| dc.description.abstract | Entrepreneurs are perceived to have a significant effect on a country's economy by
the establishment of new ventures that provide not only products to customers, but
also job opportunities in various industries. Therefore entrepreneurs and
entrepreneurship have become a critical solution to the low economic growth, high
level of poverty and the high level of unemployment in South Africa. However there is
a significant shortage of entrepreneurs in South Africa - in particular high-growth
start-up entrepreneurs. Various researchers and authors highlight similar (but not
identical) entrepreneurial variables and processes, as well as the interactions of
these variables and processes with the various competency profiles of the lead
entrepreneur. The Timmons model and the Wickham model emphasise an
integrated, holistic and appropriate fit and balance between the various
entrepreneurial variables (including the situation-specific entrepreneurial
competencies or differentiated competency profiles for lead entrepreneurs).
Chapter two discusses the current entrepreneur and entrepreneurship related issues
such as the definitions and concepts regarding entrepreneurship, the entrepreneurial
process, certain relevant myths, the entrepreneur and the entrepreneurial
competencies; and especially that there does not exist only one profile of
entrepreneurial competencies that fits all types of industries. All this emphasised the
need for differentiated competency profiles to enable the particular optimal
entrepreneurial mix for different business contexts such as the specific type of
business industry.
The third chapter reports on the research methodology and the results of the data
gathered in the survey research process. The internationally validated and user friendly
Human Job Analyses (HJA) questionnaire from Thomas International™ was
used to collect the entrepreneurial competency data cluster into the four well known
competency clusters Dominance, Influence, Steadiness and Compliance - also
known as DISC. The HJA was conducted in certain pre-selected business industries
to collect this exploratory study's research data. The sample characteristics and
related descriptive statistics were analysed and briefly discussed. Although the most
descriptive statistics indicated interesting results, the most important statistics are the
median related statistics, because of the unlikelihood of these samples being
normally distributed. Because of the sample limitations, only non-parametric tests
applied. The Kruskai-Wallis Rank Test and the Wilcoxon Rank Sum Test were
therefore used for the inferential statistical analyses. Due to the similarity in results
that both test statistics had with each other, the Wilcoxon was not repeated for the
analyses of the individual entrepreneurial competencies.
Certain entrepreneurial competency clusters, as well as certain individual
entrepreneurial competencies, showed no significant differences in their median
rankings; others that do, have significant differences in their median rankings, which
compare with the literature study's sources that emphasise that there is not one
entrepreneurial profile that fits all.
The most important conclusions that could be drawn within the context of the
above mentioned limitations includes that the Dominance cluster of entrepreneurial
competencies showed no statistical significant difference across the different
business industry samples. From that may be concluded that the particular three
industry samples (Real Estate, Accommodation and Restaurant) all regarded more or
less equally important to very important for lead entrepreneurs in the particular three
industries. On the other hand a significant difference in importance was found across
the different business industries for the other three entrepreneurial competency
clusters. The most important conclusion that can be drawn from that is again that
there is no one entrepreneurial profile that fit all lead entrepreneur across different
types of business industries. It can thus be concluded, at least regarding this study's
industry samples, that there may be a part of the entrepreneurial competency profile
that is similar for all three industries surveyed, but that a significant part of the
entrepreneurial profile (three of the four competency clusters in this study's case) has
a statistically significant different entrepreneurial competency profile.
These conclusions support the researcher's initial reason for this exploratory study
and should be followed up with further research projects using representative random
samples. | |
