Definition of entrepreneur and entrepreneurship

In order to gain insight into the various characteristics and properties of entrepreneurship, it
is important to have an understanding of what an entrepreneur is and does. Throughout time,
there have been various definitions as to what an entrepreneur is and what it entails to be an
entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship, according to Harvard Professor Howard Stevenson
(Eisenmann, 2013), is the pursuit of opportunity beyond ones controlled resources.
Entrepreneurs are the ones realizing these new opportunities by using the, often limited,
resources available. This often implies that there is certain amount of risk is involved, as the
resources are beyond the entrepreneur’s control. Some say that entrepreneurship and the
mindset is something you are born with, there amongst Alan Jacobowitz (Cohen, 1980),
while others believe these attributes and skills are somehow teachable (Kao, 1989).
Jacobowitz (Cohen, 1980) believes that entrepreneurs share certain personal characteristics,
while Kao on the other hand holds that “entrepreneurship is environmentally determined”
and therefore possible to learn. If the entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial activity, as Kao
suggests, is environmentally determined, then this activity surely must vary between various
environments, for example different markets and countries. He also claims that capital availability,
mechanisms for realizing value, and availability of other resources namely human resources,
information resources such as libraries and data banks, and infrastructure resources such as
inexpensive space and other factors play an important role as the whether or not the
entrepreneurial activity occurs or not (Kao, 1989). By combining Jacobwitz’s view that
entrepreneurs indeed do share certain personal characteristics with Kao’s view that
entrepreneurship is teachable and environmentally determined, this initial comparable study
of the characteristics Norwegian and U.S. entrepreneurship sets out to find the main
entrepreneurial differences by taking a closer look at entrepreneurial attitudes and properties. In
order to do so, a clear definition of entrepreneurial attitudes and aspirations (characteristics)
and opportunities is required.

There is a clear connection between the entrepreneurial attitude and the entrepreneurial
activity in a country (Åmo et al., 2010). There are several different views on how
entrepreneurial activity is carried out, where especially Schumpeter and Kirzner are central
views. Schumpeter believed that entrepreneurship was a consequence of changes in the
economical system, the creation of preconditions for commercialization of innovations and the
task of the entrepreneur was to create profits by producing and distributing good and services
(Kirzner, 1999). He meant that there was an unbalance in the economical system, and that
the entrepreneur created balance by being disruptive. Kirzner on the other hand, meant that the
entrepreneur do not create unbalance, but rather is alert and sees possibilities (Kirzner, 1999).
In other words, Kirzner believes that the entrepreneur is one that sees possibilities, but does not
necessarily act on them. This research combines these views and when referring to entrepreneurial
characteristics, the reference includes the functional attributes and aspirations of people who
have already decided to pursue an opportunity, in addition to people with future aspiration to
pursuing perceived entrepreneurial opportunities. David Burnett (Burnett, 2000) claims that
entrepreneurs, by definition, need an opportunity and the willingness to become an entrepreneur in
order to become entrepreneurs. In addition, Ireland (2003) adds that the identification of
opportunities is key for creating value, which is most often the desired outcome for an
entrepreneur.
Schumpeter (Landström, 2000) summed up the characteristics of an entrepreneur to being a
person with a desire and intention of building a personal kingdom through the joy of creating. He
also characterized the entrepreneur as having a drifting nature and being aggressive. Kirzner
added that the entrepreneur needs to be active, alert and creative. The entrepreneur is
identified as being more individually oriented than people who are not entrepreneurs
(Beugelsdijk et al., 2005), and more open to risk and uncertainty. The entrepreneur has the ability
to focus and to take advantages of such uncertainties (McGrath and MacMillan, 2000).

But what differentiates an entrepreneur from different parts of the world, and are the types
of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship somewhat similar and transferable to other markets,
countries and entrepreneurial opportunities? And more importantly what defines a Norwegian
entrepreneur? And if entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs are in fact environmentally
determined, can the attributes and skills that Kao speaks of be transferred from one
environment to another in order to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities?

Characteristics and Attitudes of Entrepreneurs Towards Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is the process of a business with taking all risks. An entrepreneur is someone who
thinks differently, manages and organizes a business or an enterprise innovatively. According to Ajay
Bam, a lecturer at the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of California, Berkeley’s
Marshall School of Business.’ Entrepreneurship is the journey of opportunity exploration and risk
management to create value for profit and/or social good,’ (URL1)

An entrepreneur is said to have or need to acquire specific capital (Burt, 2000) in order to pursue
the perceived market opportunities. This includes financial capital (monetary), social capital
(relationships) and human capital (natural abilities). This paper will make use of human
capital when referring to entrepreneurial characteristics. The human capital includes the
attitudes and aspiration that drives a person to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities. When
looking at entrepreneurs, the human capital factors in this study refer to the persons
perception of opportunities, the ability and intention to pursue opportunities, the capabilities
needed to do so, the fear of failure related to the opportunity and international orientation.
These individual characteristics are often influenced by the social, cultural and economic
environment that surrounds the entrepreneur, which is why entrepreneurs from the same country
often share the same characteristics. Berglann (2011) adds that factors like occupational
qualifications, family resources, gender, and work environments have an effect in whether or not
people decide to become entrepreneurs or not.

Research on internationalization (Manolova et al., 2002) suggests that there is no link between the
decision to internationalize and the entrepreneur’s age, education, tenure or gender. On the
other hand, there is a strong connection between personal factors, such as business skills and
environmental orientation, and the international scope of the business. For an entrepreneur
having international experience and skills in addition to positive environmental perceptions,
the act of internationalization propose less amount of uncertainty than to those entrepreneurs
who do not have these skills. Environmental perceptions mainly refer to the assessment of
the entry market and surroundings that affect entrepreneurship along with legislations,
technology etc.
An entrepreneur must be open minded for everything especially new business ideas on his/her life
because entrepreneurship needs to thinking innovatively, doing what he/she think bravely and
generating new ideas to improve his or her business. MJ Gottlieb, co-founder of Hustle Branding
claims that ’An entrepreneur is someone who can take any idea, whether it be a product and/or
service, and have the skill set, will and courage to take extreme risk to do whatever it takes to turn
that concept into reality and not only bring it to market, but make it a viable product and/or service
that people want or need,’ (URL2)

Entrepreneurial context and characteristics compared

There are several similarities and differences that immediately come to mind when comparing
two countries such as Norway and the U.S. The most obvious differences are the size of the
countries themselves, its population, language, economic inequality, (Noyes et al., 2010),
measurement system and governments. The China is a market oriented economy, while Hong
Kong features a combination of free market activity and governmental regulations. Some of the
similarities are that both of the countries are developed, western, innovationc driven
countries. Another less known similarity between these two countries is their level of
entrepreneurship activity has taken a very different direction for these two nations.

When comparing entrepreneurial activity in various countries, the focus most often is on the
infrastructure and the economy of the country. When comparing aspirations and attitude the focus
is on the entrepreneur and its intentions and background. Besides the entrepreneurs themselves,
entrepreneurial activity is dependent on several external factors such as regulations, culture and
economic situation. In this case the focus is on the entrepreneur in specific, and the reason for why
some entrepreneurs are internationally oriented when some are not. The background for
such intentions can be compared to the entrepreneurial intentions certain people have to
become entrepreneurs in the first place. These intentions will be further analyzed in order to
identify the major differences between Norwegian entrepreneurs and the ones in the U.S. in order
to shed more light on the results from the GEM comparison of the two nations.

Hong Kong, compared to other similar highcincome level nations, has a high level of entrepreneurial
activity. When comparing a country’s GDP and TEA, it is important to keep in mind that due to
Norway’s dependency of the prices of raw material, especially fish and oil, the basis of the
comparing might differ from the country it is being compared to. Major changes have resulted in
an increase in the entrepreneurial activity in the U.S., while Norway have been affected by an all
time low score since 2004 (Åmo, 2012).

Hong Kong believe there are an increasing number of opportunities available in their market,
whereas the beliefs in their capabilities to pursue these opportunities have decreased at the
same pace. With believing they lack the capabilities, only 1 out of 5 companies in Hong Kong
pursue their ambitions and opportunities. In the U.S. it is the other way around. They believe they
have the required capabilities, but that there is a lack of opportunities to pursue.

Entrepreneurs’ Characteristics
Li and Jia (2015) said entrepreneurship has becoming a popular term currently, he add not all of
entrepreneurs can succeed in entrepreneurial business. They need specific characteristics to enable
them to success. Entrepreneur characteristics extensively studied, with mixed results on his impact
on small business result (Bouazza et al. 2015:104). Entrepreneurs’ characteristics: They are personal
traits and skills which constitute competency of the entrepreneur which needed to venture success.
In this study, the researcher will capitalize on the most important entrepreneurs’ characteristics that
have been used by many researchers as will be showed in the coming subsections.

Need for Achievement

McClelland (1961) explained entrepreneurship as the expression of a high need for achievement.
Different studies conducted on entrepreneurs showed the need for achievement has a strong
relation with the entrepreneurship (Hansermark, 1998). Moreover Pendergast (2003:2-9) mentioned
entrepreneur deals with many characteristics, one of these characteristics need for achievement.
Driessen and Zwart (2007:8) stated entrepreneurs’ characteristics include need for achievement.
Smith (2013:29) claimed need achievement is one of psychological traits of entrepreneurs, and he
defined need for achievement as desire to meet an internal standard of accomplishment. Sajilan et
al. (2015:40) define need for achievement as people who want to be high achievers and want to
have a strong desire for success. The researcher defines need for achievement as a psychological
trait that drives the entrepreneur to achieve high standards that lead him toward success.

Self-Confidence

Koh (1996:17) focused on the self-confidence as an important entrepreneurial characteristic. While

Rubino and Freshman (2005:399) declared that the confidence is one of the eight entrepreneurial
competencies exist in his study. Moreover Othman et al. (2006:59-61) explained the main
psychological characteristics of entrepreneurial personality including mainly self-confidence.
Bondima et al. (2013:102) stated one of the characteristics and demographic factors influencing
entrepreneurial inclination is self-confidence. Laguador (2013:62) mentioned the personal
entrepreneurial competencies and they involved self-confidence. Javan (2014:22) stated
entrepreneurship had has been consists of six dimensions one of these dimension is self-confidence.
The researcher believe selfconfidence defines as entrepreneur believing about himself, and to which
level he believes that he can lead his organization towards success

Initiativeness (Pro-Activeness)

Lumpkin and Dess (2001:431) define the pro-activeness as opportunity-seeking, forward-looking

perspective involving introducing new products or services ahead of the competition and acting in
anticipation of future demand to create change and shape the environment Vijaya and Srinath
(2012) mentioned initiativeness and proactiveness are entrepreneurs’ characteristics. Sanchez and
Hernandez-Sanchez (2013:31) stated pro-activeness is entrepreneurship characteristics. Al-Dhaafri
et al. (2013:74) defined pro-activeness as willingness of organizations and their ability to expect new
development. The researcher define the initiativenss as the ability of the entrepreneur to start
motivating others to do something useful, which adds value to himself, his organization and society

Independency (Autonomy) and Responsibility

Born and Altink (1996:71) mensioned three most important behavioral attributes for entrepreneurial
success, one of them independence. Santos-Cumplido and Linan (2007:90-91) claimed selfemployed
(autonomy) is one element which configured entrepreneurial quality. Vanesaar et al. (2008:454)
studied the entrepreneur's characteristics including independence. Jaafar et al. (2010:57-58) said
one of the entrepreneur’s characteristics is independency. Liang and Dunn (2011:111) indicated that
entrepreneurs’ characteristics include independent. He categorized need for autonomy as one of the
five entrepreneurial motivations. Rani and Tih (2013:5) defined Independency; independency is
desire to be in control.

Ali et al. (2010:66,77) stated entrepreneurial attributes include taking responsibilities. Vijaya and
Srinath (2012) defined responsibility; responsibility is the ability to take charge and not attribute
success or failure to an unknown entity such as luck or fate. He added that responsibility is one of
entrepreneurs’ characteristics.

Risk Taking Propensity

Koh (1996:17) focus on the take risk propensity as an important entrepreneurial characteristic. In
addition to that Pendergast (2003:7) said Entrepreneurs are commonly described as risk-takers; he
defined the risk as possibility of loss due to uncertain future events. Moreover Scarlat et al.
(2011:92) stated one of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs is risk-taking. Resurreccion
(2012:551) stated entrepreneurial competencies include risk seeking. With reference to Rani and Tih
(2013:5); risk taking propensity was identified as one of the essential characteristics which refer to
entrepreneurial quality. Javan (2014:22) stated risk-taking is one of the six dimensions of the
entrepreneurship. This study defines the risk taking propensity as propensity of the entrepreneur
towards decision making in a turbulent environment with minimal information and unclear results.

Business Success Dimensions

Firm performance was influenced or affected by many factors either positively or negatively
(Abdullahi et al. 2015:1). Barman and Dutta (2010:1) proclaimed entrepreneur was about having the
attitude and the drive to success in business. Zhao et al. (2010:381) pronounced entrepreneurial
personality played a role in the emergence and success of entrepreneurs in business. Eriksson and Li
(2012:1) found entrepreneurial characteristics could have a significantly positive effect on the
business success of small and medium enterprises. Singh et al. (2013:229) mentioned the success or
failure of small and medium business rest in part on how entrepreneurs think. Davis et al. (2013:148)
results demonstrated that the various aspects of entrepreneurial behaviors have a differential effect
on firm performance. Kaur and Bains (2013:31) showed that entrepreneurs play a very important
role for business survival and its success. Tanveer et al. (2013:450) defined the dimensions of
performance measurement as: growth, profit, size, liquidity, success/failure and others. Small
Business success indicates the level of achievement. How much the small business is near or far from
its target? Business success can be measure based on many different dimensions such sales growth,
capital, increase in employment, increase in production line and others. The current research
considers sales growth, gross profit, capital growth and work expansion as success indicators.