Is there a commonality of traits and attributes among successful entrepreneurs or are these sector- or activity-specific?
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Description:
It is arguable that the field of entrepreneurship lacks a single unified and accepted definition for the term that defines it: “entrepreneurship” (Gedeon, 2018).
In its oldest accepted form, an entrepreneur might reasonably be defined as a small business owner or anyone that is self-employed (Cantillon, 1730). Furthermore, Drucker (1985) suggests that the term applies to anyone who manages to establish a new business entity. Equally, an inventor may be considered an entrepreneur, with notable persons such as Thomas Edison (1847 – 1931) filing more than 1,000 patent applications during his lifetime.
An innovator then, may display different behavioural and practical skill-sets from a business owner: the former exhibiting careful research and analytical capabilities and the latter being perhaps less risk averse and more dynamic in terms of decision making.
This research proposal therefore explores the meaning of ‘entrepreneurship’ in the current economic environment and the potential characteristics for increased success in differing sectors. The project will be hosted by the Digital Entrepreneurship and Financial Innovation research programme and will be based especially those sectors in which the student entrepreneurial teams of Falmouth MA Entrepreneurship programme operate. In particular, it is hoped the results of this research will provide insights into traits, attributes, behavioural characteristics and skill-sets pertaining to successful entrepreneurs to determine whether these might be sector specific.
The initial part of this research would be data collection using ‘Narrative’ approach, may be augmented by other forms of data collection and methodologies depend on the results of the first stage data collection.
Further work would be done to position the findings in relation to existing literature body and conclusions and recommendations would be presented.
To discuss this project proposal please contact: Liying.Meng@falmouth.ac.uk
For all other application related enquires please contact:
Research & Development team on 01326 255831 or research@falmouth.ac.uk