Description
Drawing on Bems psychological theory of self-perception, this paper presents and tests a model that examines the impact of business accomplishments and gender on entrepreneurial.
Business accomplishments, gender and
entrepreneurial self-image
Ingrid Verheul
1
, Lorraine Uhlaner
1
, Roy Thurik
*
Centre for Advanced Small Business Economics (CASBEC) and European Family Business Institute (EFBI),
Rotterdam School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738,
3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands
EIM Business and Policy Research, P.O. Box 7001, 2701 AA Zoetermeer, The Netherlands
Received 25 January 2002; received in revised form 30 March 2004; accepted 30 March 2004
Abstract
Drawing on Bem’s psychological theory of self-perception, this paper presents and tests a model
that examines the impact of business accomplishments and gender on entrepreneurial self-image and
explores the definition of entrepreneurship according to Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology. Regression
techniques are used to identify those business accomplishments that university alumni associate with
self-perceptions of entrepreneurship. Experience as a small business person (founding, running, and/or
owning a small business) most clearly predicts entrepreneurial self-image. Results also support
predictions of both direct and indirect effects of gender as well as direct effects of education and
business degree. Results of a separate expert panel study are used to rank business accomplishments
according to degree of entrepreneurship. Results of both studies reveal stark contrasts in the implied
definition of entrepreneurship between entrepreneurship experts (academic and practitioner alike) and
the general business community (as represented by the alumni). This raises questions about the
0883-9026/$ – see front matter D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jbusvent.2004.03.002
* Corresponding author. Rotterdam School of Economics, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, 3000 Rotterdam,
The Netherlands. Tel.: +31-10-4081398, +31-79-3430200 (EIM Business and Policy Research); fax: +31-10-
4089146.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (I. Verheul), [email protected] (L. Uhlaner), [email protected]
(R. Thurik).
1
Tel.: +31-10-4081398, +31-79-3430200 (EIM Business and Policy Research); fax: +31-10-4089146.
Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518
meaning of the term ‘‘entrepreneurship’’, what the word ‘‘entrepreneur’’, in particular, conveys to the
general public, and the implications for practice and future research.
D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Self-image; Entrepreneurial behavior; Business accomplishment; Gender
1. Executive summary
The objective of the paper is to further our understanding of the concept of ‘‘entrepre-
neur’’. It provides insight into the perception of the concept by members of the general
business community (business people) and compares this perception to that of entrepreneur-
ship specialists (academics, policymakers and other professionals in the field of entrepreneur-
ship). The paper seeks an answer to the following research question: ‘‘Do certain
characteristics of individuals influence their entrepreneurial self-image, i.e., the extent to
which they perceive themselves to be entrepreneurs?’’ The primary set of characteristics, the
respondent’s business accomplishments, is derived from a typology of entrepreneurial
activities as proposed by Vesper (1999). The paper draws upon Bem’s (1972) psychological
theory of self-perception, positing that behavior influences self-image. Gender is used as a
second individual characteristic to predict entrepreneurial self-image. The study tests for both
direct gender effects (controlling for entrepreneurial activity) and indirect gender effects
(through entrepreneurial activity) on entrepreneurial self-image.
The relationships between gender, business accomplishments, and entrepreneurial self-
image are investigated using an exploratory study based on a nonrandom sample of 207
alumni of a large Midwestern U.S. university. As a measure of entrepreneurial self-image,
respondents are asked whether they would call themselves an entrepreneur. They are also
asked which of a series of business accomplishments they had either done in the past or are
currently doing, representing different aspects of Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology (i.e.,
Founder, Acquirer, Runner, Take-Off Artist, Turnaround Artist, Intrapreneur, Innovator,
Industry Captain, and Champion) as well as selected additional categories (i.e., Owner,
Service Provider, and Family Business). For further analysis, the number of business
accomplishments is reduced to meaningful scales using principal components analysis.
Regression analysis is used to identify those business accomplishments that university
alumni associate with self-perceptions of entrepreneurship. We find that entrepreneurial
self-perception is influenced by certain business accomplishments defined in the literature
as being entrepreneurial but not others. Business owners, founders, and small to mid-sized
business managers (combined in this study’s Small Business Person scale) are most likely
to describe themselves as entrepreneurs. On the other hand, Corporate Entrepreneurs
(including intrapreneurs, innovators, and champions) are not likely to call themselves
entrepreneurs.
A separate expert panel study is set up to rank business accomplishments according to
degree of entrepreneurship. Comparing the results of the expert panel study to that of the
alumni study reveals a divergence of opinion in what is entrepreneurial according to the
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 484
experts and which business accomplishments create an identity as an entrepreneur among the
general business community.
Gender, although weaker in its explanatory power, also appears to provide added
explanation to the model, most clearly as a separate direct effect on entrepreneurial self-
perception, but with a likely indirect effect (through Business Accomplishments) as well. In
particular, we find that women tend to select different activities than men, choosing less
frequently those activities both genders view as entrepreneurial. In addition, women are less
likely to perceive of themselves as entrepreneurs, independently of activities undertaken. It
may be that women also value the same business accomplishments differently than men do,
although the present study cannot determine the extent of this third gender effect. In addition
to the effects of business accomplishments and gender, the regression results reveal
significant effects of certain human capital variables (education and business degree) on
entrepreneurial self-perception.
Although some of the gender effects are small in absolute terms, the study demonstrates
the importance of including gender as an explanatory variable in general research questions of
interest in the field of entrepreneurship. At a more practical level, if these differences hold up
in follow-up research, different guidelines for attracting, supporting, and counseling female
entrepreneurs and small business owners should be considered by directors of small business
service centers and other service providers.
2. Introduction
The present paper is motivated in part by the following question: ‘‘What is an entrepreneur?’’
This seemingly simple question, which is likely to be asked numerous times to most of our
readers in the course of their professional work, continues to spark debate and disagreement
within the scholarly community. The present paper is neither intended nor is likely to end that
debate. However, it does attempt to provide new insights about the way in which the term
‘‘entrepreneur’’ is perceived by members of the general business community (i.e., business
people) and how this perception compares to that of entrepreneurship specialists (i.e.,
academics, policymakers, or other professionals active in the field of entrepreneurship). The
outcomes of our research are not meant necessarily to be used to further define the scholarly
domain of entrepreneurship, i.e., what entrepreneurship researchers should study to gain
knowledge about this phenomenon (see Davidsson, 2003). However, our results may help
clarify what the general business community and perhaps society-at-large, may be thinking
about when we use the termentrepreneur, thus expediting communication between scholars and
those groups.
2
2
Some researchers may wish to further consider these multiple perspectives in light of the scientific
paradigm of realism, i.e., the view that although there is a ‘‘real’’ world to discover, it can only be
comprehended imperfectly via investigation and triangulation from different viewpoints or data sources (Healy
and Perry, 2000).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 485
To further our understanding of the popular view of the concept of entrepreneur, the primary
research question of this paper is as follows: ‘‘Do certain characteristics of individuals influence
their entrepreneurial self-image, i.e., the extent to which they perceive themselves to be
entrepreneurs?’’ The primary set of characteristics, the respondent’s business accomplishments,
is derived from a typology of entrepreneurial activities proposed by Vesper (1999). Although
grounded in social –psychological research, unique to this study is the focus of the direct
influence of business behaviors on entrepreneurial self-perceptions, as well as the influence of
gender on those self-perceptions.
In order to validate the set of business accomplishments used in our study to represent
activities with entrepreneurial potential, we include an expert panel study to supplement the
review of the entrepreneurship behavior literature. Although one can argue that there is a two-
way relationship between business accomplishments and entrepreneurial self-image, the focus
in the present paper is on the influence of behavior on entrepreneurial self-image. From a
theoretical perspective, our study is a new application of well-established psychological
theories linking behavior and perception (James, 1890, 1950; Bem, 1972; Bandura, 1977,
1986). Moreover, to our knowledge, this is the first time that Vesper’s (1999) entrepreneurial
typology is tested and used in empirical research.
Gender is a second individual characteristic used to predict entrepreneurial self-image. At the
macro level, female and male entrepreneurs appear to differ with respect to the type of
entrepreneurial activity they engage in and the way in which they manage this activity (Verheul
and Thurik, 2001; U.S. Small Business Administration, 1995; OECD, 1998; Carter et al., 1997;
Kalleberg and Leicht, 1991; Fischer et al., 1993). In addition, the management literature
indicates that, as compared to men, women tend to underrate their own performance (Wohlers
and London, 1989; Lindeman et al., 1995). Accordingly, we expect to find an indirect effect of
gender (through entrepreneurial activity) on entrepreneurial self-image, as well as a direct
gender effect (controlling for entrepreneurial activity). Several control variables, including age,
education level, and business education, are also examined for possible effects on entrepre-
neurial self-image.
2.1. Structure of the paper
The paper is structured as follows. First, we introduce the concept of (entrepreneurial) self-
perception and its relationship to business behaviors. Within this section, we elaborate on the
theories linking behavior and self-perception. Second, we provide an overview of business
accomplishments or behaviors that are classified as entrepreneurial in the literature, including a
discussion of Vesper’s (1999) entrepreneurial typology. Using Vesper’s entrepreneurial
typology as a basis, we propose a ranking of business accomplishments according to the
degree of entrepreneurship based on the extant literature. Subsequently, we reviewthe literature
regarding the relationship between gender and entrepreneurship, including business behaviors
as well as entrepreneurial self-image. On the basis of the theoretical discussion, we introduce a
model and hypotheses for explaining entrepreneurial self-perception from activity and gender.
In the subsequent section, we discuss the methodology and results for validating the
proposed ranking of business accomplishments according to degree of entrepreneurship,
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 486
based on the views of 162 respondents in an expert panel survey. Next, we present the
methodology and results for testing the model and hypotheses with an exploratory study,
based on a nonrandom data sample of 207 alumni of a large Midwestern U.S. university.
Final sections present discussion of the results, directions for future research and conclusions.
3. Business behaviors and entrepreneurial self-perception
This paper draws upon the world of self-concept. According to James (1890, 1950), the
‘empirical self’, consisting of a material, social and spiritual component, is the key to
understanding the experience of individuals.
3
In the present paper it is argued that people
come to know themselves by drawing information from their own behavior.
According to social learning theory, Bandura (1977, 1986) argues that there is
triadic reciprocal causation among behavior, cognitive and other personal factors and
the environment. This means that on the one hand, the environment and the perception
of both this environment and self by an individual can influence the individual’s
behavior. On the other hand, the behavior of an individual influences the environment
as well as the way in which he or she perceives of him- or herself and the
environment.
4
In addition to Bandura, in the psychology literature, Bem (1972)
provides evidence of behavioral influences on self-perception. More specifically, Bem’s
self-perception theory states that: ‘‘individuals come to ‘know’ their own attitudes,
emotions and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their
own overt behavior and/or the circumstances in which this behavior occurs’’ (Bem,
1972, p. 5).
The relationship between entrepreneurial activity and perception has been studied mainly
from the viewpoint that perception influences entrepreneurial activity (Boyd and Vozikis,
1994; Scherer et al., 1990, 1989; Krueger and Brazeal, 1994; Krueger, 1993; Chen et al.,
1998). These studies focus upon and refer to the concept of self-efficacy as the perceived
personal ability to perform a given task. In that context, it has been suggested that individuals
make career choices based upon their perception of and the associated fit with a certain
profession (Fagenson and Marcus, 1991). Chen et al. (1998, p. 297) argue that ‘‘. . . they
assess their personal capabilities against the requirements of different occupations’’. The
choice to engage in entrepreneurial activity is thus interpreted as dependent upon whether
individuals can identify with the characteristics and behaviors that are associated with
entrepreneurship.
In the present study, we take the opposite perspective and explain entrepreneurial self-
perception by way of prior business accomplishments (which may vary in the degree to
which they are perceived as being entrepreneurial by different individuals). Although
Bem’s self-perception theory has been used extensively in other types of research
3
See Smith (1992) for a detailed discussion of William James’s theory of self.
4
‘‘This reciprocality does not mean that the different influences are of equal strength’’ (Wood and Bandura,
1989, p. 362).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 487
applications
5
within the field of entrepreneurship, relatively few empirical studies have
focused upon explaining entrepreneurial self-perception from behavior. However, van
Gelderen (2000) provides some evidence to support the claim that entrepreneurial
behavior influences self-perception. His study investigates what people consider entrepre-
neurial about their behavior.
4. Definitions and typologies of entrepreneurial behaviors
Definitions of entrepreneurship vary widely (He´bert and Link, 1989; van Praag, 1999;
Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). Kaufmann and Dant (1998) identify the following three classes of
definitions: (1) those based on traits or qualities; (2) those based on the role or function of the
entrepreneur in the economic process; and (3) those based on the behavior or activities of
entrepreneurs. For the purpose of our paper, we take a behavioral approach to studying
entrepreneurship, consistent with the mainstream scholarly perspective (Gartner, 1990).
4.1. Entrepreneurial behavior or activities
A wide range of business behaviors has variously been classified in the literature as
‘‘entrepreneurial’’, including starting a business (i.e., new venture creation), innovation,
business ownership, business growth and size achievement, and managing a large business. In
this section, we will make a distinction between these different types of entrepreneurial
activity.
Early on in the development of the field of entrepreneurship, many scholars propagated the
view that new venture creation is at the heart of entrepreneurship (Chandler, 1990; Gartner,
1990, 1989, 1985; Low and MacMillan, 1988; McCLelland, 1961; Schumpeter, 1934;
Vesper, 1980). The problem with this notion of entrepreneurship is that new ventures are
likely to vary with respect to growth realization and innovativeness. Along with ‘‘newness’’,
both growth (Carland et al., 1984; Dunkelberg and Cooper, 1982) and innovation (Hornaday,
1992; Schumpeter, 1934) are considered essential components of entrepreneurial behavior.
Building on the concept of newness, but recognizing the need to view entrepreneurial
behavior more broadly, Gartner et al. (1989) argue that most studies of new venture creation
tend to ignore that there are other ways to achieve business ownership than through starting a
new business from scratch, for instance, through the acquisition of an established business.
5
Self-perception theory has been applied extensively to social scientific research since the mid-1970s,
but primarily to empirical research in applied social psychology (Dolinski, 2000; Uranowitz, 1975; Weiner,
1974) and clinical psychology (Robak, 2001; Schnall et al., 2002; Haemmerlie and Montgomery, 1987). It
has been compared and contrasted with cognitive dissonance theory to explain human attitudes (Weiner,
1974). Self-perception theory has been applied not only to self-perceptions of both physical and cognitive
behavior (see Damrad-Frye and Laird, 1989). Studies generally confirm predictions derived from the theory.
More recently, it has been applied to marketing and consumer behavior research (Forehand, 1998; Laverie et
al., 2002).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 488
Cooper and Dunkelberg (1986) also distinguish between different paths to business owner-
ship, including starting a new business, purchasing or inheriting a business and being
promoted or brought in by existing owners. Building on these notions, Lumpkin and Dess
(1996, p. 136) argue that ‘‘the essential act of entrepreneurship is new entry’’, defining new
entry as ‘‘entering new or established markets with new or existing goods or services’’. This
can be achieved ‘‘by starting a business, through an existing business or internal corporate
venturing’’ (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996, p. 136). Implicit in this definition of new entry is the
notion that entrepreneurship can exist within large businesses. This type of entrepreneurship
is often referred to as corporate entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship where new ideas and
responsibilities are implemented in existing, large businesses (Wennekers and Thurik, 1999;
Stopford and Baden-Fuller, 1994; Stevenson and Jarillo, 1990). In this respect, ‘‘entrepre-
neurial activities in existing, large firms often take place by mimicking smallness’’ and
‘‘entrepreneurship occurs irrespective of firm size’’ (Wennekers and Thurik, 1999, p. 33).
Other researchers even argue that managing a business is an entrepreneurial activity.
According to McClelland (1965), managers can display entrepreneurial behavior in their
wage jobs by taking responsibility for their actions and decisions and creatively solving
problems. Moreover, Brandsta¨tter (1997) stresses that entrepreneurial behavior is important in
all leading positions within higher levels of organizations.
4.2. Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology
In his keynote address at the 1999 Conference of the United States Association for
Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE), Karl Vesper proposes an entrepreneu-
rial typology, embracing a broad range of these themes in entrepreneurial behavior
(Vesper, 1999; see Table 1). Vesper does not try to rank these activities, but instead
acknowledges that different types of entrepreneurial activity exist side by side (see also
Cunningham and Lischeron, 1991). Vesper argues that researchers should adopt a view
that separately identifies different types of entrepreneurs rather than solving the conun-
drum: ‘‘What is an entrepreneur’’?
Table 1
Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology
Name/type Entrepreneurial activity
Starter Enters an independent business by creating a new one
Acquirer Enters an independent business by acquiring an ongoing concern
Runner Manages a small to medium business beyond start-up
Take-off artist Steers a company into a high-growth trajectory
Turnaround artist Saves a failing company
Innovator Makes something new happen that is not a company
Champion Supports innovator
Intrapreneur Takes initiative for business unit creation inside an established business
Industry captain Runs a big business
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 489
4.3. Degree of entrepreneurship
Although Vesper does not propose a ranking of entrepreneurial behaviors listed in his
proposed typology, other entrepreneurship researchers have suggested that different behaviors
or activities may represent different ‘degrees of entrepreneurship’ (Cooper and Dunkelberg,
1986). In particular, different activities may vary in degree of entrepreneurship, depending
upon underlying requirements or characteristics, such as opportunity perception (Kirzner,
1979), imagination (Shackle, 1979), creativity (Torrance, 1962), innovation (Schumpeter,
1934), risk-taking (Knight, 1921/71; Cantillon, 1931; Hull et al., 1980; Sexton and Bowman,
1985, 1986; Stewart et al., 1999; Begley, 1995; Stewart and Roth, 2001),
6
locus of control
(Perry et al., 1986; Rotter, 1966), need for achievement (McCLelland, 1961; Perry et al.,
1986), need for autonomy, initiative, and persistence.
For our study, we single out opportunity perception, risk-taking, and innovation as most
important in determining the degree of entrepreneurship. This selection is consistent with
results in Gartner’s (1990) study of the perceptions of the concept of entrepreneurship by
experts. In fact, in the results of a factor analysis reported in Gartner’s research, the three
factors explaining the greatest amount of variation include items emphasizing risk-taking,
innovation, and opportunity recognition (Gartner, 1990).
7
More specifically, although Gartner
6
Note however that other research on risk-taking has posited that risk-taking propensity is not a distinctive
feature of entrepreneurship. For instance, see the work of Brockhaus and Nord (1979), Brockhaus (1980), and
Brockhaus and Horwitz (1986).
7
The factor analysis clusters 90 attributes in a smaller set of factors (or ‘themes’). The eight-factor solution
explains about 67% of the variance in response (see Gartner, 1990).
Table 2
Ranking business accomplishments according to degree of entrepreneurship
a
Business accomplishments Entrepreneurial characteristics Score Rank
Opportunity perception Risk-taking Innovation
Founder
b
4 High 4 High 4 High 12 1
Innovator 4 High 2 Medium 4 High 10 2
Intrapreneur 4 High 2 Medium 3 Medium/high 9 3 (tie)
Take-off artist 4 High 2 Medium 3 Medium/high 9 3 (tie)
Acquirer 3 Medium/high 3 Medium/high 2 Medium 8 5 (tie)
Franchisee 3 Medium/high 3 Medium/high 2 Medium 8 5 (tie)
Runner 3 Medium/high 2 Medium 3 Medium/high 8 5 (tie)
Turnaround artist 3 Medium/high 2 Medium 2/3 Medium–medium/high 7.5 8
Champion 3 Medium/high 1/2 Low–medium 2 Medium 6.5 9
Industry captain 2 Medium 1 Low 1 Low 4 10
Service provider 2 Medium 1 Low 1 Low 4 10
Ownership Indeterminate 4 High Indeterminate ? ?
Family business Indeterminate Indeterminate Indeterminate ? ?
a
Rankings in this table are based on authors’ review of the literature.
b
We choose to use the term Founder instead of Vesper’s Starter as we make a distinction between starting a
business which is not a franchise (Founder) and starting a franchise firm (Franchisee) in this study’s analyses.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 490
(1990) labels the first factor, ‘‘entrepreneur’’, 6 of the 12 items associated with this factor
mention risk. Similarly, the second factor, labeled ‘‘innovation’’, includes a number of items
related to innovative activity. Finally, two of the most highly correlated items in the third
factor, labeled ‘‘organization creation’’, mention opportunity recognition. Consistent with
Gartner’s findings, we consider risk-taking, innovation, and opportunity perception as the
primary indicators for degree of entrepreneurship. In the remainder of this section, we review
the way in which each of these three characteristics relates to several of the activities listed in
Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology as well as other activities mentioned in the entrepreneur-
ship literature. At the end of this section, we present an initial rank ordering according to our
interpretation of the literature (see Table 2).
4.3.1. Founding a firm from ‘‘scratch’’
New venture creation, i.e., founding a firm from scratch (without any past history or
linkage to a parent company), is often viewed as involving the highest degree of entrepreneur-
ship. Founding a firm involves the processes of both perceiving an opportunity and acting
upon the perceived opportunity (Kirzner, 1979). It involves innovation because something is
created where nothing existed previously and resources are combined in a new way (Cooper
and Dunkelberg, 1986). According to Carland et al. (1984), an entrepreneurial venture is in
principle characterized by innovative practices.
8
In addition, the founder is willing to
personally absorb the risks involved in starting a new business (Cooper and Dunkelberg,
1986). Several scholars further argue that founders show higher risk-taking than nonfounders
(Begley, 1995; Begley and Boyd, 1987; Hull et al., 1980).
Based on the rather large variance among start-ups in the degree to which they have
innovative versus imitative strategies (Samuelsson, 2001; Aldrich, 1999), one could argue
that because many start-ups are imitative in nature, those should be excluded from the notion
of entrepreneurship or at least viewed as a separate category. However, Davidsson (2003)
formulates the argument for viewing imitative entry as ‘new’. He notes that such entry drives
the market process by giving consumers additional choices and challenging incumbent firms
to change their behavior in response to new competition. In addition, he points out that no
entrant is a perfect copy or ‘clone’ of an existing actor (Davidsson, 2003). In this sense, we
use innovativeness not exclusively to refer to new products, but also to new markets and
added value in the marketplace represented by the new firm.
4.3.2. Franchise start-up
A franchise start-up can be seen as an alternative to founding an independent firm
(Kaufmann, 1999; Williams, 1998). Shane and Hoy (1996) refer to franchising as a form of
cooperative entrepreneurship. Starting a franchise business can be considered less entrepre-
neurial than founding a firm from ‘scratch’ because it involves less innovation. Although a
franchisee runs the risk of introducing the franchisor’s concept into new markets, the potential
8
There may also be differences between innovative firms regarding their degree of entrepreneurship, for
instance, based on the contribution of innovation to firm growth. As Kirchoff (1994) notes, some innovations
catch on and lead to growth whereas others do not.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 491
for innovation is limited because maintenance of the franchisor’s concept is important
(Kaufmann and Dant, 1998). Moreover, starting a franchise business also involves less
opportunity perception and risk-taking because the market concept has already been
developed and tested, albeit not necessarily in the particular market where the entrepreneur
is planning to start the franchise business.
4.3.3. Acquisition
Purchasing an existing business was considered only a ‘‘slightly important’’ attribute in
Gartner’s study of expert definitions (Gartner, 1990). This may reflect a shift in the literature of
the past few decades towards viewing entrepreneurship as creating market impact or societal
value rather than as owning and running one’s own firm.
9
However, as a potential entrepre-
neurial activity, it is listed specifically in Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology and has been
included in various entrepreneurship research studies. Acquiring a business can be viewed as
entrepreneurial because the purchase of an established business is preceded by opportunity
perception. Although the acquirer is not involved in the founding of the business and the risk of
start-up is circumvented, risk-taking is involved as the business is operated at the purchaser’s
own cost and risk. However, there may be relatively little need for innovation because the
business is already established and resources have already been put to use. The extent to which
the acquirer is innovative depends upon his or her plans to implement changes, and to pursue
growth strategies, e.g., through entering new markets and/or developing new products (Cooper
and Dunkelberg, 1986). On the other hand, the purchase may be inspired by an innovative idea
the purchaser wants to implement to add value to the existing business. Because the purchaser
of a business can develop and implement his/her own ideas, the acquisition of an established
business may be more entrepreneurial than the purchase of a franchise where innovation tends
to be more limited. Acquisition may involve a healthy or a declining firm. When purchasing a
declining firm with the intent of saving it, the acquirer faces additional challenges because the
liabilities of the declining firm have to be translated or rendered into opportunities.
4.3.4. Intrapreneurship or corporate entrepreneurship
Like business founders, intrapreneurs can be considered entrepreneurial because they
introduce something new, albeit within a large business and its boundaries. Intrapreneurship
differs from other forms of entrepreneurship with respect to the context in which the
entrepreneurial act takes place. Like managers, intrapreneurs act on behalf of an existing
organization instead of themselves (Carrier, 1996). Because entrepreneurial ideas are
implemented within the context of an existing organization, the ultimate risk is borne by
the owner of the business instead of the initiator of the corporate venture. However, an
intrapreneur may risk the loss of his or her job or career disruption if the venture fails.
Furthermore, similar to other entrepreneurship ventures, successful corporate entrepreneur-
ship requires alertness to business opportunities (Cunningham and Lischeron, 1991).
Innovation may overlap but is not necessarily the same as intrapreneurship, in that it does
not necessarily require creation of a new venture. Innovation can also express itself in other
9
Per Davidsson, personal communication, 2003.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 492
ways, including changes to products and processes or even the development of new products
or processes within existing business units.
For innovations to be successful, organizations also need innovation champions, i.e.,
organization members who risk their own position to ensure the innovation’s success (Scho¨n,
1963; Burgelman, 1983; Shane, 1994). The champion sees and acknowledges the value of
adopting new ways to organize and combine resources. According to Howell and Higgins
(1990), champions show higher risk-taking and innovativeness than nonchampions within an
organization. The degree of risk-taking and innovativeness is likely to be dependent upon the
activities of the champion. Shane (1994) and Venkataraman et al. (1992) distinguish between
different championing activities and roles.
10
4.3.5. Ownership versus management
Several scholars have made a distinction between business owners and corporate managers
(Carland and Carland, 1992; Smith et al., 1988). Owners are believed to show higher risk-
taking than managers because their range of possibilities is larger and more uncertain (Bearse,
1982) and an owner has the ultimate responsibility for decisions (Gasse, 1982). Brandsta¨tter
(1997) argues that whether someone is seen as an entrepreneur is determined first by
ownership, then by decision-making power and leadership functions and finally by the size of
the company.
11
Hence, ownership is seen as more entrepreneurial than management,
irrespective of firm size or characteristics.
4.3.6. Management of small versus large firms
It may be argued that there are differences in the degree of entrepreneurship between
managers of different businesses. Different phases of a business involve different activities
and related risks (Churchill and Lewis, 1983; Greiner, 1972; Garnsey, 1998). Based on the
characteristics of opportunity perception, risk-taking and innovation one may propose that
managers of small, young, and high-growth firms are perceived as more entrepreneurial than
those of established large firms.
4.3.7. Tentative rankings based on the literature
On the basis of the underlying entrepreneurial characteristics of risk-taking, innovation,
and opportunity perception, we propose a tentative ranking of business accomplishments. In
addition to the business accomplishments previously mentioned, we include the category
10
Shane (1994) argues that champions provide people with autonomy from organizational norms and rules;
build coalitions to support the innovation with managers from different functional areas; build a decision-making
mechanism that includes all organization members; use informal means to persuade people to support the
innovation and protect the innovation teams from interference by the organizational hierarchy. Venkataraman et al.
(1992) distinguish between different types of champions, including champions of ideas, resource champions,
champions of opportunistic behavior, and champions of incorporation.
11
These conclusions are based on a study of IMAS (Institut fu¨r Markt und Socialanalyzen), focusing on
perceptions of what constitutes an entrepreneur by a sample of respondents drawn from the Austrian population in
1976 and 1986 (see Brandsta¨tter, 1997).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 493
‘service provider’ (e.g., accountant, banker, lawyer) as a type of anchor. Providing services to
the business sector would least likely be viewed as entrepreneurial, either by the general
public or by entrepreneurship scholars. We also include family business as a type of business
accomplishment, for exploratory reasons, although there is little evidence in the literature to
suggest that working in a family firm is more or less entrepreneurial than being involved in a
nonfamily firm.
The results of the ranking are presented in Table 2. The ranking is done as follows. For
three characteristics (opportunity perception, risk-taking, and innovation), we discriminate
between four levels (low, medium, medium–high, and high). We assign the values 1 through
4 to these levels, respectively. The score of the business accomplishments equals the sum of
these values. This leads to the ranking of business accomplishments as more or less
entrepreneurial in Table 2. This ranking is based on our interpretation of the characteristics
of the different entrepreneurial activities mentioned in the literature. On the basis of the
previous discussion and Table 2, it can be argued that founding a firm from scratch involves
the highest degree of entrepreneurship, followed by innovating behavior, intrapreneurship,
and managing a high-growth business (tied for third place), acquisition, starting a franchise
business, and managing a small business (tied for fifth place), saving a failing business,
supporting an innovator, and, finally, managing a large business and providing services to an
entrepreneur (tied for last place).
Because ownership can involve a start-up, acquisition or franchise formula, it is
difficult to determine the level of innovation involved. Accordingly, it is also difficult to
rank the level of opportunity perception required. Hence, although ownership is included
in the table, its ranking is left indeterminate. The ranking for family business is also left
indeterminate, as there is much variation between family businesses, their degree of
entrepreneurship depending upon, for instance, the size and phase of the business, and
innovative capacity and ability.
5. Gender and entrepreneurship
In addition to business accomplishments, this paper explores the impact of gender on
entrepreneurial self-image. This section summarizes past work on gender and entrepreneur-
ship, including research on women in business, as well as research linking gender and self-
perception in a business context.
5.1. Women in business
Statistics regarding the participation of women in entrepreneurship should be inter-
preted with caution. It has been argued that female start-up rates exceed those of men.
12
However, some of this increase is due to an overall increase of women in the labor
12
See Center for Women’s Business Researchhttp://www.womensbusinessresearch.org) and Carter (2000).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 494
market in most of the developed countries, including the United States. Despite the
reported increase in female start-up rates, women still constitute a minority of the total
number of self-employed people, accounting for approximately 25–35% of total business
ownership in many Western countries (Carter, 2000).
13
Reynolds et al. (2002) report that
throughout the 37 countries participating in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, men
are 50% more likely to be involved in entrepreneurial activity than women.
14
In terms
of the proportion of workers who are self-employed, women participate at a lower rate
than men. For instance, in the United Kingdom, approximately 15% of the working
male population is self-employed, compared with only about 9% of the working female
population (Carter, 2000). Moreover, female-owned businesses have a lower performance
in a number of areas relative to male-owned firms. Women-owned firms tend to engage
in relatively underperforming sectors, such as retailing and services (U.S. Small Business
Administration, 1995; OECD, 1998; van Uxem and Bais, 1996), are smaller in size
(Carter et al., 1997; Kalleberg and Leicht, 1991; Fischer et al., 1993; Verheul and
Thurik, 2001), exhibit lower growth levels (Fischer et al., 1993; Hulshoff et al., 2001),
have a higher rate of discontinuing, and report lower profits (Carter et al., 1997).
Several reasons have been proposed to explain the performance differences between male-
and female-owned firms, including the level of relevant business experience (Cliff, 1998;
Cromie and Birley, 1992; Watkins and Watkins, 1983; Kalleberg and Leicht, 1991; Fischer
et al., 1993; Verheul and Thurik, 2001), the proportion of the total workweek committed to the
business (Brush, 1992; Goffee and Scase, 1985; Stigter, 1999), the propensity to take risks
(Verheul and Thurik, 2001; Sexton and Bowman-Upton, 1990; Masters and Meier, 1988), age
of the firm and the number of days a business operated (Watson, 2002), as well as the industry
women are involved in (Watson, 2002; Verheul and Thurik, 2001). Other reasons refer to
differences in values across gender, positing that women business owners are more likely to
value quality and other goals not directly related to growth and economic performance (Brush,
1992; Du Rietz and Henrekson, 2000; Kalleberg and Leicht, 1991; Rosa et al., 1996; Verheul
and Thurik, 2001; Verheul et al., 2002).
In summary, because the economic criteria of size and growth are often used as measures
of success (Cliff, 1998; Buttner and Moore, 1997), and growth-orientation is considered an
important entrepreneurial characteristic (Dunkelberg and Cooper, 1982), women may rate
themselves as less entrepreneurial than men based on these objective differences, i.e., because
they tend to manage small and low-growth businesses.
5.2. Gender and self-perceptions in business and entrepreneurship
Past research on gender differences in self-perception has mainly focused on mana-
gerial self-perception. In general, these studies indicate that women tend to underrate
13
For the United States, see US Small Business Administration (1995) and NFWBO (1996).
14
In the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, entrepreneurial activity includes nascent entrepreneurs (starting or
operating a business no older than 3 months) and new businesses (in existence for less than 3.5 years; see
Reynolds et al., 2002, p. 38).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 495
their skills or performance as compared to men (Wohlers and London, 1989; Lindeman et
al., 1995). This underrating has been attributed to the fact that women often do not take
credit for success, attributing success to external sources or luck rather than to effort or
ability (Rosenthal et al., 1996; Parsons et al., 1982; LaNoue and Curtis, 1985). Moreover,
Rosenthal et al. (1996) argue that it may be ‘proper female modesty’ accounting for the
underrating by female managers.
Beyer (1990, 1998) and Beyer and Bowden (1997) argue that when (managerial) tasks and
roles are perceived as more masculine than feminine, women are more likely than men to
underestimate their competencies in these areas. Along these lines, several studies show that
managers are perceived to have characteristics more commonly associated with men than
with women (Schein, 1973, 1975; Powell and Butterfield, 1979, 1989). Within the area of
entrepreneurship, Fagenson and Marcus (1991) find that women assign more weight to
masculine attributes in the profile of a successful entrepreneur. A more recent study by Powell
et al. (2002) finds that, although managerial stereotypes place less emphasis on masculine
characteristics than earlier studies suggest, a good manager is still perceived to be predom-
inantly masculine by both women and men. Hence, in spite of changes in the role of women
in the United States and internationally over the past several decades, we may still find
entrepreneurship to be associated with more masculine characteristics, such as autonomy,
perseverance, high energy levels, self-confidence, and decisiveness (Chaganti, 1986; Hisrich
and Brush, 1983), and thus likely to negatively affect the entrepreneurial self-image of
women.
6. Model and hypotheses
We propose a model including the independent influence of both gender and business
accomplishments on entrepreneurial self-image as well as the combined effect of gender and
business accomplishments, i.e., the indirect effect of gender through accomplishments. The
model is presented in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Proposed model: influences on entrepreneurial self-image.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 496
Based on this model, we test the following hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 represents the
impact of certain business accomplishments on entrepreneurial self-image (arrow 2 in Fig.
1). Hypothesis 1 is exploratory in nature as we make no a priori predictions about the effect
of specific activities on entrepreneurial self-image, nor do we predict their respective
Table 3
Description of variables
Name of variable Description of variable
Entrepreneurial self-image
a
The extent to which an individual perceives of him- or herself as an entrepreneur.
Question: would you call yourself an entrepreneur? (1 = no, 2 =don’t think
so, 3 = maybe, 4 = possibly, 5 = definitely)
Gender Whether an individual is male or female (male = 0 and female = 1).
Business accomplishments
b
Respondents were asked the following: ‘‘Please check any of the following
business accomplishments you have done in the past or are currently doing’’.
Founder
c
Created a new business from scratch? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Franchisee
c
Started a franchise business? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Acquirer
c
Acquired an ongoing concern? (no =0, yes = 1)
Runner
c
Managed a small to mid-sized business beyond start-up? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Take-off artist
c
Steered a company into a high-growth trajectory? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Turnaround artist
c
Saved a failing company? (no =0, yes = 1)
Intrapreneur
c
Led an effort to create a business unit within an established company? (no = 0,
yes = 1)
Innovator
c
Made something new happen (e.g. new product, program) other than a new
business unit or new company? (no = 0, yes =1)
Industry captain
c
Ran a large company? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Champion
c
Supported subordinate innovator(s) or intrapreneur(s)? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Owner Owned a major part of a business? (no =0, yes = 1)
Service provider Worked with/assisted entrepreneurs as a service provider? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Family business Worked as member of a family business (2 or more family members, including
yourself, active in the business)? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Control variables
Age
a
Age of the respondent (1 =18–22; 2 = 23–27; 3 = 28–35; 4 = 36–45; 5 = 46–55;
6 = 56–65; 7 = over 65)
Education level
a
What is the highest educational level attained? (0 = no degree; 1 = Bachelor’s;
2 = Master’s; 3 = PhD.)
Business degree
a
Does the respondent have a business degree? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Introduction course
a
Has the respondent followed an introduction course in entrepreneurship?
(no = 0, yes = 1)
a
Asked only of respondents in the alumni study.
b
For this group of questions, alumni respondents were instructed as follows: ‘‘The following describe various
types of business accomplishments. Please check any of the following that you have done in the past or are
currently doing’’. Those in the expert panel received the following instructions: ‘‘Please rate whether or not you
view each of the following business accomplishments as an example of entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial
behavior’’. Respondents could rate the degree of entrepreneurship of the listed business accomplishments on a
five-point scale where ‘1’= definitely; ‘2’ = probably; ‘3’= maybe; ‘4’ =don’t think so; ‘5’= no.
c
Derived from Vesper (1999).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 497
weights. However, we would expect that those business accomplishments more clearly
linked to entrepreneurship in the literature and/or more highly ranked by our panel of
experts may have a higher influence on entrepreneurial self-image than those that are less
highly ranked (see Tables 2 and 3).
Hypothesis 1: People with certain business accomplishments (e.g., the entrepreneurial
activities as proposed by Vesper)
15
will report a higher entrepreneurial self-image than those
without such accomplishments.
We further argue that gender can have both a direct and an indirect effect on
entrepreneurial self-image. The indirect effect refers to differences between men and
women with respect to business accomplishments that lead, in turn, to differences in their
entrepreneurial self-image (arrows 1 and 2 combined in Fig. 1), whereas the direct effect
refers to gender differences in self-image that cannot be attributed to differences in business
accomplishments (arrow 3 in Fig. 1). The direct effect is the effect of gender on
entrepreneurial self-image when controlling for the effects of business accomplishments.
The model builds on previous research efforts distinguishing between direct and indirect
gender effects in other areas of entrepreneurial behavior, such as financing (Verheul and
Thurik, 2001).
As discussed earlier in the paper, women tend to underrate their skills or performance as
compared to men. They often do not take credit for success and attribute it to external factors
or luck. Moreover, when tasks and roles are perceived as more masculine than feminine,
women are more likely to underestimate their competencies in these areas. Irrespective of
how it is measured, entrepreneurship is often perceived as more masculine than feminine, so
that women may be expected to perceive of themselves less as entrepreneurs. However, past
research also shows that women are less likely to own and run a business than men.
Moreover, as they tend to focus on quality (Chaganti and Parasuraman, 1996; Brush, 1992),
women are expected to be involved less often in managing a high-growth or large business.
This leads to the formulation of Hypothesis 2a, representing the direct effect of gender on
entrepreneurial self-perception (arrow 3 in Fig. 1) and Hypothesis 2b, predicting an indirect
effect of gender on entrepreneurial self-image (arrows 1 and 2 combined in Fig. 1), with
business accomplishments posited as (partially) mediating that effect. To summarize, we
formulate Hypotheses 2a and 2b as follows:
Hypothesis 2a: Women have a lower entrepreneurial self-image than men, controlling for
their particular business accomplishments (the direct effect).
Hypothesis 2b: Women have a lower entrepreneurial self-image than men due to
differences in particular business accomplishments (the indirect effect). That is, business
15
In addition to the entrepreneurial activities of Vesper’s typology in Table 1, in the empirical analysis, we
include other activities (i.e., Owner, Service Provider, and Family Business) to create a better insight into the
influence of activity on entrepreneurial self-perception (see Table 3).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 498
accomplishments partially mediate the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial
self-image.
7. Ranking business accomplishments as entrepreneurial behaviors according to an
expert panel
7.1. Method
To validate the earlier proposed (literature) ranking of business accomplishments, we
make use of an expert panel, including 216 respondents, each of whom were asked
to give their opinion about the same list of business accomplishments used in the
rest of the study (see Table 3).
16
The classification of business accomplishments
is based on the entrepreneurial typology as proposed by Vesper (1999), presented
Table 4
Ranking business accomplishments as ‘‘entrepreneurial behaviors’’ according to an expert panel (n = 162)
Business
accomplishment
Mean Standard
deviation
% rated
‘1’, ‘2’
by experts
a
% rated
‘1’
by experts
a
Literature
ranking
(Table 2)
(1) Founder 1.27 0.62 93.8 80.2 1
(2) Intrapreneur 1.95 0.99 73.9 40.4 3 (tie)
(3) Innovator 2.06 1.01 70.6 34.4 2
(4) Take-off artist 2.14 1.01 67.7 29.7 3 (tie)
(5) Franchisee 2.23 1.11 62.7 31.6 5 (tie)
(6) Runner 2.37 1.03 55.9 21.7 5 (tie)
(7) Turnaround artist 2.46 1.08 51.9 21.5 8
(8) Acquirer 2.58 1.21 50.3 21.7 5 (tie)
(9) Family business 2.82 1.20 36.9 17.2 ?
(10) Champion 2.97 1.15 21.3 13.0 9
(11) Owner 3.12 1.13 19.6 9.2 ?
(12) Industry captain 3.13 1.11 24.2 8.1 10
(13) Service provider 3.31 1.14 19.0 9.5 11
a
Experts were asked to rate whether or not each business accomplishment was viewed as an example of
entrepreneurial behavior on a five-point scale where ‘1’ =definitely; ‘2’= probably; ‘3’ = maybe; ‘4’ = don’t think
so; ‘5’= no.
16
Questionnaires were distributed to international experts on six different occasions: (1) Research in
Entrepreneurship and Government Policy (Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School), Leuven, 27 August 2002
(29 respondents), (2) the 29th International Small Business Congress (RAI International Congress and Exhibition
Centre), Amsterdam, 27–30 October 2002 (33 respondents), (3) the opening of the Rotterdam Incubation Centre
Area010 (World Trade Centre Rotterdam), 5 November 2002 (43 respondents), (4) the 25th ISBA National Small
Firms Policy and Research Conference (Brighton Business School), Brighton 13–15 November 2002 (25
respondents), (5) the RENT XVI (Research in Entrepreneurship and Small Business) Conference (Universitat
Autonoma de Barcelona), Barcelona, 21–22 November 2002 (64 respondents), and (6) the UKBI 4th National
Incubation Conference, Edinburgh, 25–26 November 2002 (22 respondents).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 499
in Table 1. The following business accomplishments: Founder, Acquirer, Runner, Take-
Off Artist, Turnaround Artist, Intrapreneur, Innovator, Industry Captain, and Champion,
are drawn directly from Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology. Three additional business
accomplishments (i.e., Owner, Service Provider, and Family Business) are included
in the analysis to create insight into the impact of the different business accomplish-
ments on Entrepreneurial Self-Image. We also added the distinction between starting a
new business from scratch (i.e., Founder) versus starting a franchise business (i.e.,
Franchisee).
Respondents in the expert panel were asked to indicate the extent to which each of the
business accomplishments listed in Table 3 is an example of entrepreneurship or
entrepreneurial behavior according to the following scale: (1) definitely; (2) probably;
(3) maybe; (4) don’t think so; (5) no; and (6) don’t know.
17
Respondents were
considered ‘experts’, and were included in the study, if they had been working either
as an academic or practitioner in the field of entrepreneurship for at least one year.
18
Of
the 216 respondents, 162 were included as experts in the study.
19
7.2. Results of the expert panel study
Expert panel scores for each of the business accomplishments are displayed in Table 4. The
ranking of the accomplishments according to the experts appears fairly similar to the rankings
derived from a review of the literature (see Table 4, last column). Starting a (nonfranchise)
business from scratch (i.e., Founder) is considered, by far, the most entrepreneurial, (with a
score of 1.27), followed in descending order of mean, by Intrapreneur (1.95), Innovator
(2.06), Take-Off Artist (2.14), Franchisee (2.23) and Runner (2.37). At least half of the expert
raters also consider Turnaround Artist and Acquirer as ‘probable’ or ‘definite’ examples of
entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial behavior. At the other extreme, only about 20% of the
respondents ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ consider Service Provider, Champion, or Owner as
examples of entrepreneurship. Twenty-five percent of the expert panel respondents ‘probably’
or ‘definitely’ consider Industry Captain entrepreneurial. Family Business receives a higher
rating, with a mean of 2.82, and with 36.9% ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ considering it an
example of entrepreneurial behavior. Because all 13 business accomplishment items are
viewed as either ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ an example of entrepreneurial behavior by almost
20% of the respondents in the expert panel, we decided to include all business accomplish-
ments in further exploratory analyses based on the alumni panel dataset.
17
The answer: (6) ‘‘don’t know’’ was coded missing.
18
Practitioners include the following: government officials or policymakers, consultants or service providers
(e.g., bankers, accountants, or lawyers). Academics include researchers and/or instructors at the university level,
excluding students. In an additional analysis, academics and practitioners were separated into two subsamples but
the rank orderings remained essentially the same. Hence, the combined means are reported here.
19
The distribution of the 162 respondents is as follows: 18 (Area010 in WTC, Rotterdam), 23 (Vlerick Leuven
Gent Management School, Leuven), 28 (ISBC, Amsterdam), 56 (RENT XVI, Barcelona), 21 (ISBA, Brighton),
and 16 (UKBI, Edinburgh).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 500
8. Testing the proposed model and hypotheses
8.1. Method
8.1.1. Data source and sample characteristics
To test the relationships between gender, business accomplishments, and entrepreneurial
self-perception, about 2000 questionnaires were sent to various subsamples of alumni at a
large Midwestern public university in the United States: 512 to MBA graduates (72 or 14% of
which responded); 1200 to alumni identified as either a president or CEO in the Dun and
Bradstreet database (118 or 10% of which responded); and 283 to recent graduates who had
enrolled in an entrepreneurship course while at college (17 or 9% of which responded). Of
these questionnaires, 331 were returned to sender, and 212 responded, of which 5 were
unusable due to incomplete information. Of the total sample, 148 are male and 59 are female.
The sample is nonrandom, but still useful from an exploratory standpoint.
Sample selection was hampered by the fact that in spite of the university’s age (about
150 years old), as with many public universities of its type, the university kept incomplete
information of its alumni. It had only recently set up an alumni office to track graduates.
Selected subsamples were chosen to increase the likelihood that alumni would indeed be
business founders and owners. The research team sent a cover letter, with an enclosed
stamped return envelope, explaining that the Business Faculty of the university was interested
in gathering additional information about the activities of its alumni. Although alumni were
asked to complete the questionnaire regardless of whether or not they were a business owner,
the letter also indicated that the purpose of the project was to identify alumni who had either
started or run their own companies and also to identify alumni who might be eligible for
recognition for their entrepreneurial achievements by the university.
The relatively low response rate for the overall population may be explained by
several factors. First, due to the specific topic of the survey, and especially because few
questionnaires were returned incomplete, there is the likelihood of a self-selection bias in
that most of those responding were able to report one or more business accomplish-
ments to his or her credit.
20
In hindsight, the content of the cover letter—which was
constructed not only for research but also nonresearch purposes—as well as the content
of the survey itself—a two-page survey, which in addition to background questions
(name, address, educational history, gender, and age) was primarily aimed at identifying
business accomplishments—likely skewed the response rate toward those individuals
who already perceived of themselves as entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, the responses are of
sufficient range to warrant inclusion in further analysis (see Table 5 for report of means
and standard deviations).
20
This is supported by the fact that about 60% of the respondents reported having founded their own firms,
which is higher than expected in the general population. For instance, Delmar and Davidsson (2000), referring to a
U.S. sample from Reynolds (1997), indicate that 37.5% of the respondents reported involvement in any start-up or
small business experience. The actual percentage of people having founded a business in that sample is likely to be
even smaller.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 501
The low response rate may be further explained by the fact that letters were sent out to
company addresses instead of to individuals. In addition, due to budget constraints, only
one mailing of the survey was carried out (with no prior announcement or follow-up).
Finally, the relatively low response rate, especially for the subsample of recent graduates,
may be attributed to the mobility of recent graduates, resulting in letters arriving at the
wrong address.
Because the study was aimed at creating a better understanding of career patterns of
alumni, the sample consists primarily of highly educated individuals. In particular, of the 207
respondents, 193 (94.3%) hold at least a Bachelor’s diploma. Of these 193 respondents, 90
hold a Bachelor’s degree only, 102 also hold a Master’s degree and one holds a PhD. Only
five respondents hold no diploma, having been included in the sample although they never
graduated.
21
Of the people with a university degree (either Bachelor’s or Master’s),
approximately 60% report having specialized in business.
Finally, compared to other entrepreneurship data, our sample is characterized by a
relatively high average age, even among entrepreneurs. While, in our study, the average
age is 50 years, Evans and Leighton (1989a) report an average age of an entrepreneur of 40
years. Moreover, Storey (1994) reports that people typically start a business between 25 and
40 years of age. This is confirmed by Reynolds et al. (1999) who argue that countries with
more individuals in the age class of 25 to 44 years old tend to have higher start-up rates.
22
However, in our study, most of the respondents (approximately 50%) fall in the age category
of 46 to 55 years old (see Table 5). This relatively high age of the respondents in the sample
may be related to the self-selection bias alluded to earlier. That is, because respondents were
asked to indicate their business accomplishments (see Table 3), this may have influenced the
age distribution in the sample because younger people would be less likely to have
accomplishments to report, and, accordingly, may be more hesitant to fill in and return the
survey. In summary, given the nonrandomness of the sample, and the response bias regarding
age, education, and location, conclusions drawn from this study should be viewed as
exploratory in nature.
8.2. Description of variables
This section describes the variables used to test the model and hypotheses (see Table 3).
8.2.1. Business accomplishments
The business accomplishments used for the expert panel study were also asked of
alumni study respondents. However, for the alumni, respondents were asked to check off
which activities they had either done in the past or were currently doing. A dummy
variable was created for each accomplishment that was checked off (0 =not checked;
1 =checked).
21
For the remainder of the respondents (i.e., nine respondents), data on education level are missing.
22
It should be borne in mind that Storey (1994) and Reynolds et al. (1999) make use of start-up samples,
where individuals are likely to be younger.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 502
Table 5
Pearson correlation between all variables for the total sample
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
(1) Entrepreneurial
self-image
1
(2) Gender À.23** 1
(3) Corporate
entrepreneur
.08 À.04 1
(4) Small business
person
.56** À.18** .11 1
(5) Acquirer .16* À.19** .18* .24** 1
(6) Turnaround
artist
À.02 À.18* .18* .14* .36** 1
(7) Franchisee .08 À.06 .04 À.001 À.05 .17* 1
(8) Take-off artist .13 À.11 .38** .33** .32** .23** À.08 1
(9) Industry captain .16* À.15* .26** .28** .16* .24** À.05 .36** 1
(10) Service
provider
.09 À.02 .13 .08 .11 .07 À.07 .14* .16* 1
(11) Family
business
.12 .06 À.002 .24** .03 .03 À.04 À.06 À.03 .09 1
(12) Age .20** À.22** .02 .27** .19** .12 .19** À.004 .02 À.01 À.07 1
(13) Education
level
À.31** À.03 .06 À.30** À.14* À.09 .07 À.13 À.10 .04 À.16* À.05 1
(14) Business
degree
À.34** À.12 .07 À.29** À.04 .01 À.07 .02 .06 .02 À.11 À.25** .33** 1
(15) Introduction
course
À.16* .20** À.11 À.21** À.13 À.01 À.06 À.09 À.07 À.06 .13 À.45** À.16* .05 1
Mean 3.76 0.29 0.22 0.43 0.25 0.13 0.03 0.17 0.05 0.13 0.23 4.57 1.50 0.61 0.08
Standard deviation 1.57 0.45 0.29 0.36 0.43 0.33 0.18 0.37 0.23 0.34 0.42 1.00 0.56 0.49 0.28
n 198 207 206 206 206 206 206 206 206 206 206 207 198 201 207
*Correlation is significant at the .05 level (two-tailed).
**Correlation is significant at the .01 level (two-tailed).
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8.2.2. Gender
Gender is measured using a single self-report item on the questionnaire.
8.2.3. Control variables
According to human capital theorists (Becker, 1964), knowledge increases the cognitive
ability of an individual, resulting in more efficient and effective behavior. Davidsson and Honig
(2003) suggest that individuals with higher levels of human capital are more self-confident.
Although human capital has been studied in the context of entrepreneurial behavior and success
(Evans and Leighton, 1989b; Bellu et al., 1990; Bates, 1995; Gimeno et al., 1997; Manolova et
al., 2002), it has not been investigated in the context of (entrepreneurial) self-perception. People
with higher levels of human capital may be expected to have a more highly developed self-
perception, being aware of their own capabilities. A distinction can be made between different
types of knowledge—tacit versus explicit (Polyani, 1966)—and, accordingly, between differ-
ent types of learning or education. Davidsson and Honig (2003) refer to formal (e.g., university
education), informal (e.g., work experience), and nonformal education (e.g., specific training).
In the present study, we include the following human capital factors: education level,
business degree (whether at the Bachelor’s or Master’s level), and introduction course (i.e.,
whether or not the respondent had taken an introductory course in entrepreneurship while at
the university). In addition, we include age of the respondent as a control variable. Because
experience tends to increase with age, we want to separate these two effects.
8.3. Data analysis
In an effort to reduce the number of business accomplishment items to meaningful scales,
we first perform a factor analysis with the alumni dataset, using principal components
analysis and a Varimax rotated solution to identify independent factors.
The relationship between business accomplishments and entrepreneurial self-image,
represented by Hypothesis 1 (arrow 2 in Fig. 1), is tested with Pearson product –moment
correlation coefficients and is investigated in the regression analyses. Hypothesis 2a (repre-
senting the direct gender effect) and Hypothesis 2b (representing the indirect gender effect) are
tested through a series of linear regressions introducing the explanatory variables (gender,
business accomplishments, and controls) in blocks, comparing their respective contributions.
One can test for the mediating effect of variable, m ( =business accomplishments), by
demonstrating that the relation between the proposed antecedent, x ( = gender), and conse-
quence, y ( =self-image), disappears if m is included in the model (James and Brett, 1984).
There are two accepted protocols proposed in the literature for testing for mediating effects. In
either approach, one must first test that the relationships between x and y, x and m, and m and
y are all significant in bivariate tests of correlation. In the next step, according to the James
and Brett (1984) procedure, m can be seen as completely mediating the relationship between x
and y if the added effect of x (DR
x
2
) in the model, y = f (m,x), is not significant when x is added
as the last block. An alternate approach, outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986), and used for
instance by Nerkar et al. (1996), proposes to compare the results of the model, y =f (x), with
those of the model, y = f (x,m). In this latter method, to support the inference that m
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 504
completely mediates the effect of x on y, the unstandardized coefficient B
x
should be
significant in the model, y = f (x), but not significant in the model, y = f (x,m). Furthermore,
the unstandardized coefficient B
m
in the model, y =f (x,m) should be significant. In the present
study, we will follow the James and Brett (1984) procedure.
Throughout the paper, we use both one- and two-tailed hypotheses. As critical values of
the one-tailed test procedures always exceed that of the two-tailed test procedures, we leave
out the one-tailed results for ease of presentation. The present study is exploratory in nature,
and although we hypothesize a particular direction in some cases, we do not rule out the
possibility that effects can be in either direction.
9. Results
9.1. Factor analysis and scale formation for business accomplishments
Table 6 presents a seven-factor solution for the different business accomplishment items
included in the questionnaire. Although the eigenvalues for Factors 6 and 7 are relatively low
Table 6
Factor analysis matrix of business accomplishments
a
Business Factors
accomplishment
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Small
business
person
Corporate
entrepreneur
Acquirer/
turnaround
artist
Franchisee Industry
captain
Service
provider
Family
business
Founder .62 À.21 À.18 À.19 .40 À.09 .12
Intrapreneur .15 .65 .17 À.07 .12 .10 .05
Innovator À.05 .78 .12 À.02 .09 À.18 À.05
Take-off artist .42 .43 .33 À.16 .15 .13 À.36
Franchisee .06 À.01 .004 .93 À.05 À.05 À.05
Runner .81 .10 .22 .12 À.04 .15 À.05
Turnaround artist À.06 .08 .67 .35 .42 .02 .12
Acquirer .22 .12 .82 À.12 .12 .08 À.02
Family business .18 .02 .04 À.06 À.05 .08 .91
Champion .001 .66 À.31 .28 À.05 .34 .06
Owner .72 .14 .09 .07 .12 À.14 .28
Industry captain .17 .22 .09 À.05 .83 .11 À.10
Service provider .01 .03 .08 À.06 .10 .92 .06
Eigenvalues 2.87 1.62 1.21 1.19 1.02 0.92 0.79
Cronbach a
b
.64 .52 .51 – – – –
N= 207
Only factor loadings z.1 are presented. Factor loadings z.6 are highlighted in bold.
a
Principal component analysis, Varimax rotated.
b
Cronbach a is computed including the highlighted activities.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 505
(0.92 and 0.79, respectively), seven factors are specified to have a better view of the
independence of several of the business accomplishments, providing support for the decision
to separately include these accomplishments in further analyses. When items with the highest
factor loadings (>.60) for each factor are combined into scales, the resulting Cronbach a
reliability coefficients are .64, .52, and .51 for Factors 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Although these
reliabilities are not particularly high, Factors 1 and 2, in particular, appear fairly reasonable to
interpret on the basis of their content. Factors 4 to 7 are made up of one item only. Although
Acquirer and Turnaround Artist load on the same factor (Factor 3), they are included separately
in the analyses because of low face validity for the factor: acquiring a business does not
necessarily imply that the purchased firm is in distress and needs to be ‘saved’. In addition,
someone saving a failing business is not necessarily a business owner, but can be a manager.
The business accomplishment Take-Off Artist is omitted from further analyses because it does
not clearly load on any of the seven factors specified. Furthermore, Take-Off Artist is highly
correlated with several of the other items or factors, which would have resulted in a problem of
multicollinearity if included in the overall regression analysis.
Eight business accomplishment variables are thus identified for further analyses: Small
Business Person (consisting of Founder, Runner, and Owner), Corporate Entrepreneur
Table 7
Results of regression analyses on entrepreneurial self-image
Explanatory variables B value t value DR
2a
Constant 4.64** 7.03 –
Controls 0.21**/0.07**
Age À0.07 À0.65
Education level À0.51** À2.65
Business degree À0.63** À2.89
Introduction course À0.42 À1.06
Business accomplishments 0.32**/0.16**
Small business person 1.72** 5.29
Corporate entrepreneur 0.44 1.28
Acquirer 0.14 0.55
Turnaround artist À0.94** À2.75
Franchisee 0.94 1.82
Industry captain À0.02 À0.05
Service provider 0.29 0.95
Family business À0.05 À0.21
Gender À0.67** À3.07 0.05**/0.03**
R
2
.413
Adjusted R
2
.369
F statistic 9.36**
B values refer to the unstandardized coefficients of the explanatory variables.
The unstandardized coefficient (B) for the influence of gender only on Entrepreneurial Self-Image amounts to
À.78** ( P
Drawing on Bems psychological theory of self-perception, this paper presents and tests a model that examines the impact of business accomplishments and gender on entrepreneurial.
Business accomplishments, gender and
entrepreneurial self-image
Ingrid Verheul
1
, Lorraine Uhlaner
1
, Roy Thurik
*
Centre for Advanced Small Business Economics (CASBEC) and European Family Business Institute (EFBI),
Rotterdam School of Economics, Erasmus University Rotterdam, P.O. Box 1738,
3000 DR Rotterdam, The Netherlands
EIM Business and Policy Research, P.O. Box 7001, 2701 AA Zoetermeer, The Netherlands
Received 25 January 2002; received in revised form 30 March 2004; accepted 30 March 2004
Abstract
Drawing on Bem’s psychological theory of self-perception, this paper presents and tests a model
that examines the impact of business accomplishments and gender on entrepreneurial self-image and
explores the definition of entrepreneurship according to Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology. Regression
techniques are used to identify those business accomplishments that university alumni associate with
self-perceptions of entrepreneurship. Experience as a small business person (founding, running, and/or
owning a small business) most clearly predicts entrepreneurial self-image. Results also support
predictions of both direct and indirect effects of gender as well as direct effects of education and
business degree. Results of a separate expert panel study are used to rank business accomplishments
according to degree of entrepreneurship. Results of both studies reveal stark contrasts in the implied
definition of entrepreneurship between entrepreneurship experts (academic and practitioner alike) and
the general business community (as represented by the alumni). This raises questions about the
0883-9026/$ – see front matter D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jbusvent.2004.03.002
* Corresponding author. Rotterdam School of Economics, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, 3000 Rotterdam,
The Netherlands. Tel.: +31-10-4081398, +31-79-3430200 (EIM Business and Policy Research); fax: +31-10-
4089146.
E-mail addresses: [email protected] (I. Verheul), [email protected] (L. Uhlaner), [email protected]
(R. Thurik).
1
Tel.: +31-10-4081398, +31-79-3430200 (EIM Business and Policy Research); fax: +31-10-4089146.
Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518
meaning of the term ‘‘entrepreneurship’’, what the word ‘‘entrepreneur’’, in particular, conveys to the
general public, and the implications for practice and future research.
D 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Self-image; Entrepreneurial behavior; Business accomplishment; Gender
1. Executive summary
The objective of the paper is to further our understanding of the concept of ‘‘entrepre-
neur’’. It provides insight into the perception of the concept by members of the general
business community (business people) and compares this perception to that of entrepreneur-
ship specialists (academics, policymakers and other professionals in the field of entrepreneur-
ship). The paper seeks an answer to the following research question: ‘‘Do certain
characteristics of individuals influence their entrepreneurial self-image, i.e., the extent to
which they perceive themselves to be entrepreneurs?’’ The primary set of characteristics, the
respondent’s business accomplishments, is derived from a typology of entrepreneurial
activities as proposed by Vesper (1999). The paper draws upon Bem’s (1972) psychological
theory of self-perception, positing that behavior influences self-image. Gender is used as a
second individual characteristic to predict entrepreneurial self-image. The study tests for both
direct gender effects (controlling for entrepreneurial activity) and indirect gender effects
(through entrepreneurial activity) on entrepreneurial self-image.
The relationships between gender, business accomplishments, and entrepreneurial self-
image are investigated using an exploratory study based on a nonrandom sample of 207
alumni of a large Midwestern U.S. university. As a measure of entrepreneurial self-image,
respondents are asked whether they would call themselves an entrepreneur. They are also
asked which of a series of business accomplishments they had either done in the past or are
currently doing, representing different aspects of Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology (i.e.,
Founder, Acquirer, Runner, Take-Off Artist, Turnaround Artist, Intrapreneur, Innovator,
Industry Captain, and Champion) as well as selected additional categories (i.e., Owner,
Service Provider, and Family Business). For further analysis, the number of business
accomplishments is reduced to meaningful scales using principal components analysis.
Regression analysis is used to identify those business accomplishments that university
alumni associate with self-perceptions of entrepreneurship. We find that entrepreneurial
self-perception is influenced by certain business accomplishments defined in the literature
as being entrepreneurial but not others. Business owners, founders, and small to mid-sized
business managers (combined in this study’s Small Business Person scale) are most likely
to describe themselves as entrepreneurs. On the other hand, Corporate Entrepreneurs
(including intrapreneurs, innovators, and champions) are not likely to call themselves
entrepreneurs.
A separate expert panel study is set up to rank business accomplishments according to
degree of entrepreneurship. Comparing the results of the expert panel study to that of the
alumni study reveals a divergence of opinion in what is entrepreneurial according to the
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 484
experts and which business accomplishments create an identity as an entrepreneur among the
general business community.
Gender, although weaker in its explanatory power, also appears to provide added
explanation to the model, most clearly as a separate direct effect on entrepreneurial self-
perception, but with a likely indirect effect (through Business Accomplishments) as well. In
particular, we find that women tend to select different activities than men, choosing less
frequently those activities both genders view as entrepreneurial. In addition, women are less
likely to perceive of themselves as entrepreneurs, independently of activities undertaken. It
may be that women also value the same business accomplishments differently than men do,
although the present study cannot determine the extent of this third gender effect. In addition
to the effects of business accomplishments and gender, the regression results reveal
significant effects of certain human capital variables (education and business degree) on
entrepreneurial self-perception.
Although some of the gender effects are small in absolute terms, the study demonstrates
the importance of including gender as an explanatory variable in general research questions of
interest in the field of entrepreneurship. At a more practical level, if these differences hold up
in follow-up research, different guidelines for attracting, supporting, and counseling female
entrepreneurs and small business owners should be considered by directors of small business
service centers and other service providers.
2. Introduction
The present paper is motivated in part by the following question: ‘‘What is an entrepreneur?’’
This seemingly simple question, which is likely to be asked numerous times to most of our
readers in the course of their professional work, continues to spark debate and disagreement
within the scholarly community. The present paper is neither intended nor is likely to end that
debate. However, it does attempt to provide new insights about the way in which the term
‘‘entrepreneur’’ is perceived by members of the general business community (i.e., business
people) and how this perception compares to that of entrepreneurship specialists (i.e.,
academics, policymakers, or other professionals active in the field of entrepreneurship). The
outcomes of our research are not meant necessarily to be used to further define the scholarly
domain of entrepreneurship, i.e., what entrepreneurship researchers should study to gain
knowledge about this phenomenon (see Davidsson, 2003). However, our results may help
clarify what the general business community and perhaps society-at-large, may be thinking
about when we use the termentrepreneur, thus expediting communication between scholars and
those groups.
2
2
Some researchers may wish to further consider these multiple perspectives in light of the scientific
paradigm of realism, i.e., the view that although there is a ‘‘real’’ world to discover, it can only be
comprehended imperfectly via investigation and triangulation from different viewpoints or data sources (Healy
and Perry, 2000).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 485
To further our understanding of the popular view of the concept of entrepreneur, the primary
research question of this paper is as follows: ‘‘Do certain characteristics of individuals influence
their entrepreneurial self-image, i.e., the extent to which they perceive themselves to be
entrepreneurs?’’ The primary set of characteristics, the respondent’s business accomplishments,
is derived from a typology of entrepreneurial activities proposed by Vesper (1999). Although
grounded in social –psychological research, unique to this study is the focus of the direct
influence of business behaviors on entrepreneurial self-perceptions, as well as the influence of
gender on those self-perceptions.
In order to validate the set of business accomplishments used in our study to represent
activities with entrepreneurial potential, we include an expert panel study to supplement the
review of the entrepreneurship behavior literature. Although one can argue that there is a two-
way relationship between business accomplishments and entrepreneurial self-image, the focus
in the present paper is on the influence of behavior on entrepreneurial self-image. From a
theoretical perspective, our study is a new application of well-established psychological
theories linking behavior and perception (James, 1890, 1950; Bem, 1972; Bandura, 1977,
1986). Moreover, to our knowledge, this is the first time that Vesper’s (1999) entrepreneurial
typology is tested and used in empirical research.
Gender is a second individual characteristic used to predict entrepreneurial self-image. At the
macro level, female and male entrepreneurs appear to differ with respect to the type of
entrepreneurial activity they engage in and the way in which they manage this activity (Verheul
and Thurik, 2001; U.S. Small Business Administration, 1995; OECD, 1998; Carter et al., 1997;
Kalleberg and Leicht, 1991; Fischer et al., 1993). In addition, the management literature
indicates that, as compared to men, women tend to underrate their own performance (Wohlers
and London, 1989; Lindeman et al., 1995). Accordingly, we expect to find an indirect effect of
gender (through entrepreneurial activity) on entrepreneurial self-image, as well as a direct
gender effect (controlling for entrepreneurial activity). Several control variables, including age,
education level, and business education, are also examined for possible effects on entrepre-
neurial self-image.
2.1. Structure of the paper
The paper is structured as follows. First, we introduce the concept of (entrepreneurial) self-
perception and its relationship to business behaviors. Within this section, we elaborate on the
theories linking behavior and self-perception. Second, we provide an overview of business
accomplishments or behaviors that are classified as entrepreneurial in the literature, including a
discussion of Vesper’s (1999) entrepreneurial typology. Using Vesper’s entrepreneurial
typology as a basis, we propose a ranking of business accomplishments according to the
degree of entrepreneurship based on the extant literature. Subsequently, we reviewthe literature
regarding the relationship between gender and entrepreneurship, including business behaviors
as well as entrepreneurial self-image. On the basis of the theoretical discussion, we introduce a
model and hypotheses for explaining entrepreneurial self-perception from activity and gender.
In the subsequent section, we discuss the methodology and results for validating the
proposed ranking of business accomplishments according to degree of entrepreneurship,
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 486
based on the views of 162 respondents in an expert panel survey. Next, we present the
methodology and results for testing the model and hypotheses with an exploratory study,
based on a nonrandom data sample of 207 alumni of a large Midwestern U.S. university.
Final sections present discussion of the results, directions for future research and conclusions.
3. Business behaviors and entrepreneurial self-perception
This paper draws upon the world of self-concept. According to James (1890, 1950), the
‘empirical self’, consisting of a material, social and spiritual component, is the key to
understanding the experience of individuals.
3
In the present paper it is argued that people
come to know themselves by drawing information from their own behavior.
According to social learning theory, Bandura (1977, 1986) argues that there is
triadic reciprocal causation among behavior, cognitive and other personal factors and
the environment. This means that on the one hand, the environment and the perception
of both this environment and self by an individual can influence the individual’s
behavior. On the other hand, the behavior of an individual influences the environment
as well as the way in which he or she perceives of him- or herself and the
environment.
4
In addition to Bandura, in the psychology literature, Bem (1972)
provides evidence of behavioral influences on self-perception. More specifically, Bem’s
self-perception theory states that: ‘‘individuals come to ‘know’ their own attitudes,
emotions and other internal states partially by inferring them from observations of their
own overt behavior and/or the circumstances in which this behavior occurs’’ (Bem,
1972, p. 5).
The relationship between entrepreneurial activity and perception has been studied mainly
from the viewpoint that perception influences entrepreneurial activity (Boyd and Vozikis,
1994; Scherer et al., 1990, 1989; Krueger and Brazeal, 1994; Krueger, 1993; Chen et al.,
1998). These studies focus upon and refer to the concept of self-efficacy as the perceived
personal ability to perform a given task. In that context, it has been suggested that individuals
make career choices based upon their perception of and the associated fit with a certain
profession (Fagenson and Marcus, 1991). Chen et al. (1998, p. 297) argue that ‘‘. . . they
assess their personal capabilities against the requirements of different occupations’’. The
choice to engage in entrepreneurial activity is thus interpreted as dependent upon whether
individuals can identify with the characteristics and behaviors that are associated with
entrepreneurship.
In the present study, we take the opposite perspective and explain entrepreneurial self-
perception by way of prior business accomplishments (which may vary in the degree to
which they are perceived as being entrepreneurial by different individuals). Although
Bem’s self-perception theory has been used extensively in other types of research
3
See Smith (1992) for a detailed discussion of William James’s theory of self.
4
‘‘This reciprocality does not mean that the different influences are of equal strength’’ (Wood and Bandura,
1989, p. 362).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 487
applications
5
within the field of entrepreneurship, relatively few empirical studies have
focused upon explaining entrepreneurial self-perception from behavior. However, van
Gelderen (2000) provides some evidence to support the claim that entrepreneurial
behavior influences self-perception. His study investigates what people consider entrepre-
neurial about their behavior.
4. Definitions and typologies of entrepreneurial behaviors
Definitions of entrepreneurship vary widely (He´bert and Link, 1989; van Praag, 1999;
Lumpkin and Dess, 1996). Kaufmann and Dant (1998) identify the following three classes of
definitions: (1) those based on traits or qualities; (2) those based on the role or function of the
entrepreneur in the economic process; and (3) those based on the behavior or activities of
entrepreneurs. For the purpose of our paper, we take a behavioral approach to studying
entrepreneurship, consistent with the mainstream scholarly perspective (Gartner, 1990).
4.1. Entrepreneurial behavior or activities
A wide range of business behaviors has variously been classified in the literature as
‘‘entrepreneurial’’, including starting a business (i.e., new venture creation), innovation,
business ownership, business growth and size achievement, and managing a large business. In
this section, we will make a distinction between these different types of entrepreneurial
activity.
Early on in the development of the field of entrepreneurship, many scholars propagated the
view that new venture creation is at the heart of entrepreneurship (Chandler, 1990; Gartner,
1990, 1989, 1985; Low and MacMillan, 1988; McCLelland, 1961; Schumpeter, 1934;
Vesper, 1980). The problem with this notion of entrepreneurship is that new ventures are
likely to vary with respect to growth realization and innovativeness. Along with ‘‘newness’’,
both growth (Carland et al., 1984; Dunkelberg and Cooper, 1982) and innovation (Hornaday,
1992; Schumpeter, 1934) are considered essential components of entrepreneurial behavior.
Building on the concept of newness, but recognizing the need to view entrepreneurial
behavior more broadly, Gartner et al. (1989) argue that most studies of new venture creation
tend to ignore that there are other ways to achieve business ownership than through starting a
new business from scratch, for instance, through the acquisition of an established business.
5
Self-perception theory has been applied extensively to social scientific research since the mid-1970s,
but primarily to empirical research in applied social psychology (Dolinski, 2000; Uranowitz, 1975; Weiner,
1974) and clinical psychology (Robak, 2001; Schnall et al., 2002; Haemmerlie and Montgomery, 1987). It
has been compared and contrasted with cognitive dissonance theory to explain human attitudes (Weiner,
1974). Self-perception theory has been applied not only to self-perceptions of both physical and cognitive
behavior (see Damrad-Frye and Laird, 1989). Studies generally confirm predictions derived from the theory.
More recently, it has been applied to marketing and consumer behavior research (Forehand, 1998; Laverie et
al., 2002).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 488
Cooper and Dunkelberg (1986) also distinguish between different paths to business owner-
ship, including starting a new business, purchasing or inheriting a business and being
promoted or brought in by existing owners. Building on these notions, Lumpkin and Dess
(1996, p. 136) argue that ‘‘the essential act of entrepreneurship is new entry’’, defining new
entry as ‘‘entering new or established markets with new or existing goods or services’’. This
can be achieved ‘‘by starting a business, through an existing business or internal corporate
venturing’’ (Lumpkin and Dess, 1996, p. 136). Implicit in this definition of new entry is the
notion that entrepreneurship can exist within large businesses. This type of entrepreneurship
is often referred to as corporate entrepreneurship or intrapreneurship where new ideas and
responsibilities are implemented in existing, large businesses (Wennekers and Thurik, 1999;
Stopford and Baden-Fuller, 1994; Stevenson and Jarillo, 1990). In this respect, ‘‘entrepre-
neurial activities in existing, large firms often take place by mimicking smallness’’ and
‘‘entrepreneurship occurs irrespective of firm size’’ (Wennekers and Thurik, 1999, p. 33).
Other researchers even argue that managing a business is an entrepreneurial activity.
According to McClelland (1965), managers can display entrepreneurial behavior in their
wage jobs by taking responsibility for their actions and decisions and creatively solving
problems. Moreover, Brandsta¨tter (1997) stresses that entrepreneurial behavior is important in
all leading positions within higher levels of organizations.
4.2. Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology
In his keynote address at the 1999 Conference of the United States Association for
Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE), Karl Vesper proposes an entrepreneu-
rial typology, embracing a broad range of these themes in entrepreneurial behavior
(Vesper, 1999; see Table 1). Vesper does not try to rank these activities, but instead
acknowledges that different types of entrepreneurial activity exist side by side (see also
Cunningham and Lischeron, 1991). Vesper argues that researchers should adopt a view
that separately identifies different types of entrepreneurs rather than solving the conun-
drum: ‘‘What is an entrepreneur’’?
Table 1
Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology
Name/type Entrepreneurial activity
Starter Enters an independent business by creating a new one
Acquirer Enters an independent business by acquiring an ongoing concern
Runner Manages a small to medium business beyond start-up
Take-off artist Steers a company into a high-growth trajectory
Turnaround artist Saves a failing company
Innovator Makes something new happen that is not a company
Champion Supports innovator
Intrapreneur Takes initiative for business unit creation inside an established business
Industry captain Runs a big business
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 489
4.3. Degree of entrepreneurship
Although Vesper does not propose a ranking of entrepreneurial behaviors listed in his
proposed typology, other entrepreneurship researchers have suggested that different behaviors
or activities may represent different ‘degrees of entrepreneurship’ (Cooper and Dunkelberg,
1986). In particular, different activities may vary in degree of entrepreneurship, depending
upon underlying requirements or characteristics, such as opportunity perception (Kirzner,
1979), imagination (Shackle, 1979), creativity (Torrance, 1962), innovation (Schumpeter,
1934), risk-taking (Knight, 1921/71; Cantillon, 1931; Hull et al., 1980; Sexton and Bowman,
1985, 1986; Stewart et al., 1999; Begley, 1995; Stewart and Roth, 2001),
6
locus of control
(Perry et al., 1986; Rotter, 1966), need for achievement (McCLelland, 1961; Perry et al.,
1986), need for autonomy, initiative, and persistence.
For our study, we single out opportunity perception, risk-taking, and innovation as most
important in determining the degree of entrepreneurship. This selection is consistent with
results in Gartner’s (1990) study of the perceptions of the concept of entrepreneurship by
experts. In fact, in the results of a factor analysis reported in Gartner’s research, the three
factors explaining the greatest amount of variation include items emphasizing risk-taking,
innovation, and opportunity recognition (Gartner, 1990).
7
More specifically, although Gartner
6
Note however that other research on risk-taking has posited that risk-taking propensity is not a distinctive
feature of entrepreneurship. For instance, see the work of Brockhaus and Nord (1979), Brockhaus (1980), and
Brockhaus and Horwitz (1986).
7
The factor analysis clusters 90 attributes in a smaller set of factors (or ‘themes’). The eight-factor solution
explains about 67% of the variance in response (see Gartner, 1990).
Table 2
Ranking business accomplishments according to degree of entrepreneurship
a
Business accomplishments Entrepreneurial characteristics Score Rank
Opportunity perception Risk-taking Innovation
Founder
b
4 High 4 High 4 High 12 1
Innovator 4 High 2 Medium 4 High 10 2
Intrapreneur 4 High 2 Medium 3 Medium/high 9 3 (tie)
Take-off artist 4 High 2 Medium 3 Medium/high 9 3 (tie)
Acquirer 3 Medium/high 3 Medium/high 2 Medium 8 5 (tie)
Franchisee 3 Medium/high 3 Medium/high 2 Medium 8 5 (tie)
Runner 3 Medium/high 2 Medium 3 Medium/high 8 5 (tie)
Turnaround artist 3 Medium/high 2 Medium 2/3 Medium–medium/high 7.5 8
Champion 3 Medium/high 1/2 Low–medium 2 Medium 6.5 9
Industry captain 2 Medium 1 Low 1 Low 4 10
Service provider 2 Medium 1 Low 1 Low 4 10
Ownership Indeterminate 4 High Indeterminate ? ?
Family business Indeterminate Indeterminate Indeterminate ? ?
a
Rankings in this table are based on authors’ review of the literature.
b
We choose to use the term Founder instead of Vesper’s Starter as we make a distinction between starting a
business which is not a franchise (Founder) and starting a franchise firm (Franchisee) in this study’s analyses.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 490
(1990) labels the first factor, ‘‘entrepreneur’’, 6 of the 12 items associated with this factor
mention risk. Similarly, the second factor, labeled ‘‘innovation’’, includes a number of items
related to innovative activity. Finally, two of the most highly correlated items in the third
factor, labeled ‘‘organization creation’’, mention opportunity recognition. Consistent with
Gartner’s findings, we consider risk-taking, innovation, and opportunity perception as the
primary indicators for degree of entrepreneurship. In the remainder of this section, we review
the way in which each of these three characteristics relates to several of the activities listed in
Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology as well as other activities mentioned in the entrepreneur-
ship literature. At the end of this section, we present an initial rank ordering according to our
interpretation of the literature (see Table 2).
4.3.1. Founding a firm from ‘‘scratch’’
New venture creation, i.e., founding a firm from scratch (without any past history or
linkage to a parent company), is often viewed as involving the highest degree of entrepreneur-
ship. Founding a firm involves the processes of both perceiving an opportunity and acting
upon the perceived opportunity (Kirzner, 1979). It involves innovation because something is
created where nothing existed previously and resources are combined in a new way (Cooper
and Dunkelberg, 1986). According to Carland et al. (1984), an entrepreneurial venture is in
principle characterized by innovative practices.
8
In addition, the founder is willing to
personally absorb the risks involved in starting a new business (Cooper and Dunkelberg,
1986). Several scholars further argue that founders show higher risk-taking than nonfounders
(Begley, 1995; Begley and Boyd, 1987; Hull et al., 1980).
Based on the rather large variance among start-ups in the degree to which they have
innovative versus imitative strategies (Samuelsson, 2001; Aldrich, 1999), one could argue
that because many start-ups are imitative in nature, those should be excluded from the notion
of entrepreneurship or at least viewed as a separate category. However, Davidsson (2003)
formulates the argument for viewing imitative entry as ‘new’. He notes that such entry drives
the market process by giving consumers additional choices and challenging incumbent firms
to change their behavior in response to new competition. In addition, he points out that no
entrant is a perfect copy or ‘clone’ of an existing actor (Davidsson, 2003). In this sense, we
use innovativeness not exclusively to refer to new products, but also to new markets and
added value in the marketplace represented by the new firm.
4.3.2. Franchise start-up
A franchise start-up can be seen as an alternative to founding an independent firm
(Kaufmann, 1999; Williams, 1998). Shane and Hoy (1996) refer to franchising as a form of
cooperative entrepreneurship. Starting a franchise business can be considered less entrepre-
neurial than founding a firm from ‘scratch’ because it involves less innovation. Although a
franchisee runs the risk of introducing the franchisor’s concept into new markets, the potential
8
There may also be differences between innovative firms regarding their degree of entrepreneurship, for
instance, based on the contribution of innovation to firm growth. As Kirchoff (1994) notes, some innovations
catch on and lead to growth whereas others do not.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 491
for innovation is limited because maintenance of the franchisor’s concept is important
(Kaufmann and Dant, 1998). Moreover, starting a franchise business also involves less
opportunity perception and risk-taking because the market concept has already been
developed and tested, albeit not necessarily in the particular market where the entrepreneur
is planning to start the franchise business.
4.3.3. Acquisition
Purchasing an existing business was considered only a ‘‘slightly important’’ attribute in
Gartner’s study of expert definitions (Gartner, 1990). This may reflect a shift in the literature of
the past few decades towards viewing entrepreneurship as creating market impact or societal
value rather than as owning and running one’s own firm.
9
However, as a potential entrepre-
neurial activity, it is listed specifically in Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology and has been
included in various entrepreneurship research studies. Acquiring a business can be viewed as
entrepreneurial because the purchase of an established business is preceded by opportunity
perception. Although the acquirer is not involved in the founding of the business and the risk of
start-up is circumvented, risk-taking is involved as the business is operated at the purchaser’s
own cost and risk. However, there may be relatively little need for innovation because the
business is already established and resources have already been put to use. The extent to which
the acquirer is innovative depends upon his or her plans to implement changes, and to pursue
growth strategies, e.g., through entering new markets and/or developing new products (Cooper
and Dunkelberg, 1986). On the other hand, the purchase may be inspired by an innovative idea
the purchaser wants to implement to add value to the existing business. Because the purchaser
of a business can develop and implement his/her own ideas, the acquisition of an established
business may be more entrepreneurial than the purchase of a franchise where innovation tends
to be more limited. Acquisition may involve a healthy or a declining firm. When purchasing a
declining firm with the intent of saving it, the acquirer faces additional challenges because the
liabilities of the declining firm have to be translated or rendered into opportunities.
4.3.4. Intrapreneurship or corporate entrepreneurship
Like business founders, intrapreneurs can be considered entrepreneurial because they
introduce something new, albeit within a large business and its boundaries. Intrapreneurship
differs from other forms of entrepreneurship with respect to the context in which the
entrepreneurial act takes place. Like managers, intrapreneurs act on behalf of an existing
organization instead of themselves (Carrier, 1996). Because entrepreneurial ideas are
implemented within the context of an existing organization, the ultimate risk is borne by
the owner of the business instead of the initiator of the corporate venture. However, an
intrapreneur may risk the loss of his or her job or career disruption if the venture fails.
Furthermore, similar to other entrepreneurship ventures, successful corporate entrepreneur-
ship requires alertness to business opportunities (Cunningham and Lischeron, 1991).
Innovation may overlap but is not necessarily the same as intrapreneurship, in that it does
not necessarily require creation of a new venture. Innovation can also express itself in other
9
Per Davidsson, personal communication, 2003.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 492
ways, including changes to products and processes or even the development of new products
or processes within existing business units.
For innovations to be successful, organizations also need innovation champions, i.e.,
organization members who risk their own position to ensure the innovation’s success (Scho¨n,
1963; Burgelman, 1983; Shane, 1994). The champion sees and acknowledges the value of
adopting new ways to organize and combine resources. According to Howell and Higgins
(1990), champions show higher risk-taking and innovativeness than nonchampions within an
organization. The degree of risk-taking and innovativeness is likely to be dependent upon the
activities of the champion. Shane (1994) and Venkataraman et al. (1992) distinguish between
different championing activities and roles.
10
4.3.5. Ownership versus management
Several scholars have made a distinction between business owners and corporate managers
(Carland and Carland, 1992; Smith et al., 1988). Owners are believed to show higher risk-
taking than managers because their range of possibilities is larger and more uncertain (Bearse,
1982) and an owner has the ultimate responsibility for decisions (Gasse, 1982). Brandsta¨tter
(1997) argues that whether someone is seen as an entrepreneur is determined first by
ownership, then by decision-making power and leadership functions and finally by the size of
the company.
11
Hence, ownership is seen as more entrepreneurial than management,
irrespective of firm size or characteristics.
4.3.6. Management of small versus large firms
It may be argued that there are differences in the degree of entrepreneurship between
managers of different businesses. Different phases of a business involve different activities
and related risks (Churchill and Lewis, 1983; Greiner, 1972; Garnsey, 1998). Based on the
characteristics of opportunity perception, risk-taking and innovation one may propose that
managers of small, young, and high-growth firms are perceived as more entrepreneurial than
those of established large firms.
4.3.7. Tentative rankings based on the literature
On the basis of the underlying entrepreneurial characteristics of risk-taking, innovation,
and opportunity perception, we propose a tentative ranking of business accomplishments. In
addition to the business accomplishments previously mentioned, we include the category
10
Shane (1994) argues that champions provide people with autonomy from organizational norms and rules;
build coalitions to support the innovation with managers from different functional areas; build a decision-making
mechanism that includes all organization members; use informal means to persuade people to support the
innovation and protect the innovation teams from interference by the organizational hierarchy. Venkataraman et al.
(1992) distinguish between different types of champions, including champions of ideas, resource champions,
champions of opportunistic behavior, and champions of incorporation.
11
These conclusions are based on a study of IMAS (Institut fu¨r Markt und Socialanalyzen), focusing on
perceptions of what constitutes an entrepreneur by a sample of respondents drawn from the Austrian population in
1976 and 1986 (see Brandsta¨tter, 1997).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 493
‘service provider’ (e.g., accountant, banker, lawyer) as a type of anchor. Providing services to
the business sector would least likely be viewed as entrepreneurial, either by the general
public or by entrepreneurship scholars. We also include family business as a type of business
accomplishment, for exploratory reasons, although there is little evidence in the literature to
suggest that working in a family firm is more or less entrepreneurial than being involved in a
nonfamily firm.
The results of the ranking are presented in Table 2. The ranking is done as follows. For
three characteristics (opportunity perception, risk-taking, and innovation), we discriminate
between four levels (low, medium, medium–high, and high). We assign the values 1 through
4 to these levels, respectively. The score of the business accomplishments equals the sum of
these values. This leads to the ranking of business accomplishments as more or less
entrepreneurial in Table 2. This ranking is based on our interpretation of the characteristics
of the different entrepreneurial activities mentioned in the literature. On the basis of the
previous discussion and Table 2, it can be argued that founding a firm from scratch involves
the highest degree of entrepreneurship, followed by innovating behavior, intrapreneurship,
and managing a high-growth business (tied for third place), acquisition, starting a franchise
business, and managing a small business (tied for fifth place), saving a failing business,
supporting an innovator, and, finally, managing a large business and providing services to an
entrepreneur (tied for last place).
Because ownership can involve a start-up, acquisition or franchise formula, it is
difficult to determine the level of innovation involved. Accordingly, it is also difficult to
rank the level of opportunity perception required. Hence, although ownership is included
in the table, its ranking is left indeterminate. The ranking for family business is also left
indeterminate, as there is much variation between family businesses, their degree of
entrepreneurship depending upon, for instance, the size and phase of the business, and
innovative capacity and ability.
5. Gender and entrepreneurship
In addition to business accomplishments, this paper explores the impact of gender on
entrepreneurial self-image. This section summarizes past work on gender and entrepreneur-
ship, including research on women in business, as well as research linking gender and self-
perception in a business context.
5.1. Women in business
Statistics regarding the participation of women in entrepreneurship should be inter-
preted with caution. It has been argued that female start-up rates exceed those of men.
12
However, some of this increase is due to an overall increase of women in the labor
12
See Center for Women’s Business Researchhttp://www.womensbusinessresearch.org) and Carter (2000).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 494
market in most of the developed countries, including the United States. Despite the
reported increase in female start-up rates, women still constitute a minority of the total
number of self-employed people, accounting for approximately 25–35% of total business
ownership in many Western countries (Carter, 2000).
13
Reynolds et al. (2002) report that
throughout the 37 countries participating in the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, men
are 50% more likely to be involved in entrepreneurial activity than women.
14
In terms
of the proportion of workers who are self-employed, women participate at a lower rate
than men. For instance, in the United Kingdom, approximately 15% of the working
male population is self-employed, compared with only about 9% of the working female
population (Carter, 2000). Moreover, female-owned businesses have a lower performance
in a number of areas relative to male-owned firms. Women-owned firms tend to engage
in relatively underperforming sectors, such as retailing and services (U.S. Small Business
Administration, 1995; OECD, 1998; van Uxem and Bais, 1996), are smaller in size
(Carter et al., 1997; Kalleberg and Leicht, 1991; Fischer et al., 1993; Verheul and
Thurik, 2001), exhibit lower growth levels (Fischer et al., 1993; Hulshoff et al., 2001),
have a higher rate of discontinuing, and report lower profits (Carter et al., 1997).
Several reasons have been proposed to explain the performance differences between male-
and female-owned firms, including the level of relevant business experience (Cliff, 1998;
Cromie and Birley, 1992; Watkins and Watkins, 1983; Kalleberg and Leicht, 1991; Fischer
et al., 1993; Verheul and Thurik, 2001), the proportion of the total workweek committed to the
business (Brush, 1992; Goffee and Scase, 1985; Stigter, 1999), the propensity to take risks
(Verheul and Thurik, 2001; Sexton and Bowman-Upton, 1990; Masters and Meier, 1988), age
of the firm and the number of days a business operated (Watson, 2002), as well as the industry
women are involved in (Watson, 2002; Verheul and Thurik, 2001). Other reasons refer to
differences in values across gender, positing that women business owners are more likely to
value quality and other goals not directly related to growth and economic performance (Brush,
1992; Du Rietz and Henrekson, 2000; Kalleberg and Leicht, 1991; Rosa et al., 1996; Verheul
and Thurik, 2001; Verheul et al., 2002).
In summary, because the economic criteria of size and growth are often used as measures
of success (Cliff, 1998; Buttner and Moore, 1997), and growth-orientation is considered an
important entrepreneurial characteristic (Dunkelberg and Cooper, 1982), women may rate
themselves as less entrepreneurial than men based on these objective differences, i.e., because
they tend to manage small and low-growth businesses.
5.2. Gender and self-perceptions in business and entrepreneurship
Past research on gender differences in self-perception has mainly focused on mana-
gerial self-perception. In general, these studies indicate that women tend to underrate
13
For the United States, see US Small Business Administration (1995) and NFWBO (1996).
14
In the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, entrepreneurial activity includes nascent entrepreneurs (starting or
operating a business no older than 3 months) and new businesses (in existence for less than 3.5 years; see
Reynolds et al., 2002, p. 38).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 495
their skills or performance as compared to men (Wohlers and London, 1989; Lindeman et
al., 1995). This underrating has been attributed to the fact that women often do not take
credit for success, attributing success to external sources or luck rather than to effort or
ability (Rosenthal et al., 1996; Parsons et al., 1982; LaNoue and Curtis, 1985). Moreover,
Rosenthal et al. (1996) argue that it may be ‘proper female modesty’ accounting for the
underrating by female managers.
Beyer (1990, 1998) and Beyer and Bowden (1997) argue that when (managerial) tasks and
roles are perceived as more masculine than feminine, women are more likely than men to
underestimate their competencies in these areas. Along these lines, several studies show that
managers are perceived to have characteristics more commonly associated with men than
with women (Schein, 1973, 1975; Powell and Butterfield, 1979, 1989). Within the area of
entrepreneurship, Fagenson and Marcus (1991) find that women assign more weight to
masculine attributes in the profile of a successful entrepreneur. A more recent study by Powell
et al. (2002) finds that, although managerial stereotypes place less emphasis on masculine
characteristics than earlier studies suggest, a good manager is still perceived to be predom-
inantly masculine by both women and men. Hence, in spite of changes in the role of women
in the United States and internationally over the past several decades, we may still find
entrepreneurship to be associated with more masculine characteristics, such as autonomy,
perseverance, high energy levels, self-confidence, and decisiveness (Chaganti, 1986; Hisrich
and Brush, 1983), and thus likely to negatively affect the entrepreneurial self-image of
women.
6. Model and hypotheses
We propose a model including the independent influence of both gender and business
accomplishments on entrepreneurial self-image as well as the combined effect of gender and
business accomplishments, i.e., the indirect effect of gender through accomplishments. The
model is presented in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1. Proposed model: influences on entrepreneurial self-image.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 496
Based on this model, we test the following hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 represents the
impact of certain business accomplishments on entrepreneurial self-image (arrow 2 in Fig.
1). Hypothesis 1 is exploratory in nature as we make no a priori predictions about the effect
of specific activities on entrepreneurial self-image, nor do we predict their respective
Table 3
Description of variables
Name of variable Description of variable
Entrepreneurial self-image
a
The extent to which an individual perceives of him- or herself as an entrepreneur.
Question: would you call yourself an entrepreneur? (1 = no, 2 =don’t think
so, 3 = maybe, 4 = possibly, 5 = definitely)
Gender Whether an individual is male or female (male = 0 and female = 1).
Business accomplishments
b
Respondents were asked the following: ‘‘Please check any of the following
business accomplishments you have done in the past or are currently doing’’.
Founder
c
Created a new business from scratch? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Franchisee
c
Started a franchise business? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Acquirer
c
Acquired an ongoing concern? (no =0, yes = 1)
Runner
c
Managed a small to mid-sized business beyond start-up? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Take-off artist
c
Steered a company into a high-growth trajectory? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Turnaround artist
c
Saved a failing company? (no =0, yes = 1)
Intrapreneur
c
Led an effort to create a business unit within an established company? (no = 0,
yes = 1)
Innovator
c
Made something new happen (e.g. new product, program) other than a new
business unit or new company? (no = 0, yes =1)
Industry captain
c
Ran a large company? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Champion
c
Supported subordinate innovator(s) or intrapreneur(s)? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Owner Owned a major part of a business? (no =0, yes = 1)
Service provider Worked with/assisted entrepreneurs as a service provider? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Family business Worked as member of a family business (2 or more family members, including
yourself, active in the business)? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Control variables
Age
a
Age of the respondent (1 =18–22; 2 = 23–27; 3 = 28–35; 4 = 36–45; 5 = 46–55;
6 = 56–65; 7 = over 65)
Education level
a
What is the highest educational level attained? (0 = no degree; 1 = Bachelor’s;
2 = Master’s; 3 = PhD.)
Business degree
a
Does the respondent have a business degree? (no = 0, yes = 1)
Introduction course
a
Has the respondent followed an introduction course in entrepreneurship?
(no = 0, yes = 1)
a
Asked only of respondents in the alumni study.
b
For this group of questions, alumni respondents were instructed as follows: ‘‘The following describe various
types of business accomplishments. Please check any of the following that you have done in the past or are
currently doing’’. Those in the expert panel received the following instructions: ‘‘Please rate whether or not you
view each of the following business accomplishments as an example of entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial
behavior’’. Respondents could rate the degree of entrepreneurship of the listed business accomplishments on a
five-point scale where ‘1’= definitely; ‘2’ = probably; ‘3’= maybe; ‘4’ =don’t think so; ‘5’= no.
c
Derived from Vesper (1999).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 497
weights. However, we would expect that those business accomplishments more clearly
linked to entrepreneurship in the literature and/or more highly ranked by our panel of
experts may have a higher influence on entrepreneurial self-image than those that are less
highly ranked (see Tables 2 and 3).
Hypothesis 1: People with certain business accomplishments (e.g., the entrepreneurial
activities as proposed by Vesper)
15
will report a higher entrepreneurial self-image than those
without such accomplishments.
We further argue that gender can have both a direct and an indirect effect on
entrepreneurial self-image. The indirect effect refers to differences between men and
women with respect to business accomplishments that lead, in turn, to differences in their
entrepreneurial self-image (arrows 1 and 2 combined in Fig. 1), whereas the direct effect
refers to gender differences in self-image that cannot be attributed to differences in business
accomplishments (arrow 3 in Fig. 1). The direct effect is the effect of gender on
entrepreneurial self-image when controlling for the effects of business accomplishments.
The model builds on previous research efforts distinguishing between direct and indirect
gender effects in other areas of entrepreneurial behavior, such as financing (Verheul and
Thurik, 2001).
As discussed earlier in the paper, women tend to underrate their skills or performance as
compared to men. They often do not take credit for success and attribute it to external factors
or luck. Moreover, when tasks and roles are perceived as more masculine than feminine,
women are more likely to underestimate their competencies in these areas. Irrespective of
how it is measured, entrepreneurship is often perceived as more masculine than feminine, so
that women may be expected to perceive of themselves less as entrepreneurs. However, past
research also shows that women are less likely to own and run a business than men.
Moreover, as they tend to focus on quality (Chaganti and Parasuraman, 1996; Brush, 1992),
women are expected to be involved less often in managing a high-growth or large business.
This leads to the formulation of Hypothesis 2a, representing the direct effect of gender on
entrepreneurial self-perception (arrow 3 in Fig. 1) and Hypothesis 2b, predicting an indirect
effect of gender on entrepreneurial self-image (arrows 1 and 2 combined in Fig. 1), with
business accomplishments posited as (partially) mediating that effect. To summarize, we
formulate Hypotheses 2a and 2b as follows:
Hypothesis 2a: Women have a lower entrepreneurial self-image than men, controlling for
their particular business accomplishments (the direct effect).
Hypothesis 2b: Women have a lower entrepreneurial self-image than men due to
differences in particular business accomplishments (the indirect effect). That is, business
15
In addition to the entrepreneurial activities of Vesper’s typology in Table 1, in the empirical analysis, we
include other activities (i.e., Owner, Service Provider, and Family Business) to create a better insight into the
influence of activity on entrepreneurial self-perception (see Table 3).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 498
accomplishments partially mediate the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial
self-image.
7. Ranking business accomplishments as entrepreneurial behaviors according to an
expert panel
7.1. Method
To validate the earlier proposed (literature) ranking of business accomplishments, we
make use of an expert panel, including 216 respondents, each of whom were asked
to give their opinion about the same list of business accomplishments used in the
rest of the study (see Table 3).
16
The classification of business accomplishments
is based on the entrepreneurial typology as proposed by Vesper (1999), presented
Table 4
Ranking business accomplishments as ‘‘entrepreneurial behaviors’’ according to an expert panel (n = 162)
Business
accomplishment
Mean Standard
deviation
% rated
‘1’, ‘2’
by experts
a
% rated
‘1’
by experts
a
Literature
ranking
(Table 2)
(1) Founder 1.27 0.62 93.8 80.2 1
(2) Intrapreneur 1.95 0.99 73.9 40.4 3 (tie)
(3) Innovator 2.06 1.01 70.6 34.4 2
(4) Take-off artist 2.14 1.01 67.7 29.7 3 (tie)
(5) Franchisee 2.23 1.11 62.7 31.6 5 (tie)
(6) Runner 2.37 1.03 55.9 21.7 5 (tie)
(7) Turnaround artist 2.46 1.08 51.9 21.5 8
(8) Acquirer 2.58 1.21 50.3 21.7 5 (tie)
(9) Family business 2.82 1.20 36.9 17.2 ?
(10) Champion 2.97 1.15 21.3 13.0 9
(11) Owner 3.12 1.13 19.6 9.2 ?
(12) Industry captain 3.13 1.11 24.2 8.1 10
(13) Service provider 3.31 1.14 19.0 9.5 11
a
Experts were asked to rate whether or not each business accomplishment was viewed as an example of
entrepreneurial behavior on a five-point scale where ‘1’ =definitely; ‘2’= probably; ‘3’ = maybe; ‘4’ = don’t think
so; ‘5’= no.
16
Questionnaires were distributed to international experts on six different occasions: (1) Research in
Entrepreneurship and Government Policy (Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School), Leuven, 27 August 2002
(29 respondents), (2) the 29th International Small Business Congress (RAI International Congress and Exhibition
Centre), Amsterdam, 27–30 October 2002 (33 respondents), (3) the opening of the Rotterdam Incubation Centre
Area010 (World Trade Centre Rotterdam), 5 November 2002 (43 respondents), (4) the 25th ISBA National Small
Firms Policy and Research Conference (Brighton Business School), Brighton 13–15 November 2002 (25
respondents), (5) the RENT XVI (Research in Entrepreneurship and Small Business) Conference (Universitat
Autonoma de Barcelona), Barcelona, 21–22 November 2002 (64 respondents), and (6) the UKBI 4th National
Incubation Conference, Edinburgh, 25–26 November 2002 (22 respondents).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 499
in Table 1. The following business accomplishments: Founder, Acquirer, Runner, Take-
Off Artist, Turnaround Artist, Intrapreneur, Innovator, Industry Captain, and Champion,
are drawn directly from Vesper’s entrepreneurial typology. Three additional business
accomplishments (i.e., Owner, Service Provider, and Family Business) are included
in the analysis to create insight into the impact of the different business accomplish-
ments on Entrepreneurial Self-Image. We also added the distinction between starting a
new business from scratch (i.e., Founder) versus starting a franchise business (i.e.,
Franchisee).
Respondents in the expert panel were asked to indicate the extent to which each of the
business accomplishments listed in Table 3 is an example of entrepreneurship or
entrepreneurial behavior according to the following scale: (1) definitely; (2) probably;
(3) maybe; (4) don’t think so; (5) no; and (6) don’t know.
17
Respondents were
considered ‘experts’, and were included in the study, if they had been working either
as an academic or practitioner in the field of entrepreneurship for at least one year.
18
Of
the 216 respondents, 162 were included as experts in the study.
19
7.2. Results of the expert panel study
Expert panel scores for each of the business accomplishments are displayed in Table 4. The
ranking of the accomplishments according to the experts appears fairly similar to the rankings
derived from a review of the literature (see Table 4, last column). Starting a (nonfranchise)
business from scratch (i.e., Founder) is considered, by far, the most entrepreneurial, (with a
score of 1.27), followed in descending order of mean, by Intrapreneur (1.95), Innovator
(2.06), Take-Off Artist (2.14), Franchisee (2.23) and Runner (2.37). At least half of the expert
raters also consider Turnaround Artist and Acquirer as ‘probable’ or ‘definite’ examples of
entrepreneurship or entrepreneurial behavior. At the other extreme, only about 20% of the
respondents ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ consider Service Provider, Champion, or Owner as
examples of entrepreneurship. Twenty-five percent of the expert panel respondents ‘probably’
or ‘definitely’ consider Industry Captain entrepreneurial. Family Business receives a higher
rating, with a mean of 2.82, and with 36.9% ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ considering it an
example of entrepreneurial behavior. Because all 13 business accomplishment items are
viewed as either ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ an example of entrepreneurial behavior by almost
20% of the respondents in the expert panel, we decided to include all business accomplish-
ments in further exploratory analyses based on the alumni panel dataset.
17
The answer: (6) ‘‘don’t know’’ was coded missing.
18
Practitioners include the following: government officials or policymakers, consultants or service providers
(e.g., bankers, accountants, or lawyers). Academics include researchers and/or instructors at the university level,
excluding students. In an additional analysis, academics and practitioners were separated into two subsamples but
the rank orderings remained essentially the same. Hence, the combined means are reported here.
19
The distribution of the 162 respondents is as follows: 18 (Area010 in WTC, Rotterdam), 23 (Vlerick Leuven
Gent Management School, Leuven), 28 (ISBC, Amsterdam), 56 (RENT XVI, Barcelona), 21 (ISBA, Brighton),
and 16 (UKBI, Edinburgh).
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 500
8. Testing the proposed model and hypotheses
8.1. Method
8.1.1. Data source and sample characteristics
To test the relationships between gender, business accomplishments, and entrepreneurial
self-perception, about 2000 questionnaires were sent to various subsamples of alumni at a
large Midwestern public university in the United States: 512 to MBA graduates (72 or 14% of
which responded); 1200 to alumni identified as either a president or CEO in the Dun and
Bradstreet database (118 or 10% of which responded); and 283 to recent graduates who had
enrolled in an entrepreneurship course while at college (17 or 9% of which responded). Of
these questionnaires, 331 were returned to sender, and 212 responded, of which 5 were
unusable due to incomplete information. Of the total sample, 148 are male and 59 are female.
The sample is nonrandom, but still useful from an exploratory standpoint.
Sample selection was hampered by the fact that in spite of the university’s age (about
150 years old), as with many public universities of its type, the university kept incomplete
information of its alumni. It had only recently set up an alumni office to track graduates.
Selected subsamples were chosen to increase the likelihood that alumni would indeed be
business founders and owners. The research team sent a cover letter, with an enclosed
stamped return envelope, explaining that the Business Faculty of the university was interested
in gathering additional information about the activities of its alumni. Although alumni were
asked to complete the questionnaire regardless of whether or not they were a business owner,
the letter also indicated that the purpose of the project was to identify alumni who had either
started or run their own companies and also to identify alumni who might be eligible for
recognition for their entrepreneurial achievements by the university.
The relatively low response rate for the overall population may be explained by
several factors. First, due to the specific topic of the survey, and especially because few
questionnaires were returned incomplete, there is the likelihood of a self-selection bias in
that most of those responding were able to report one or more business accomplish-
ments to his or her credit.
20
In hindsight, the content of the cover letter—which was
constructed not only for research but also nonresearch purposes—as well as the content
of the survey itself—a two-page survey, which in addition to background questions
(name, address, educational history, gender, and age) was primarily aimed at identifying
business accomplishments—likely skewed the response rate toward those individuals
who already perceived of themselves as entrepreneurs. Nevertheless, the responses are of
sufficient range to warrant inclusion in further analysis (see Table 5 for report of means
and standard deviations).
20
This is supported by the fact that about 60% of the respondents reported having founded their own firms,
which is higher than expected in the general population. For instance, Delmar and Davidsson (2000), referring to a
U.S. sample from Reynolds (1997), indicate that 37.5% of the respondents reported involvement in any start-up or
small business experience. The actual percentage of people having founded a business in that sample is likely to be
even smaller.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 501
The low response rate may be further explained by the fact that letters were sent out to
company addresses instead of to individuals. In addition, due to budget constraints, only
one mailing of the survey was carried out (with no prior announcement or follow-up).
Finally, the relatively low response rate, especially for the subsample of recent graduates,
may be attributed to the mobility of recent graduates, resulting in letters arriving at the
wrong address.
Because the study was aimed at creating a better understanding of career patterns of
alumni, the sample consists primarily of highly educated individuals. In particular, of the 207
respondents, 193 (94.3%) hold at least a Bachelor’s diploma. Of these 193 respondents, 90
hold a Bachelor’s degree only, 102 also hold a Master’s degree and one holds a PhD. Only
five respondents hold no diploma, having been included in the sample although they never
graduated.
21
Of the people with a university degree (either Bachelor’s or Master’s),
approximately 60% report having specialized in business.
Finally, compared to other entrepreneurship data, our sample is characterized by a
relatively high average age, even among entrepreneurs. While, in our study, the average
age is 50 years, Evans and Leighton (1989a) report an average age of an entrepreneur of 40
years. Moreover, Storey (1994) reports that people typically start a business between 25 and
40 years of age. This is confirmed by Reynolds et al. (1999) who argue that countries with
more individuals in the age class of 25 to 44 years old tend to have higher start-up rates.
22
However, in our study, most of the respondents (approximately 50%) fall in the age category
of 46 to 55 years old (see Table 5). This relatively high age of the respondents in the sample
may be related to the self-selection bias alluded to earlier. That is, because respondents were
asked to indicate their business accomplishments (see Table 3), this may have influenced the
age distribution in the sample because younger people would be less likely to have
accomplishments to report, and, accordingly, may be more hesitant to fill in and return the
survey. In summary, given the nonrandomness of the sample, and the response bias regarding
age, education, and location, conclusions drawn from this study should be viewed as
exploratory in nature.
8.2. Description of variables
This section describes the variables used to test the model and hypotheses (see Table 3).
8.2.1. Business accomplishments
The business accomplishments used for the expert panel study were also asked of
alumni study respondents. However, for the alumni, respondents were asked to check off
which activities they had either done in the past or were currently doing. A dummy
variable was created for each accomplishment that was checked off (0 =not checked;
1 =checked).
21
For the remainder of the respondents (i.e., nine respondents), data on education level are missing.
22
It should be borne in mind that Storey (1994) and Reynolds et al. (1999) make use of start-up samples,
where individuals are likely to be younger.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 502
Table 5
Pearson correlation between all variables for the total sample
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
(1) Entrepreneurial
self-image
1
(2) Gender À.23** 1
(3) Corporate
entrepreneur
.08 À.04 1
(4) Small business
person
.56** À.18** .11 1
(5) Acquirer .16* À.19** .18* .24** 1
(6) Turnaround
artist
À.02 À.18* .18* .14* .36** 1
(7) Franchisee .08 À.06 .04 À.001 À.05 .17* 1
(8) Take-off artist .13 À.11 .38** .33** .32** .23** À.08 1
(9) Industry captain .16* À.15* .26** .28** .16* .24** À.05 .36** 1
(10) Service
provider
.09 À.02 .13 .08 .11 .07 À.07 .14* .16* 1
(11) Family
business
.12 .06 À.002 .24** .03 .03 À.04 À.06 À.03 .09 1
(12) Age .20** À.22** .02 .27** .19** .12 .19** À.004 .02 À.01 À.07 1
(13) Education
level
À.31** À.03 .06 À.30** À.14* À.09 .07 À.13 À.10 .04 À.16* À.05 1
(14) Business
degree
À.34** À.12 .07 À.29** À.04 .01 À.07 .02 .06 .02 À.11 À.25** .33** 1
(15) Introduction
course
À.16* .20** À.11 À.21** À.13 À.01 À.06 À.09 À.07 À.06 .13 À.45** À.16* .05 1
Mean 3.76 0.29 0.22 0.43 0.25 0.13 0.03 0.17 0.05 0.13 0.23 4.57 1.50 0.61 0.08
Standard deviation 1.57 0.45 0.29 0.36 0.43 0.33 0.18 0.37 0.23 0.34 0.42 1.00 0.56 0.49 0.28
n 198 207 206 206 206 206 206 206 206 206 206 207 198 201 207
*Correlation is significant at the .05 level (two-tailed).
**Correlation is significant at the .01 level (two-tailed).
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–
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1
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0
3
8.2.2. Gender
Gender is measured using a single self-report item on the questionnaire.
8.2.3. Control variables
According to human capital theorists (Becker, 1964), knowledge increases the cognitive
ability of an individual, resulting in more efficient and effective behavior. Davidsson and Honig
(2003) suggest that individuals with higher levels of human capital are more self-confident.
Although human capital has been studied in the context of entrepreneurial behavior and success
(Evans and Leighton, 1989b; Bellu et al., 1990; Bates, 1995; Gimeno et al., 1997; Manolova et
al., 2002), it has not been investigated in the context of (entrepreneurial) self-perception. People
with higher levels of human capital may be expected to have a more highly developed self-
perception, being aware of their own capabilities. A distinction can be made between different
types of knowledge—tacit versus explicit (Polyani, 1966)—and, accordingly, between differ-
ent types of learning or education. Davidsson and Honig (2003) refer to formal (e.g., university
education), informal (e.g., work experience), and nonformal education (e.g., specific training).
In the present study, we include the following human capital factors: education level,
business degree (whether at the Bachelor’s or Master’s level), and introduction course (i.e.,
whether or not the respondent had taken an introductory course in entrepreneurship while at
the university). In addition, we include age of the respondent as a control variable. Because
experience tends to increase with age, we want to separate these two effects.
8.3. Data analysis
In an effort to reduce the number of business accomplishment items to meaningful scales,
we first perform a factor analysis with the alumni dataset, using principal components
analysis and a Varimax rotated solution to identify independent factors.
The relationship between business accomplishments and entrepreneurial self-image,
represented by Hypothesis 1 (arrow 2 in Fig. 1), is tested with Pearson product –moment
correlation coefficients and is investigated in the regression analyses. Hypothesis 2a (repre-
senting the direct gender effect) and Hypothesis 2b (representing the indirect gender effect) are
tested through a series of linear regressions introducing the explanatory variables (gender,
business accomplishments, and controls) in blocks, comparing their respective contributions.
One can test for the mediating effect of variable, m ( =business accomplishments), by
demonstrating that the relation between the proposed antecedent, x ( = gender), and conse-
quence, y ( =self-image), disappears if m is included in the model (James and Brett, 1984).
There are two accepted protocols proposed in the literature for testing for mediating effects. In
either approach, one must first test that the relationships between x and y, x and m, and m and
y are all significant in bivariate tests of correlation. In the next step, according to the James
and Brett (1984) procedure, m can be seen as completely mediating the relationship between x
and y if the added effect of x (DR
x
2
) in the model, y = f (m,x), is not significant when x is added
as the last block. An alternate approach, outlined by Baron and Kenny (1986), and used for
instance by Nerkar et al. (1996), proposes to compare the results of the model, y =f (x), with
those of the model, y = f (x,m). In this latter method, to support the inference that m
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 504
completely mediates the effect of x on y, the unstandardized coefficient B
x
should be
significant in the model, y = f (x), but not significant in the model, y = f (x,m). Furthermore,
the unstandardized coefficient B
m
in the model, y =f (x,m) should be significant. In the present
study, we will follow the James and Brett (1984) procedure.
Throughout the paper, we use both one- and two-tailed hypotheses. As critical values of
the one-tailed test procedures always exceed that of the two-tailed test procedures, we leave
out the one-tailed results for ease of presentation. The present study is exploratory in nature,
and although we hypothesize a particular direction in some cases, we do not rule out the
possibility that effects can be in either direction.
9. Results
9.1. Factor analysis and scale formation for business accomplishments
Table 6 presents a seven-factor solution for the different business accomplishment items
included in the questionnaire. Although the eigenvalues for Factors 6 and 7 are relatively low
Table 6
Factor analysis matrix of business accomplishments
a
Business Factors
accomplishment
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Small
business
person
Corporate
entrepreneur
Acquirer/
turnaround
artist
Franchisee Industry
captain
Service
provider
Family
business
Founder .62 À.21 À.18 À.19 .40 À.09 .12
Intrapreneur .15 .65 .17 À.07 .12 .10 .05
Innovator À.05 .78 .12 À.02 .09 À.18 À.05
Take-off artist .42 .43 .33 À.16 .15 .13 À.36
Franchisee .06 À.01 .004 .93 À.05 À.05 À.05
Runner .81 .10 .22 .12 À.04 .15 À.05
Turnaround artist À.06 .08 .67 .35 .42 .02 .12
Acquirer .22 .12 .82 À.12 .12 .08 À.02
Family business .18 .02 .04 À.06 À.05 .08 .91
Champion .001 .66 À.31 .28 À.05 .34 .06
Owner .72 .14 .09 .07 .12 À.14 .28
Industry captain .17 .22 .09 À.05 .83 .11 À.10
Service provider .01 .03 .08 À.06 .10 .92 .06
Eigenvalues 2.87 1.62 1.21 1.19 1.02 0.92 0.79
Cronbach a
b
.64 .52 .51 – – – –
N= 207
Only factor loadings z.1 are presented. Factor loadings z.6 are highlighted in bold.
a
Principal component analysis, Varimax rotated.
b
Cronbach a is computed including the highlighted activities.
I. Verheul et al. / Journal of Business Venturing 20 (2005) 483–518 505
(0.92 and 0.79, respectively), seven factors are specified to have a better view of the
independence of several of the business accomplishments, providing support for the decision
to separately include these accomplishments in further analyses. When items with the highest
factor loadings (>.60) for each factor are combined into scales, the resulting Cronbach a
reliability coefficients are .64, .52, and .51 for Factors 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Although these
reliabilities are not particularly high, Factors 1 and 2, in particular, appear fairly reasonable to
interpret on the basis of their content. Factors 4 to 7 are made up of one item only. Although
Acquirer and Turnaround Artist load on the same factor (Factor 3), they are included separately
in the analyses because of low face validity for the factor: acquiring a business does not
necessarily imply that the purchased firm is in distress and needs to be ‘saved’. In addition,
someone saving a failing business is not necessarily a business owner, but can be a manager.
The business accomplishment Take-Off Artist is omitted from further analyses because it does
not clearly load on any of the seven factors specified. Furthermore, Take-Off Artist is highly
correlated with several of the other items or factors, which would have resulted in a problem of
multicollinearity if included in the overall regression analysis.
Eight business accomplishment variables are thus identified for further analyses: Small
Business Person (consisting of Founder, Runner, and Owner), Corporate Entrepreneur
Table 7
Results of regression analyses on entrepreneurial self-image
Explanatory variables B value t value DR
2a
Constant 4.64** 7.03 –
Controls 0.21**/0.07**
Age À0.07 À0.65
Education level À0.51** À2.65
Business degree À0.63** À2.89
Introduction course À0.42 À1.06
Business accomplishments 0.32**/0.16**
Small business person 1.72** 5.29
Corporate entrepreneur 0.44 1.28
Acquirer 0.14 0.55
Turnaround artist À0.94** À2.75
Franchisee 0.94 1.82
Industry captain À0.02 À0.05
Service provider 0.29 0.95
Family business À0.05 À0.21
Gender À0.67** À3.07 0.05**/0.03**
R
2
.413
Adjusted R
2
.369
F statistic 9.36**
B values refer to the unstandardized coefficients of the explanatory variables.
The unstandardized coefficient (B) for the influence of gender only on Entrepreneurial Self-Image amounts to
À.78** ( P