stewart et al., 1999) among other traits. This paper concentrates on the three traits above.
Research has generally supported differences between entrepreneurs and managers
on these three psychological constructs (Gasse, 1982), but the results appear mixed.
Achievement motivation was the first to be examined and is the most extensively
researched of these constructs (Wu, 1989; Happer, 1996; Miner, 2000). Some researchers
have shown this by comparing entrepreneurs to the general population (Hornaday and
Bunker, 1970; Hornaday and Aboud, 1971; Hines, 1973; Caird, 1991; Cromie and
O’Donoghue, 1992). Established in the entrepreneurship literature by McClelland
(1961), the achievement motivation construct posits that a high need for achievement
predisposes a person to seek out an entrepreneurial position in order to attain more
achievement satisfaction than could be derived from other types of positions– those
which are more managerial (Stewart et al., 2003). This is further supported by Collins’,
(2002) and Stewart et al.’s (1999) Meta-analyses which hold that the need for
achievement significantly differentiated entrepreneurs from the rest of the population.
The argument here is that people with a high personal achieving orientation are more
inclined to become the classical entrepreneurs, those who demand targets for
themselves and are proactive in accomplishing them (Begley and Boyd, 1987; Wu,
1989). That is, the need for achievement involves goal-setting, planning and
information gathering; and requires sustaining goal-directivity activity over a long
period of time (Shane, 2007). This view holds true for both individuals driven by
opportunity or necessity and is dependent on their enterprising abilities.
Although subsequent empirical studies have supported the existence of a link
between “entrepreneurship” and the need for achievement (Begley and Boyd, 1987; Perry
et al., 1988; Stewart et al., 1999; Lau and Busenitz, 2001; Lee and Tsang, 2001), it can be
argued that entrepreneurial success is not merely a matter of wanting or needing to
achieve. Further, because of the strong need for achievement, such individuals focus
mainly on individual credit which more often than not makes it difficult for them to
cooperate fully with others, yet entrepreneurship is not an activity, but a process, which
makes it necessary for an enterprising individual to cooperate with others in order to
create value with them and for them. In addition, there is very little association between
the need for achievement and the propensity to start an entrepreneurial organization.
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Although individuals with a strong need for achievement might act entrepreneurially,
there are problems with elevating the need for achievement to a central position in
explaining entrepreneurial motivation, or motivation into other occupations. Besides, it is
also important to consider different attitudes to achievement across cultures. Thus, does
the need to achieve lead individuals to seek out entrepreneurial opportunities or does the
accomplishment of complex enterprising tasks enhances a person’s achievement
orientation? The question of causality needs to be fully addressed if need achievement
has to be sufficient for explaining entrepreneurship.
A similar focus is found in the locus of control trait. According to this theory,
individuals believe that the outcomes of events are either within (internal) or beyond
(external) their personal control. An individual with a belief in internal locus of control
perceives that the outcome of an event is contingent on his own behavior or his own
relatively permanent characteristics. This makes such an individual believe that he/she
can manipulate the environment by his/her actions and that he/she is responsible for
his/her own destiny. On the other hand, an individual with a belief in the external locus of
control perceives the outcome of events as following some action of his/her own but that
the outcome is not entirely dependent on his/her actions. For such an individual, outcomes
of events are attributable to factors beyond their control such as fate, luck, and chance.
Much research on this trait shows an association of the internal locus of control trait
with entrepreneurship (Rotter, 1966; Hull et al., 1980; Ward, 1993; Boone et al., 1996;
Boone et al., 2000; Low and Macmillan, 2001; Lee and Tsang, 2001; and Amit et al.,
1993). This means that entrepreneurs believe in their capability to commence and
complete tasks and events through their own action. In other words, people who feel
that they can exercise control in accomplishing tasks and events are likely to create
successful enterprises. Individuals with this trait demonstrate a reliance on their own
will, ability and actions; and devise their own strategies managing tasks throughout
their entrepreneurial and professional life. These individuals act autonomously under
and take the initiative to bring about change whenever they feel other people’s
behavior is in conflict with their interests. This type of disposition is closely related
with the trait of self-efficacy. Individuals displaying a high propensity towards
self-efficacy are confident in their own ability to act as an entrepreneur and are more
inclined to entrepreneurial activity than others (Boyd and Vozikis, 1994; Scherer et al.
1989; Chen et al., 1998). High self-efficacy individuals will tend to see more
opportunities than risks in certain situations, feeling capable of overcoming hurdles
and difficulties; and will anticipate positive outcomes. Individuals with a less
developed sense of self-efficacy will tend to be more aware of costs and risks and are
therefore unlikely to engage in entrepreneurial activity. From this, it can be seen that
the internal locus of control must be accompanied by self-efficacy or some other trait
such as the need for achievement for entrepreneurship to occur.
Although the foregone information illustrates a correlation between the locus of
control and entrepreneurship, by the fact that high achievers will also exhibit locus of
control shows the conflicting evidence about whether the locus of control or the need
for achievement is the more fundamental entrepreneurial attribute. In addition, people
feel in control when they possess the attributes, knowledge and skill and have had the
experience to complete a particular task. It is also true that there are many social,
political, organizational and interpersonal forces that assist or constrain the acquisition
of skill. For instance, people may feel in control of other people, but feel powerless over
economic and social forces. Therefore, locus of control as an attribute, does not
sufficiently explain why individuals may choose to behave entrepreneurially and more
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so whether this has a significant relationship with either opportunity or necessity
driven entrepreneurship.
The high risk-taking propensity characteristic is also attributed to entrepreneurs
This is an aspect of personality that measures people’s willingness to engage in risky
activity (Shane, 2007). That is, people higher in risk-taking propensity are more likely
to exploit entrepreneurial opportunity because risk bearing is a fundamental part of
entrepreneurship (Schere, 1982; Wu, 1989; Amit et al., 1993; Begley, 1995; Van Praag
and Cramer, 2001). By investing their own money or by leaving secure jobs as well as
the stress and time associated with starting and managing a business, are aspects in
support of risk taking among entrepreneurs. That is, enterprising individuals seek to
realize productive opportunities and consequently function in uncertain environments.
In addition, a meta-analytic review by Stewart and Roth (2001) showed that the
risk-taking propensity of entrepreneurs was greater than that of managers, and that
owner-operators primarily concerned with venture growth had higher risk-taking
propensities than those whose principal focus was on family income.
Whereas it is true that the overall evidence is that entrepreneurs are moderate risk
takers and do not significantly differ from managers in the amount of the perceived
risk they will bear (Sexton and Bowman, 1985), evidence suggests that individuals
have different cognitive styles with respect to taking risks. Further, there is a
difference between the act of risk taking and actively seeking risky assignments. This
suggests that there is a lack of agreement on the nature of entrepreneurial risk taking.
There is evidence that some entrepreneurs have a greater propensity to take risks than
do others. For instance, an entrepreneur might thoroughly research an identified
opportunity and on the basis of available information and conclude that he/she has
every chance of succeeding, while another may give up the opportunity altogether. In
view of this, there is also a need to establish whether those who engage in opportunity
exploitation on the basis of their propensity to take entrepreneurial risk perform better
in entrepreneurial activity. The argument here could go either way given that
entrepreneurial success is contingent on a combination of factors – the interaction
between the individual, the opportunity and the environment.
From the foregone information there is a relationship between the traits approach
and entrepreneurship. It can also be argued that entrepreneurship relies on the
enterprising individual who must have certain traits. However, Miller (1988) argues
that, if trait theories present characteristics common to most entrepreneurs, those
individuals who do not possess these characteristics could be excluded. It is in this
regard that Gartner (1989) posits that trait approaches seek to answer the wrong
question “who is an entrepreneur?” More recent studies, for instance, the meta-analysis
of the personality factors by Rauch and Frese (2007) show that indeed personality
factors do play a role in the explanation of business creation. However, when certain
psychological traits are carefully evaluated, it is not possible to differentiate
entrepreneurs from managers or from the general population based on the
entrepreneur’s supposed possession of such traits. In addition it is not known which
personality trait is responsible for business creation. Further, researchers still do not
know which specific traits differentiate entrepreneurs and small business owners or
managers. In addition, it is not clear at what stage the trait becomes visible in one’s life.
It has also been argued that traits can be learned within the environment. It is also
noted that there are many people who possess the aforementioned traits yet they are
not entrepreneurs. Finally, a startling number of traits and characteristics have been
attributed to an entrepreneur thus causing a contradiction whether all those traits are
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inherent or learned through the environment and whether all must be present in an
individual at the same time for entrepreneurship to occur.
The trait approach to entrepreneurship research is understandably persistent.
Entrepreneurs often do seem like special people who achieve things that most of us do
not achieve. These achievements must be based on some special inner quality.
Although the trait approach has failed to give a comprehensive definition of
entrepreneurship, this approach gave researchers a systematic point of departure in the
struggle to understanding entrepreneurship. The critics of the trait approach argue
that another approach is needed to help researchers refocus their thoughts on
entrepreneurship. In fact, Recent meta-analyses have demonstrated the important
influence of dispositions on behavior both in large organizations (Barrick and Mount,
1991; Tett et al., 1991) and in entrepreneurial settings (Stewart and Roth, 2001; Frese,
2007) when the effects of research artefacts are addressed (Hunter and Schmidt, 1990).
In summary, the classic notion of the entrepreneur as achievement oriented, a believer
in self abilities and a driven innovative risk taker has not been confirmed. Although
some personality characteristics have been confirmed, none can claim general
application. In addition, this approach to entrepreneurship is essentially a static
analysis approach in relation to the dynamic process of entrepreneurship. Further,
methodological complexities make the discrepancies in individual study results
difficult to reconcile. Accordingly, therefore, psychological dispositions should be
incorporated into theories of organizational behavior (House et al., 1996), including
entrepreneurial behavior. This calls for further research in this area. The next piece of
discussion focuses on the behavioral approach (Vesper, 1982).
The behavioral approach
Resulting from the criticism labelled against the trait approach in defining
entrepreneurship, researchers have focused on what the entrepreneur does and not
who the entrepreneur is (Carland et al., 1988; Gartner, 1989). According to this theory, “an
entrepreneur is an individual who establishes and manages a business for the principal
purpose of profit and growth, and is characterized principally by innovative behavior and
employs strategic management practices” (Carland et al., 1984). This approach therefore,
looks at entrepreneurship from the perspective of creating an organization. However, it
must be understood that the creation of an organization is a contextual event, and the
outcome of many influences such as social change, economic change, development of new
markets and distribution channels and ready availability of established non-proprietary
technology (Bjerke, 2007). In this regard, much has been written about the positive and
negative consequences for creating organizations (Coulter, 2001; Zimmerer and
Scarborough, 2002; Bjerke and Hultman, 2002). For instance, Bjerke and Hultman
(2002) posit that it is not easy to provide a general picture of the entrepreneurial process.
Therefore, the entrepreneur is part of the complex process by which new organizations
come into existence, i.e. entrepreneurs create enterprises. Enterprise is an outcome of
entrepreneurship for those to whom these terms are different, but for whom they are
similar, the creation of an organization is in itself an act of entrepreneurship.
The behavior approach to the study of entrepreneurship treats the organization as
the primary level of analysis and the individual is viewed in terms of activities
undertaken to enable the organization come into existence (Gartner, 1985). To pursue
the behavioral approach, many researchers have asked as their primary question “How
does an organization come into existence?” (Carland et al., 1988; Murray, 2001). This
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question places the entrepreneur within the process of a new venture creation,
performing a series of actions that result in the creation of an organization. Thus,
organization creation separates entrepreneurship from other disciplines (Vesper, 1980).
Reorientation towards a behavioral approach to entrepreneurship begins by
asking about the role entrepreneurs play in enabling organizations to come into
existence. Individuals, who in this case are the entrepreneurs, create new
organizations through a dynamic process that involves such activities as obtaining
equipment, establishing production processes, attracting employees and setting up
legal entities (Shane, 2007). Further, this process involves planning (Reynolds, 1994;
Reynolds and White, 1997) which helps the entrepreneur deal with the uncertainty
and information asymmetry present in the exploitation of opportunities and also
indicates the human, physical and financial resources the organization will need.
Thus, planning allows the entrepreneur to articulate a clear vision which in turn
supports growth (Baum et al., 1998).
Another important aspect of the process of creating organizations is the mode of
exploitation of opportunity. Decisions in this respect are driven by discovery as an
independent individual or as a corporate member. In this regard, several aspects of the
opportunity come into play. These include: the decision to spin-off and risk adjusted
expected value (Audretsch, 2001; Bhide, 2000; Lowe, 2001); the uncertainty of the
opportunity, and, the radicalness of the opportunity (Henderson, 1993; Christiansen and
Bower, 1996; Shane, 2001). Other decisions focus on how to integrate the process,
choosing the legal form of organization, establishing the size at which the organizing
effort occurs, and the number of employees (Shane, 2007). In other words, researchers
must observe entrepreneurs in the process of creating new organizations, for to create a
new business may uncover or even create further business opportunity. According to
Baron and Shane (2005) it is possible to increase one’s opportunity recognition through
building a broad and rich knowledge; organizing one’s knowledge; increasing one’s
access to information; creating connections between the knowledge one has; building
one’s practical intelligence; and mixing one’s eagerness for hits with one’s awareness of
false alarm. In this regard, entrepreneurial opportunities come from a number of factors.
The other stream of research in this approach must address the issue of the different
types of organizations created by entrepreneurs, hence the different types of
entrepreneurs. For instance, according to Wagner and Ziltener (2008), traditionalists,
growth, lifestyle and status entrepreneurs differ in their motives as well as their
entrepreneurial risk levels. This may explain why Gartner (1989) points out that the
behavioral approach challenges researchers to develop research questions, methodologies
and techniques that will do justice to the complexity of entrepreneurship. The approach
demonstrates that an entrepreneur is not a fixed state of existence; rather
entrepreneurship is a role that individuals undertake to create organizations, hence,
researchers have no reason for accepting simplistic statements that the entrepreneur is the
one who creates organizations. Organizations are created by other individuals such as
pastors and politicians, who in themselves may not be entrepreneurial. Further, behavior
alone without due regard to the interaction between the individual’s traits and the
environment is an incomplete attempt to explain the occurrence of entrepreneurship.
Thus, developing our understanding of the entrepreneurial process is fundamental.
Entrepreneurs can be distinguished from other owner managers by their intention – to
manage and grow an organization for profit as opposed to maintaining a viable
business as a vehicle for achieving personal goals such as income, lifestyle and
autonomy. In this regard, there are three distinguishing characteristics of
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entrepreneurial activity: the motivation and intention to create wealth and accumulate
capital; the ability to recognize opportunities for wealth creation, and judgement –
knowing which opportunities to pursue (Shane, 2007). However, some researchers view
the behavioral approach differently. For instance, Amit (1993) argues that the approach
has failed to differentiate an entrepreneur from a manager and the approach does not
make it clear whether entrepreneurship ends with the creation of an organization. The
problem with the definitions of entrepreneurship through trait and behavior
approaches is that though each captures an aspect of entrepreneurship none
captures the whole picture (Venkataraman, 1997). Thus, examining why people create
organizations and how they differ from those who do not may help explain how the
motivation that entrepreneurs exhibit during start-up is linked to the sustaining
behavior exhibited later. In addition, it is important to establish and understand the
intentions underlying the creation of entrepreneurial organizations. This will help in
understanding why some of the organizations created do not end up as successful ones.
Next, is a discussion of the opportunity identification approach.
The opportunity identification approach
Venkataraman (1997) points out that the field of entrepreneurship remains a mystery to
many people despite numerous definitions offered by researchers. Venkataraman (1997)
takes a different approach (opportunity identification) in defining the field of
entrepreneurship. He argues that economists do not define economics by defining the
resource allocator, nor do sociologists define their subject matter by defining their
society. Likewise, it would be a mistake for the researchers to define the field by defining
the entrepreneur. Defining the field in terms of central issues that are concerned with
understanding how, in the absence of the current market for future goods and services,
and how these goods manage to come into existence is in itself incomplete. Thus,
entrepreneurship as a scholarly field seeks to understand how opportunities, which bring
into existence “future” goods and services, are discovered, created, and exploited and by
whom (Eckhardt and Shane, 2003; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; Venkataraman,
1997). In this regard, entrepreneurial opportunity is a situation in which a person can
create a new means-ends framework for combining resources that the entrepreneur
believes will yield a profit (Shane, 2007). This suggests that entrepreneurship involves a
nexus of entrepreneurial opportunities and enterprising individuals.
The works of Schumpeter (1976) indicate that there has to be an innovative
enterprising individual and the presence of lucrative opportunities brought about by
market inefficiencies. Market inefficiencies provide opportunities for enterprising
individuals to enhance wealth by exploiting these inefficiencies. On the other hand,
prior to Schumpeter’s work, Arrow (1976) found out that those opportunities for
discovering or creating goods and services for the future precisely occur because of the
dispersion of prior knowledge, information and innovation among market participants,
also known as Kirznerian opportunities. It must also be understood here that both the
Schumpeterian and Kirznerian views do not agree as to whether the existence of
entrepreneurial opportunities is based on differences in the individuals’ ability to have
access to existing information, or whether it is the differences in the available new
information. Further, there are differences in the ways individuals process the
information they possess or have access to, and the new information. Whether it is
access to, availability of, or processing of information, Venkataraman (1997) still
argues that it is one thing for the opportunities to exist, but entirely a different matter
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for them to be discovered and exploited. The question is why some individuals exploit
opportunities while others do not.
Various researchers have attempted to provide answers to the foregone question.
Cognitive differences, incentives, opportunity cost among individuals strongly
influence the search for and the exploitation of an opportunity and they also influence
the success of the exploitation process (Shaver and Scott, 2001; Shane, 2007). This
cognitive differential ability to analyze market information may have a significant
impact on the success of a start up, as well as the allocation of risk among the
entrepreneurs. For instance, according to the expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964)
perceived incentives motivate some individuals to exploit opportunities while others
will not. In addition, when the opportunity cost is low, there is a tendency to take risk.
Other reasons that have been advanced by researchers why some individuals
exploit opportunities while others do not; include family background, early
socialization into business, and economic factors (Gibb, 2001; Kolvered, 1996).
Individuals who grow under special difficult circumstances such as the case of
immigrants/minorities, and those who get an early socialization in business have
higher chances of becoming entrepreneurs. Two approaches, opportunity and
necessity driven entrepreneurship, explained earlier, come into fore here.
According to the necessity-driven opportunity perspective, the situation one finds
him/herself in, compels the individual to seek a livelihood by creating a new venture. In
addition other than monetary needs, individuals will choose to become entrepreneurs
for personal motivations. For instance, that an individual will choose to become
self-employed if the expected life-time utility from self-employment is greater than the
life-time utility from dependent employment (Douglas and Shephard, 2002; Parker,
2004).Entrepreneurs can therefore be defined as persons who are creative in finding
ways to add their own wealth, power, and prestige. According to Baumol (1990),
individuals choose to be entrepreneurs when or because their utility (from wealth,
power, and prestige) is maximized by doing so. On the other hand, individuals whose
parents have been and/or are entrepreneurs may likely become one because the
opportunity presents itself.
It could be argued that the definition using opportunity identification suggested by
Venkataraman (1997) and later Shane (2007), offers a promise for finding a meaning of
entrepreneurship as it demonstrates that the individual combines both traits and
behavior to identify and exploit a business opportunity within the environment. In
other words, a general framework within which the characteristics of opportunities; the
individuals who discover and exploit them; the processes of resource acquisition and
organizing; and the strategies used to exploit and protect the profits from these efforts
are examined must be developed by researchers.
The above discussion on the trait, behavioral, and opportunity identification
approaches in defining entrepreneurship demonstrates the absence of the meaning of
entrepreneurship since no one single approach captures the true and whole picture.
Thus, entrepreneurship is a very complex idea that touches several disciplines such as
economics, psychology, sociology and anthropology. Based on the several studies done
in the struggle to define the field, it emerges that entrepreneurship is an exciting field
of study with tremendous promise, great relevance and significant and profound
intellectual research problems and the search for the definition should continue to
claim academic legitimacy. Whereas it would be limiting to have a single definition
agreed on by the majority of entrepreneurship researchers, scholars and practitioners,
this paper suggests that it is important to say what we mean in our attempts to define
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entrepreneurship and also to make sure that we support our theoretical frameworks
and to ensure that others know what we are talking about in order to retain our
academic legitimacy.
Defining entrepreneurship and its impact in Kenya
Looking at the different conceptualizations of the term entrepreneur and
entrepreneurship, it becomes apparent that a clear-cut and controversy-free
definition is nowhere within reach. Entrepreneurship cannot be wholly confined to
traits, entrepreneurial behavior and opportunity identification. A business manager,
for instance, who astutely guides, organizes, directs or co-ordinates the operations of a
business venture, by making decisions on the use of productive factors, or the nature,
quality, and style of products or services to be produced and on marketing and time
factors, is, indeed, an entrepreneur. In so doing, the manager may outrightly innovate
or as is more commonly the case, exercise creative imitation, often referred to as
adaptation (Njeru, 1996).
The question of what factors lead individuals to become entrepreneurs is an old one. It
is also common knowledge that although the propensity to entrepreneurship varies from
one society to another, a universal constant is that no matter how many entrepreneurs
emerge, most do not succeed in creating lasting organizations. In Kenya, we are looking
at self-employment, which herein invokes an image of entrepreneurship. Approximately
500,000 graduates from various tertiary academic institutions enter the job market
annually (Government of Kenya, 2006). However, due to low economic growth, among
other factors, and demand for experience by potential employees, a majority of youth
remains unemployed (Government of Kenya, 2002). We must therefore work hard to
understand how and why entrepreneurs succeed, as this is key in ensuring employment.
This suggests that self-employment in Kenya, like other developing countries is one
of the most stable positions in the labour force despite high rates of business failure.
This may explain why significant numbers of professionals are engaged in self
employment by creating new organizations. In other words the situation in Kenya can
be explained as necessity entrepreneurship; a situation in which individuals are pushed
into entrepreneurship because they have no better alternatives for work. Thus, in these
countries, entrepreneurs are major job creators, they innovate, and they spot and
exploit new opportunities. Even though many new business start-ups have no explicit
growth aspirations, and many fail soon after start-up, it is still the case that a period of
running one’s own business provides an opportunity to learn new skills which are
valuable to potential employers (Cowling and Bygrave, 2002).
Another observation emerging from the literature is that in Kenya,
entrepreneurship is seen as the engine of growth. This is seen in its strategy of
promoting the enterprises as a strategy for fighting poverty through enhancing
employment creation and income generation. For example, work by Beck et al. (2003)
found a direct correlation between SMEs and the economic growth and poverty
alleviation. Likewise, Daniel et al. (1999) found that the sector employed one third of
working people and contributed 13 per cent of the GDP in Kenya. An earlier study by
Mead (1994) found a contribution of 40 per cent of increase in total employment. The
Government of Kenya (2008) figures indicate contribution of three-quarters of the total
increase in employment outside agriculture, creating 580,000 new jobs in 2007.
The above information suggests that entrepreneurship in Kenya is not necessarily
attributable to traits, behavior or even opportunity identification. For instance in a
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survey of Kenyan and Nigerian entrepreneurs when asked about their motivations for
entrepreneurship, Kenyan like Ghanaian entrepreneurs indicated that increasing their
income and creating jobs for themselves were leading factors motivating them to
become business owners (Chu et al., 2007). Hard work and good customer service were
cited as critical for their success. In addition, Kenyan entrepreneurs were more
concerned about government regulations and problems related to business location
which they felt were a hindrance to the success of their enterprises.
Another interesting observation arising from the lack of an agreed definition on
entrepreneurship is the exclusion of professionals in self employment in Kenya. Most
of the professionals like medical doctors, professors, engineers in private practice do
not view themselves as entrepreneurs. Neither do researchers believe these categories
of individuals are entrepreneurs and in most cases they are left out during sample
selection. The question is, do professionals in private business exhibit the
characteristics and behavior of entrepreneurs? The answer to this question is in
itself unavailable since there are seemingly no studies that have surveyed Kenyan
entrepreneurs to establish whether they displayed the traits or behavior characteristics
of entrepreneurs in other contexts.
In the Kenyan context, if you asked a question of who is held in higher esteem – the
politician or the entrepreneur – a few will mention entrepreneurship as a career
aspiration. Porter (2007) observed that entrepreneurs who prefer to be called
business-men, occupy a lower position in the social hierarchy as compared to
politicians. Perhaps this is why professionals in Kenya prefer to be known by their
occupations rather than entrepreneurs. This view is supported by several entrepreneurs
who feel that even though entrepreneurs make up a very large portion of the economy in
Kenya, the majority of the entrepreneurs are small independent business people trying to
make a living to survive. They are the bike shop repair people or the people selling fruit
on the street. This makes up the majority of the economy in Kenya and not the small,
medium, or large businesses in which most professionals are found. People who create
wealth and employment should have confidence and accept they are pursuing an
entrepreneurship career that is transforming the economy of the country.
For instance, a survey Kenyan women entrepreneurs indicated that their main
reasons for going into business ventures included the need for achievement, autonomy
and flexibility, along with providing for and educating their children (Wanjira and
Mureithi, 2008). Although entrepreneurship is becoming an increasingly popular
career choice for many Kenyans, it can be be seen from the foregone discussion that
while some individuals start businesses based on their need to be independent, most
individuals chose the entrepreneurial route in response to external situations, including
redundancies, frustration with their current workplace and pay, or a need for greater
flexibility in their lives. In other words, in order to assist Kenya’s process of increasing
entrepreneurship, it is necessary to understand and address that which affects the
supply of local entrepreneurs. That is, it is important to conduct studies among
existing entrepreneurs to determine their response to opportunity and their willingness
to become entrepreneurs. In addition, it would be important to establish the intrinsic
entrepreneurial ability among them.
Conclusions and recommendations
This paper has discussed three approaches pursued by researchers in the struggle to
define entrepreneurship as a field of study that needs to claim a distinguished position
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in the intellectual discourse. The submission of this paper is that an agreed definition
of entrepreneurship has yet to emerge. As researchers, we need to give serious
considerations to articulating our beliefs about entrepreneurship and recognizing that
these beliefs influence the kind of research questions we ask about the topic. For
example, researchers who believe entrepreneurship requires individuals with special
personality characteristics are probably going to do research that explore these beliefs
while those who believe entrepreneurs are owner managers are likely to do research
that looks at what the owner-manager does. The paper concludes that the struggle to
define entrepreneurs has excluded entrepreneurial careers of the practicing/consulting
professionals. In fact even the professionals in Kenya do not view themselves as
entrepreneurs. This is precisely because a definition of who is an entrepreneur is still
debatable. Further, perhaps it may be too ambitious to expect a complete and
robust definition due to the interdisciplinary nature of entrepreneurship and therefore
the debate should continue. Entrepreneurship being a relatively young field of study,
researchers should continue carrying out researches regarding who is an entrepreneur?
What do entrepreneurs do? How does the entrepreneur identify opportunities? And
what entrepreneurial environment support venture creation? The answers to these
questions may offer promising insights into understanding the nature of
entrepreneurship. Finally, future researchers need to examine if there are significant
differences between opportunity driven entrepreneurs and necessity driven
entrepreneurs in the Kenyan context.
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About the authors
Margaret Kobia is the Director and Chief Executive, Kenya Institute of Public Administration
and also an adjunct senior lecturer General Management and Entrepreneurship, Strathmore
University, Nairobi, Kenya. She holds a PhD in Human Resource Development, University of
Illinois, Urbana Champaign, USA, M.Ed in Teacher Education and B.Ed from Kenyatta
University. Her primary area of research has been in theories and practice of Transfer of
Management Training in Small and Micro enterprises (SMEs) and Performance Management in
the Public Sector. Margaret Kobia is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
[email protected]
Damary Sikalieh is an Associate Professor in the School of Business, United States
International University – Africa. She is also the Coordinator of the International Business
Administration, Business Administration, Master of Science in Business Administration and the
Executive Master of Science in Organizational Development Programs. She is the chair of the
Academic and Research committee of the university Faculty Council. Her areas of research
include Transfer of Learning, Environmental Impact Assessment and Growing Inclusive
Markets. Her latest interest is in the area of Teaching and Learning at the University with a bias
towards, enhancing student learning.
To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]
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