Synoptic Overview It is evident that the most important trait is
opportunity spotting together with proactivity. At some
point all these entrepreneurs spotted an
opportunity as defined by Kirzner: “due to a gap in knowledge” (Deakins, 2003) for example Sharon: she knew that Ozzy had talent when no one else did. Steve Jobs is also an opportunity spotter but as defined by Shumpeter. Shumpeter declared that entrepreneurs are extraordinary people born with innovative traits (Deakins, 2003). Entrepreneurs evaluate an opportunity against their personal goals before taking some action. Steve Jobs, who lived in Silicon Valley, admits that he was not as good a technician as Wozniak but he was the one who spotted the opportunity in a growing industry in that area. For Emma the opportunity spotting activity emerged out of a need to satisfy a social need (Kirby, 2003): no-one was doing anything to retrain mine ex-workers for the jobs that were available and for Gabriel the people around him, and events he witnessed, were “opportunities” for a unique novel; but this trait may not be exclusive to entrepreneurs. Kirzner believes that anyone with the extra knowledge in the market can take advantage and become the middle man (Deakins, 2003) yet Shumpeter believes this trait is innate and only certain individuals can be entrepreneurs. Secondly,
entrepreneurial success involves some form of risk-taking but not in the sense of a gambler (Deakins, 2003). It is evident that they all reduced the “uncertainty” of their venture by assessing it, evaluating it, managing it and transferring the risk in various ways. In the end they took a calculated risk, as defined by Knight (Deakins, 2003). Pedro left his home town to start the factory without any backup, Sharon chose to promote Ozzy: a drug addict who had just been sacked and Steve left university: all of them had vision and intuition but they still had to take the first step into uncertainty. Emma, as a social entrepreneur (Kirby, 2003) had a different motivation: to benefit society, yet she undertook some risks to promote such an innovative idea and Gabriel simply needed to enrich his cultural environment (Kirby, 2003) so he stopped attending university. Although each entrepreneur’s own form of risk was assessed, evaluated and reduced, it is evident that they all still had to make life changing decisions based on incomplete information and faced a certain level of ambiguity which they had no way of reducing (Deakins, 2003) and it was only their skill at managing the resources available to them, at the time, that made their dream a reality; therefore it could be said that calculated risk taking, as defined by Knight (Deakins, 2003), is a way of life for the entrepreneur. In contrast Deakins (p.7) quotes Ray who considers that “there is no empirical evidence or conceptual base to say much, about entrepreneurs and risk taking”. It is evident that entrepreneurs have a high locus of internal control, they needed to be “the boss” in order to further their venture; they had to be able to control the activities which would allow others to benefit from the venture. In contrast Gabriel had a passion to write, and he did not necessarily want to be “the boss” but in order to “enrich his cultural environment” (Kirby, 2003) he had to have a high locus of internal control because no one else can be directly involved in a writer’s unique creative process. It is evident that a high locus of internal control is a significant trait in entrepreneurs but this trait may not be exclusive to entrepreneurs, a competent doctor of medicine needs a high locus of internal control when a person’s life is at stake. It is evident that some character traits are common amongst successful entrepreneurs but, it also evident, that the academic theories on entrepreneurial character traits are inconclusive because many traits are also apparent in successful managers (Deakins, 2003). A statistician may find that ice-cream sales increase at the same rate as deaths but he cannot conclude that they are cause and effect; therefore using only character traits will never give a true picture of what an entrepreneur really is because, by observing traits, only a static picture is portrayed of a dynamic process (Deakins, 2003). The theorists need to explore the reasons why some entrepreneurs develop these traits such as environmental factors (Deakins, 2003): childhood experiences (Steiner, 1998 ), geographical location, cultural influences or religion. Cary Cooper, Bupa Professor of organisational psychology at Manchester University’s Institute of Science Technology believes that entrepreneurs are driven by a need to control a world they could not control in their childhoods. He discovered that many were inspired by a caring parent or mentor. “My work confirmed earlier evidence that particularly a mother plays a most powerful role in establishing entrepreneurial action in the male child … more than 70% of entrepreneurs could identify some significant shaping event in their childhood” (Steiner R.,1998). This is evident in the case of Gabriel who distinctly remembers when his passion for reading was awakened by his grandfather (Marquez, 2002) but also the entrepreneurs above came from families with resources therefore the upbringing coupled with resources can promote entrepreneurship. It is also evident that there are geographical locations where there are more entrepreneurial tendencies (Deakins, 2003).