Page 119 - 1-Entrepreneurship and Local Economic Development by Norman Walzer (z-lib.org)

108 Thomas S. Lyons, Gregg A. Lichtenstein, and Nailya Kutzhanova

but spent more time on saving money and preparing a business plan.
Carter, Gartner, and Reynolds (1996) recommended that potential entre-
preneurs act quickly and aggressively in pursuing business opportunities
and day-to-day business activities.
While Carter, Garnter, and Reynolds (1996) identify the activities rele-
vant to different levels of success in starting a business, they do not provide
an explanation for the difference between the aggressive and fast actions by
successful entrepreneurs and the sluggish behavior of less successful entre-
preneurs. How can one explain the different performance of similar actions
by the three groups of entrepreneurs? Can the same differences among the
study groups be observed over a longer period of time? These questions re-
main unanswered.
The goal of entrepreneurial behavior has been viewed as the creation of
an organization. Once the business has started, the entrepreneurial activi-
ties are considered to be accomplished. Consequently, behavioral perspec-
tive studies have focused on the start-up stage, despite the fact that Robin-
son and Pearce (1986) have demonstrated that venture performance is
different at the various stages of business development and that the activi-
ties undertaken by the entrepreneur vary with changes in each business
stage as well.
One of the examples of behavioral perspective-influenced studies is a
model proposed by Greenberg and Sexton (1988) that incorporates several
dimensions as explanatory factors. This model hypothesizes that the deci-
sion to initiate a new venture is a function of the interactions among sev-
eral factors, including an individual’s entrepreneurial vision, desire for per-
sonal control, situational factors, social supports, and perceptions about
him or herself as an entrepreneur and about venture success.
Van de Ven, Hudson, and Schroeder (1984) studied the start-up of 14 ed-
ucational software companies. The sample was split into two categories: (1)
high and (2) low performance. The authors found the following individual
characteristics related to success: education and experience, internal locus of
control and risk reduction, a broad and clear business idea, and personal
investment.
At the organizational level, success was positively related to planning ac-
tivities (although paradoxically, spending more time on a detailed busi-
ness plan seemed to result in lower performance), small-scale start-up, in-
cremental expansion, single person command, and active involvement of
top management and board members in decisionmaking. The study also
suggested that assistance in the form of equity capital, training, or guaran-
teed contracts was actually maladaptive, and that firms competing for con-
tracts on an independent basis advanced more quickly, at least during the
short run.