Growth intention and the role of ambition in entrepreneurship

Exploring the growth mindset of entrepreneurs

It is rare to find much consensus amongst academic researchers, but when it comes to the study of entrepreneurship, the role of ambition is widely recognised. Many research studies have shown that one of the main reasons for starting a firm is wanting to – and, conversely, one of the main reasons for not starting a firm is not wanting to. The research community call this entrepreneurial intent and while it may seem a rather obvious point ‘intent’ is actually quite complex as we explain below. Although there is less research in the area, evidence suggests that the same applies to business growth – intent to grow leads to growth-supporting behaviours in entrepreneurs.

If we peel back the layers of thinking on entrepreneurial intent, it takes us to the very heavily cited Theory of Planned Behaviour (shortened to TpB). This is a general psychological theory, developed by Icek Ajzen in the 1980s, which argues that intent is the key factor in behaviour. He also states that behavioural intentions are influenced by self-efficacy – in simple terms this is a person’s self-confidence about how likely they think it is that the behaviour will be successful, coupled with their subjective evaluation of the risks and benefits of that outcome. Not surprisingly, this is very heavily used in the field of public health in attempts, for example, to reduce smoking or obesity.

One way of understanding how people feel about the likelihood of success from their actions is the idea of locus of control. This is the personality psychology concept which characterises where people think the control of factors in their lives is ‘located’. People with an external locus of control feel they have little control over their fate; they may put successes or failures down to external factors or even luck. Those with an internal locus of control – and this is widely recognised as a common trait in entrepreneurs – believe that what happens to them is related to their own actions, effort and abilities. We’ve included a link to a test, for you to evaluate your own locus of control – it isn’t academically verified but is useful for understanding the idea: http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newCDV_90.htm

Another important area is identity theory and the affective role of identity on what entrepreneurs choose to do. ‘Identity’ can be defined as ‘who we think we are’ and nowadays academics agree that identity is not fixed, but instead that individuals continually negotiate multiple and changing identities within a social context. The importance attached to entrepreneurial identity by some academics ties in with the idea of entrepreneurship as social action, rather than a purely economic phenomenon. To understand the role of identity, we need to consider that entrepreneurs and other small business owners do not exist in isolation, but instead live and work in the context of the way society talks about businesses and business growth (what academics call narratives of enterprise).Our colleague, Professor Lynn Martin, has carried out research in this area and she argues that individuals form a model about enterprise and see themselves in relation to it, mediated through self-efficacy and shared stereotypes from family, community, the media and so forth. An important researcher in the field of identity for entrepreneurs is Professor Simon Down. He defines entrepreneurial identity as the way that owner-managers see and talk about themselves as entrepreneurs, and that this is a guideline for action and a means of security. In other words, identity is highly relevant to their future entrepreneurial behaviour. We think that if entrepreneurial identity exists and determines entrepreneurial behaviour it is likely that development of a ‘growth identity’ is possible and will determine the development of ‘growth intent’ – or a person’s ambition to grow their business.

In our next blog post we consider the role of entrepreneurial expertise and the possibility that ‘growth expertise’ can develop among those experienced at growing their businesses/s.

 

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?