Characteristic Traits and Skills of Successful Entrepreneurs

This document discusses the characteristic traits and skills of successful entrepreneurs. It explores the importance of traits like passion, work ethics, communication skills, determination, and competitiveness. It also examines how these traits contribute to the success of entrepreneurs. The document provides specific examples of local, global, and social entrepreneurs to illustrate these traits in action.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Entrepreneurship
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Table of Contents
Task 3:.............................................................................................................................................2
P5. Characteristic Traits and Skills of Successful Entrepreneurs....................................................2
P6. How Aspects of Entrepreneurial Personality Reflect Entrepreneurial Motivation and Mindset
.........................................................................................................................................................3
M3. Examination of Different Lines of Argument Relating to Entrepreneurial Characteristics.....4
D3. Analyses of Characteristic Traits, Skills and Motivational drivers of Successful
entrepreneurs, Supported by Specific Examples.............................................................................5
Local Entrepreneur..........................................................................................................................5
Global Entrepreneur.........................................................................................................................5
Social Entrepreneur.........................................................................................................................6
Task 4...............................................................................................................................................7
P7. Influence of Back ground and Experience in Influencing Entrepreneurship through Examples
.........................................................................................................................................................7
M4. Link between Entrepreneurial Characteristics and Influence of Personal Background and
Experience to Specific Successful Entrepreneurs............................................................................8
D4. Critical Evaluation of How Background and Experience Influences Entrepreneurs, both
Positively and Negatively................................................................................................................8
Local Entrepreneur:.........................................................................................................................8
Global Entrepreneur:.......................................................................................................................9

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Social Entrepreneur.........................................................................................................................9
References :...................................................................................................................................10

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Task 3:
P5. Characteristic Traits and Skills of Successful Entrepreneurs
The characteristic trait and skills of entrepreneurs is as follows (Burns 2011):
Traits:
 Successful entrepreneurs should possess immense passion and put in additional hours to
the business to make it flourishing and successful
 They have stronger work ethics and they make sure that they are the ones who first
reach the office.
 They possess stronger communication or people skills that enable them in selling the
products and motivate the customers.
 They are determined and are never influenced by the defeat they usually encounter.
 They are also competitive as each of the entrepreneurs feel that they can do a better job
compared to the others.
Skills:
 Successful entrepreneurs are ambitious that determines their persistence. They succeed
on reaching the smaller milestones that acts as the stepping stones of the major goals.
 They have the willingness to keep themselves updated with the changes in the
technology, evolution of the industry and the sales process.
 They possess immense level of perseverance and looks at adverse situations as vital
learning lessons.

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 They possess the courage of acting on plans and ideas and even undertake unknown
steps.
P6. How Aspects of Entrepreneurial Personality Reflect Entrepreneurial Motivation and
Mindset
The personality traits of entrepreneurs have close association with the motives of the
entrepreneur (Fayolle, Liñán and Moriano 2014). There are some personality traits that correlate
to the motives of the entrepreneurs. Thus, both motivational structure and personality traits hold
importance for understanding mindset of entrepreneur. Here, the Big Five model is used for
investigating the personality traits amongst self employed. In this particular model, personality
has been defined by five different traits. These include (Gurven et al. 2013):
 Surgency or Extraversion (assertive, energetic and talkative) relates to the aspects of
being sociable and energetic thereby displaying a leadership role.
 Agreeableness (trustful, cooperative and good natured) describes a cooperative person at
one end of the scale while at the other end it describes a hard bargain and self centered
person.
 Conscientiousness (dependable, responsible and orderly) puts forward a description of a
person who is efficient, dutiful and achievement oriented.
 Neuroticism versus Emotional Stability (not neurotic and easily upset, calm) puts forward
the description of the person who possesses self confidence, stress tolerant and positive.
 Openness to the Experience (imaginative, intellectual and independent minded) describes
an individual characterized by seeking the new experience, exploration of the ideas, being
innovative and creative.

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Although research on the personality traits have been quite extensive it is believed that
incorporation of the motivation factor acts as the pre requisite for fully capturing the
entrepreneurial mindset. The key motivational factor of entrepreneur lies in realization of the
idea and inherent within the motivation is a creative phase of implementations of the ideas that
requires certain degrees of the autonomy. Thus, it can be said that the underlying motives acts as
the core of entrepreneurial mindset.
M3. Examination of Different Lines of Argument Relating to Entrepreneurial
Characteristics
According to Carter and Jones-evans (2012), there exists a common argument amongst
the researchers surrounding the fact that the entrepreneurs mostly portray optimism that relates to
the other characteristics of the entrepreneurs. It has also been found that there exist a relationship
between the entrepreneurial characteristics, realism, pessimism and optimism. Most of the works
on the entrepreneurial characteristics have put forward discussions on action orientation, higher
achievement driven, internalized locus of the control, risk taking, tolerance of the ambiguity,
opportunity driven, committed, independent, creative and optimistic. Several other researchers
seems to agree that the optimism links to the other entrepreneurial characteristics when it is
identified as to who the entrepreneurs actually are. There have been various researchers that
claims that optimism remains associated with the positive outcomes of the entrepreneurs’
contribution and success towards the economy where they operate. Down (2010) suggested that
optimism amongst the entrepreneurs even during the bad times acts as the key factor in the drive
towards the success. It has been observed that optimism acts as the stimulator for the
commitment and the persistence of the newer ventures. However, when the entrepreneurs are
identified as the optimist, the outlook enables the entrepreneurs in downplaying the uncertainty

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and focusing on the good and doable in the situation. Optimism however acts as a negative factor
in relation to entrepreneurship. This is because by being unrealistically optimistic and over
confident entrepreneurs mostly over estimate the odds they plan to succeed. In entrepreneurship,
optimism has been liked to higher expectations and risk tolerance. Optimist often misleads them
in becoming the entrepreneurs with higher risk of the failure.
D3. Analyses of Characteristic Traits, Skills and Motivational drivers of Successful
entrepreneurs, Supported by Specific Examples
Local Entrepreneur
For example, Daw Khin Khin Gyi , a local entrepreneur of Myanmar brought in the idea
of making a livelihood through pottery business. However she remained determined in making
good quality pots through immense practice since she did not have formal training. However the
challenge was the limited market for pots. Her perseverance presented her with an opportunity
of training in the cook stove introduced by Forest Research Institute, Yezin. This also provided
her with a motivational drive to learn making the A1 stoves that had superior level of emission.
The young entrepreneur received its first substantial orders from United Nations Development
Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization.
Global Entrepreneur
Alon Braun out of his determination and ambition made him take up a career as
programmer in the defense forces of Israel. During the time, he also built the first startup,
Webstare, founded by the Apple Israel. He split his time in being the CEO of the Talking Ads,
the performance marketing network and customer retention agency, Pathwway, an online

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business. His passion for science and the technology acted as the motivational driver
development of the growth strategies of business and the agile methodologies.
Social Entrepreneur
Bill Drayton had the ambition of using the knowhow and business savvy skill in
transforming the world into better place. His motivational driver lay in combining the
traditional business model with the pressing social mission that helped in making bigger changes
to the world. He was the founder of Ashoka, an organization dedicated to helping and finding
social entrepreneurs. Besides, he has also acted as the chair person of Youth Venture, Get
America Working and Community Greens.

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Task 4
P7. Influence of Back ground and Experience in Influencing Entrepreneurship through
Examples
According to Uygun and Kasimoglu (2013), it has been noted that the background of the
entrepreneur impacts the visions, actions or the decisions that entrepreneur might take in driving
outcome of venture. For example, here if one considers the case of Daw Khin Khin Gyi, the local
entrepreneur of Myanmar, he or she will be able to observe that local entrepreneur belonged to
a region that was hit by flood and people suffered extreme hardship. In the absence of a way to
make money and lack of strong educational background prompted to start the pottery business.
However, in case of Alon Braun, a global entrepreneur, the case was completely
different. He not only began his career as programmer but also gathered experience as a faculty
of the Hebrew University. Besides, he also acquired masters in oceanography and held a
specialization in marine microscopy, molecular biology and paleontology. His educational
background made him start a company known as Webstare backed up by Apple.
Bill Drayton, the famous social entrepreneur had an educational background where he
attained a bachelor’s degree frome Harvard, Master Degree from Oxford and a degree in law
from the Yale school. He also had the experience of establishing the most popular student
organization, Asia Society. He also created Ashoka Table that brought the church leaders, union
and the government to off record dinners and a student body at the law school, Yale Legislated
Service. This strong educational background fostered him in Finding Ashoka: Innovators for
Public

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M4. Link between Entrepreneurial Characteristics and Influence of Personal Background
and Experience to Specific Successful Entrepreneurs
An entrepreneur requires knowledge for recognizing an entrepreneurial opportunity and
this particular knowledge is derived from education, personal background and work experience
(Omerzel and Kušce 2013). For example, in case of the local entrepreneur, Daw Khin Khin Gyi
of Myanmar, determination and motivational drive came in from the extreme hardship that urged
her in finding a solution that would help her in making money. However, for the global
entrepreneur, Alon Braun, the determination, passion, ambition for initiating a start up
business came from his passion of being a programmer and his experience as a faculty of
Hebrew University. His motivational drive is however determined by his rich educational
background. Social Entrepreneur, Bill Drayton, passion for initiating Ashoka was derived from
his successful establishment of student bodies and rich educational background.
D4. Critical Evaluation of How Background and Experience Influences Entrepreneurs,
both Positively and Negatively
Local Entrepreneur:
Background and experience played a positive influence in influencing Daw Khin Khin
Gyi in taking up business initiative of making pottery even when Myanmar did not have a strong
market for it. The negative influence has been in the fact that she plunged into the mission
without a prior training and had to put in additional effort to accomplish and gain the expertise of
making pottery.

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Global Entrepreneur:
The background and experience had a positive influence Alon Braun that motivated him
to start his start up business, Webstare. The rich educational background and the expertise
however had a negative influence in the sense that he had to switch between the roles of faculty,
student and a programmer.
Social Entrepreneur
The background and experience positively influenced Bill Drayton to act as the founder
and the chairperson of Ashoka, dedicated to helping and finding social entrepreneurs across the
world. His rich background and educational role made him act as the chairperson of other
institutions that can be considered a negative influence since it led to distribution of its attention.

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References:
Burns, P 2011 Entrepreneurship and Small Business. 3rd Ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
Carter, S. and Jones-Evans, D. (2012) Enterprise and Small Business:
Down, S. 2010. Enterprise, Entrepreneurship and Small Business. London: Sage.
Ed. Harlow: Pearson.
Fayolle, A., Liñán, F. and Moriano, J.A., 2014. Beyond entrepreneurial intentions: values and
motivations in entrepreneurship. International Entrepreneurship and Management
Journal, 10(4), pp.679-689.
Griffiths, A. and Wall, S. (2011) Economics for Business and Management. 3rd
Gurven, M., Von Rueden, C., Massenkoff, M., Kaplan, H. and Lero Vie, M., 2013. How
universal is the Big Five? Testing the five-factor model of personality variation among forager–
farmers in the Bolivian Amazon. Journal of personality and social psychology, 104(2), p.354.
Omerzel Gomezelj, D. and Kušce, I., 2013. The influence of personal and environmental factors
on entrepreneurs' performance. Kybernetes, 42(6), pp.906-927.
Principles, Practice and Policy. London: Pearson.
Uygun, R. and Kasimoglu, M., 2013. The emergence of entrepreneurial intentions in indigenous
entrepreneurs: The role of personal background on the antecedents of intentions. International
Journal of Business and Management, 8(5), p.24.