Could there be a gene for business growth?

Exploring the growth mindset of entrepreneurs

One of the most fascinating areas for considering “what makes an entrepreneur” is the field of genetics. Is there an “entrepreneurial DNA” and, if so, can entrepreneurship be mapped against the genome? There has been an upsurge in research in this area in the last decade, but this mainly comes from geneticists. Entrepreneurship researchers have mostly moved on to consider different questions, for example, about how entrepreneurs think, learn and are motivated.

The genetics line of inquiry dates back to the 1960s, when entrepreneurship researchers first started to move beyond the economic perspective that had dominated the subject since the early 20th Century and began to look more at people. In the 1960s and 1970s the focus was on identifying the “entrepreneurial personality”, the assumption being that entrepreneurs were defined by traits that were largely fixed. Some researchers still follow this view, but in a seminal 1988 paper William Gartner argued that ‘“Who Is an Entrepreneur?” Is the Wrong Question’ suggesting that the trait perspective was unfruitful because the reality is that entrepreneurs are a heterogeneous group. Some are confident, but others are shy and some are decisive, whilst some take time to make decisions. He concluded that “entrepreneurship is something one does, and not who one is”. Gartner’s call for a new focus on entrepreneurial behaviour meant that interest in traits tailed off among entrepreneurship scholars.

In 2008 Nicos Nicolaou and his colleagues lit a touch paper of interest when they said they had found an entrepreneurship variant gene (DRD3). They suggested that heritability outweighed upbringing in determining entrepreneurship and linked this to what people were calling the Big Five personality characteristics of entrepreneurs. However, later researchers have been unable to support Nicolaou’s research. Very recent studies by Matthijs Loos and colleagues have failed to link the DRD3 gene with entrepreneurship. However, what they do suggest is some association between genetics and entrepreneurship, along the lines that many small genetic variants “together explain a substantial proportion of heritability”. In other words, they found genetics to have some role, but no clear genetic determining factors.

At the moment a group of Swedish researchers are conducting a study comparing a large group of adopted entrepreneurs with entrepreneurs who have been raised by their biological parents. Early findings show that being brought up by a parent entrepreneur – biological or not – increases the probability of children’s entrepreneurship by about 60%. Interestingly, post-birth factors (adoptive parents) account for twice as much as pre-birth factors (biological parents). The latest research is therefore suggesting that while ‘nature’ may have a role, ‘nurture’ is likely to have a stronger one.

There has been no work looking specifically at genetics and high growth entrepreneurship. However, the research outlined here and in our previous blog posts suggests that while some people may have genetic characteristics that predispose them to successfully grow their businesses, learnt cognitive processes are likely to be more important factors in the ‘high growth mindset’. These include expertise in growing businesses, as well as the development of growth intent and identity. The sporting world provides a useful analogy here: being tall and slim with long legs may be useful attributes for a high jumper, but just because a person has that build doesn’t mean that they will become a high jumper – or guarantee that they will be successful if they do.

Dr Tamara McNeill

Research Associate at the Centre for Enterprise, Manchester Metropolitan University Business School

 

Further Blog Posts:

Post 1 – Why are MMU researchers exploring the growth mind-set of entrepreneurs

Post 2 – Entrepreneurial cognition and the use of heuristics

Post 3 – Growth intention and the role of ambition in entrepreneurship

Post 4 – Does entrepreneurial expertise exist?

Post 5 – Could there be a gene for business growth?