Entrepreneurial behaviour: the role of values

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key values individuals believe in and their interpretation in the context of entrepreneurial behaviour. The study is predicated on the prior work of Krueger (2007) and specifically on the premise that “deep beliefs” underpin sense making, decision making and subsequent entrepreneurial behaviour.

The study utilised an inductive and interpretive research design within a constructivist paradigm. In phase one, Schwartz’s (1992) 54 values inventory was used to discover a core value-set associated with entrepreneurial behaviour. The results were later used as an “aide-memoire” during the second phase of in-depth interviews with 30 self-selected entrepreneurs. Interviews focused primarily on the meaning individuals attributed to those fundamental values they associated with entrepreneurial behaviour. The resulting narrative was subjected to discourse analysis and categorised into relevant themes.

Self-determined human action is based on a specific set of values which the individual uses to make decisions about how to behave in situations that are meaningful to them. Engaging in entrepreneurship is one form of self-determined behaviour that enables the individual to express and satisfy a variety of different fundamental needs. Four specific values are believed to be critical to the motivation of entrepreneurial behaviour, namely, independence, creativity, ambition and daring. The meaning attributed to each of these values is consistent with that attributed to self-determinism, self-efficacy and the identity of participants associated with entrepreneurship.

There are limitations to this research and the extension of the findings to a generalised population comprising individuals who may, or may not, behave entrepreneurially. This is not to say that such individuals hold values substantially different in other roles or areas of their lives outside a purely business context. The values rated by participants in this study had relevance to their view of entrepreneurial behaviour and were confined to a business perspective.The variability in meaning attributed to these values is however likely to produce a common thread focusing on control, creativity and goal-directed behaviour.

The study strongly suggests the presence of a specific value-set associated with entrepreneurial behaviour. The shift in emphasis to independence and being ambitious, at the expense of being creative and daring, represents one explanation for the episodic nature of entrepreneurial behaviour among individuals. The data further reveal differences in entrepreneurial behaviour within urban and rural contexts with the former being more tolerant of entrepreneurial activity because of its inherent cultural diversity

Similarly, all participants have assimilated several different identities for the different social roles they occupy. Within those varying roles there is the possibility that both individual and group values will differ from what is reported here. The purpose of the study was to isolate as far as possible entrepreneurial behaviour and its core values independently from other types of behaviour and values. However, the likelihood does exist that values held by some individuals from other spheres of their lives could take precedence over their entrepreneurial role and thus influence their survey results.

The value of this study lies in exposing the underlying motivations that cause entrepreneurial behaviour. The study also discovered that shifts occur in the belief structure causing individuals to engage in managerial behaviour in preference to entrepreneurial behaviour at critical stages in the business life-cycle. The study further identifies cultural differences in individualistic vs collectivist cultures and the degrees to which entrepreneurial behaviour is accepted within urban vs rural environments.