starting up a business in a new country entrepreneurial traits and skills

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Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

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Page 1: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Starting up a business in a new country

Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Page 2: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Are you familiar with other cultures?

(Cross-cultural skills)

How to develop my entrepreneurial skills?

(Entrepreneurial skills and traits)

How to communicate in a new culture?

(Ccommunications skills)

How to build networks? (Networking skills)

How to expand your businessto a foreign country?

How to start up a business in a new country?

Page 3: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

What are the traits, beliefs, and skills needed for entrepreneurship?

Attitudes towards business venturing

Risk-taking and opportunity-seeking skills

Entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE)

Creativity, motivation, and openness

Entrepreneurship, and more especially business start-ups in a foreign country, is better understood as a planned process, where individuals have to carefully plan their steps and follow as specific, premeditated, course of action. In other words, international entrepreneurship is an intentional behaviour and results from careful planning and consideration of the ensued costs and benefits.

There are several beliefs, skills, and traits that enhance entrepreneurial intentions.

Page 4: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Attitudes towards business venturing

Page 5: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Entrepreneurship is a very important aspect of economic growth, and has also been suggested as an effective way to counter unemployment or job loss/termination. Nevertheless, researchers have yet to understand the processes underlying entrepreneurial behavior, and the reasons why some people decide to start up their own business venture.

A general consensus, however, is that there are no magic formulas that can easily turn someone into a successful entrepreneur.

Rather, systematic research, training, and consultation with both university students and professionals have pointed to a set of core beliefs, skills, and traits that encourage entrepreneurship. This section presents those skills and discusses in approaches and methods to enhance them.

Are there magic formulas for international entrepreneurship?

Page 6: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Attitudes represent core evaluative beliefs about the gains and losses of entrepreneurship and directly influence entrepreneurial intentions. Someone believing that starting-up a business is too risky and difficult, is actually holding negative attitudes towards entrepreneurship. On the other hand, believing that entrepreneurship is beneficial, and worthy reflects positive attitudes. Attitudes are important drivers of intentions and behaviour. So, the first step towards promoting international entrepreneurship is to bolster positive entrepreneurial attitudes.

Attitudes towards international entrepreneurship

Page 7: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

The role of education is very important and provides a formal

way to enhance entrepreneurial skills and develop positive

attitudes.

Through education (e.g., reading about other entrepreneurs’

success and failure stories, learning about the practical

aspects of entrepreneurship) we can develop more positive

attitudes towards entrepreneurship.

Developing positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship through education

Page 8: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

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Page 9: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE)

Page 10: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

ESE is perhaps the most important skill for entrepreneurship. Simply, high ESE reflects an “I can do it” belief, whereas low ESE reflects lower levels of self-confidence and efficacy to achieve goals.

Too much of ESE, however, can be a problem because it may reflect false beliefs of control and lead to risky or faulty decision-making.

Keeping ESE at ‘appropriate’ levels is beneficial and promotes entrepreneurial activity.

Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (ESE)

Page 11: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

There are two main aspects of managing entrepreneurial self-efficacy (ESE):

Developing ESE: this is suitable for those who have lower scores in ESE, and are

believe they cannot effectively start up a business.

Managing ESE: this aspect is relevant to everyone engaged in entrepreneurial

activity as it can prevent unnecessary risk-taking and promote carefully

planned and strategic decision-making.

Aspects of Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy

Page 12: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Self-efficacy is predictive if it is “tailored to [the] domain(s) of functioning being

analyzed and reflect the various task demands within that domain” (Pajares, 1997,

p. 8).

In simple words, self-efficacy will bring benefits only if it is developed according

to the demands and complexity of tasks involved in business venturing.

Entrepreneurship education and training are major components of ESE

development because they build the skills and capacities needed for starting up a

business effectively and efficiently.

Developing Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy

Page 13: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Managing ESE is vital for the successful planning, operation, and decision

making in business ventures. Too high levels of ESE can be catastrophic if they

are based on illusory control beliefs.

Managing ESE involves communicating important decisions and plans to

trusted others.

Employees, stakeholders, and other agents with a vested interest in the

business venture can help entrepreneurs managing their levels of ESE by

providing proper feedback and consultation.

Managing Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy

Page 14: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

• Empirical research has shown that

strategic decision making plays a

significant role in managing ESE (Forbes,

2005)

• Entrepreneurs have higher ESE levels

when their business ventures employ

strategic decision making, such as

involving employees in the decision

process, are comprehensive, and

incorporate updated information

Strategic Decision Making and Self-Efficacy

Page 15: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

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These materials were produced by ELIE partnership

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Page 16: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Risk-taking and Opportunity-seeking

Skills

Page 17: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

• Myth: Entrepreneurship is synonymous to risk taking

• Reality: Entrepreneurs take risks on the premises of

strategic decision-making (i.e., calculated risks)

• Entrepreneurs are not more risky than managers, and tend

to avoid and optimize risks

Risk-taking and business venturing

Risk-taking involves starting-up a business, but is also relevant to expanding

existing business ventures by introducing new products in the market,

establishing new partnerships, and developing across national borders (i.e.,

international entrepreneurship)

Page 18: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

• Know the business

• Risks may vary by business type and status – technological innovation businesses take more risks

than family firms

• Understand the risks

• Risks can be industry-related reflecting technological, economic, and social issues, or firm-

related reflecting the idiosyncratic features of a firms’ composition and managerial processes

• Accept failure as an option

• Having the courage to accept failure is important aspect of decision-making

• Engage in strategic decision making vs. ‘dice-throwing’ methods

• Accountability and transparency in decision-making

• External monitoring and formal control systems

• Employee participation in decision-making processes

Enhancing risk-taking skills

Page 19: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

• Strategic entrepreneurship (SE) results from the integration of strategic

management and entrepreneurship knowledge (Ireland et al. 2009).

• SE helps understanding the relationship between risk-taking, opportunity seeking

and exploitation, and entrepreneurship success.

• SE involves taking entrepreneurial actions with strategic perspective: being able to

identify opportunities AND exploiting them by mobilizing resources and getting

competitive advantage.

– This is achieved when opportunity-seeking (entrepreneurship) is integrated with

advantage seeking (strategic management)

Strategic entrepreneurship, risks, and opportunities

Page 20: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Many thanks for using our service!

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Page 21: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Creativity, motivation, and openness

Page 22: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Systematic research has shown that entrepreneurship intentions and actual business venturing relate

significantly to motivation, openness to experience, and creativity.

•Motivation is relevant to having a clear vision about business venturing, and display persistence and exert

effort towards realizing this vision.

•Openess to experience is a cardinal personality trait that reflects openess to new ideas and experiences, and

innovation sympathy.

•Creativity reflects the capacity to come up with innovative ideas and products, and is highly relevant to both

individual business ventures and larger organizations promoting entrepreneuship education.

Creativity, motivation, and openness to experience

CreativityOpeness to Experience

Motivation

Page 23: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

• Openness to experience relates to stronger entrepreneurial intentions

• How open to experiences are you? Openness includes traits like:

Openness to experience

Adventu-rousness

LiberalismEmotion-

ality

Intellect

Imagination

Artistic interests

Page 24: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

• Creativity results from an interplay between personal (e.g., past knowledge and

experience, traits like openness to experience) and social factors (e.g., cultural

context, market needs)

• Entrepreneurs should come up with novel and appropriate ideas, and transform

these ideas into a new business venture (Amabile, 1996)

• Promoting creativity involves:

• Conceptual combination: Janusian thinking = integrating or entertaining two opposing

ideas, merging concepts, ideas, and forms

• Analogies: Transfer a paradigm or an idea from one context to another

• Problem construction, definition, and discovery

(Ward, 2003)

Creativity

Page 25: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

• In the mid-70’s Sony missed the opportunity to develop music CDs

• They thought that a CD with 18 hours of music will not be of commercial value

• Why 18 hours of music?

• Sony staff used the size of LPs as a standard for CDs, and accordingly

estimated the amount of music time included in such a large CD

• Creative solution:

• Having used a different standard (i.e., smaller CD size)

could have led to CD expansion in the 70s!

(Barker, 1993; Ward, 2004)

Creativity and CDs

Page 26: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

• Ciavarella, M. A., Buchholtz, A. K., Riordan, C. M., Gatewood, R. D., & Stokes, G. S. (2004). The Big

Five and venture survival: Is there a linkage? Journal of Business Venturing, 19, 465-483.

• Ireland, D. R., Hitt, M. A., & Sirmon, D. G. (2003). A model of strategic entrepreneurship: The

construct and its dimensions. Journal of Management, 29, 963 -989.

• Koellinger, P., Minniti, M., & Schade, C. (2007). ‘I think I can, I think I can’: Overconfidence and

entrepreneurial behaviour. Journal of Economic Psychology, 28, 502-527.

• McGee, J. E., Peterson, M., Mueller, S. L., & Sequeira, J. M. (2009). Entrepreneurial self-efficacy:

Refining the measure. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 33, 965-988.

• Ward, T. (2004). Cognition, creativity, and entrepreneurship. Journal of Business Venturing, 19,

173-188.

• Wilson, F., Kickul, J., & Marlino, D. (2007). Gender, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and

entrepreneurial career intentions: Implications for entrepreneurship education. Entrepreneurship

Theory and Practice, 31, 387-406.

Learning materials

Page 27: Starting up a business in a new country Entrepreneurial Traits and Skills

Many thanks for using our service!

These materials were produced by ELIE partnership

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