The Psychological Make-Up of An Entrepreneur

<div class&equals;"itemIntroText">&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">Studies show that the psychological propensities for male and female entrepreneurs are more similar than different&period; Empirical studies suggest that male entrepreneurs possess strong negotiating skills and consensus-forming abilities&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<div class&equals;"itemFullText" style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">&NewLine;<p>Jesper Sørensen&comma; Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business&comma; wrote that significant influences on an individual&&num;8217&semi;s decision to become an entrepreneur are workplace peers and the social composition of the workplace&period; Sørensen discovered a correlation between working with former entrepreneurs and how often these individuals become entrepreneurs themselves&comma; compared to those who did not work with entrepreneurs&period; The social composition of the workplace can influence entrepreneurism in workplace peers by proving a possibility for success&comma; causing a &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;He can do it&comma; why can’t I&quest;” attitude&period; As Sørensen stated&comma; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;When you meet others who have gone out on their own&comma; it doesn’t seem that crazy&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Innovative entrepreneurs may be more likely to experience what psychologist&comma; Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls flow&period; Flow occurs when the outside world disappears in the face of a vibrant inner motivation to do something&period; Csikszentmihalyi suggests that breakthrough innovations occur at the hands of individuals experiencing flow&period; They become so enthralled with the ideas in their heads that they cannot help but follow them&period; Similarly&comma; other research has concluded that a strong internal motivation is a vital ingredient for breakthrough innovation&period; Flow may also be compared to Maria Montessori’s concept of normalization&comma; a state which includes a child’s capacity for joyful and lengthy periods of intense concentration&period; Csikszentmihalyi himself acknowledges that Montessori’s prepared environment offers children opportunities to achieve flow&period; Thus quality and type of early education may have some influence on entrepreneurial capability&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><strong>Innate Ability vs&period; Public Perception<&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The ability of entrepreneurs to innovate relates to innate traits&comma; including extroversion and a proclivity for risk-taking&period; According to Joseph Schumpeter&comma; the capabilities of innovating&comma; introducing new technologies&comma; increasing efficiency and productivity&comma; or generating new products or services&comma; are characteristic qualities of entrepreneurs&period; Also&comma; many scholars maintain that entrepreneurship is a matter of genes&comma; and that it is not everyone who can be an entrepreneur&period; It has&comma; however&comma; been argued that entrepreneurs are not that distinctive&semi; and that it is essentially poor conceptualizations of &&num;8220&semi;non-entrepreneurs&&num;8221&semi; that maintain laudatory portraits of &&num;8220&semi;entrepreneurs&&num;8221&semi;&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<&sol;div>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; justify&semi;">&NewLine;