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  • 1.  Cognitive Measures of Entrepreneurship

    Posted 09-18-2007 18:08

    My current stream of research deals with the cognitive aspects of entrepreneurship. However, I am finding it difficult to locate psychometrically strong instruments. I need your help, if you are aware of any instrument used, or one that could be used, to measure the cognitive process leading to entrepreneurial action (values, beliefs, attitude, intentions, motivations, etc...) please let me know. I have already evaluated the following instruments.

     

    (Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) scale) Covin, Jeffrey G. and Slevin, Dennis P. (1986) The Development and Testing of an Organizational- Level Entrepreneurship Scale

     

    Lumpkin, G. T. and Dess, Gregory G. (1997) Proactiveness versus Competitive Aggressiveness: Teasing Apart Key Dimensions of an Entrepreneurial Orientation

     

    (Corporate Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (CESE)) Ehrlich, Sanford, de noble, Alex and Singh, Gangaram (2005) Corporate Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy: The Development of a Domain-Specific Measure

     

    Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation (EAO) Robinson, Peter B., Stimpson, David V., Huefner, Jonathan C. and Hunt, H. Keith. (1991) An Attitude Approach to the Prediction of Entrepreneurship

     

    (Entrepreneurial Leadership Questionnaire (ELQ)) Eggers, John H. and Leahy, Kim T. (1994) Stages of Small Business Growth Revisited: Insights into Growth Path and Needed Leadership/Management Skills in Low and High Growth Companies

     

    (Entrepreneurial Personality) Sexton, Donald L. and Bowman, Nancy B. (1984) Personality Inventor for Potential Entrepreneurs: Evaluation of a Modified JPI/PRF-E Test Instrument

     

    While my intent is to measure the cognitive process at the individual level, as you can see, I am also reviewing firm-level instruments for potential modification or reinterpretation for use at the individual level. If you are aware of any instrument, used in any aspect relating to the cognitive process, I would greatly appreciate the reference.

     

    Robert F. Sinclair

    Entrepreneurship Ph.D. Student

    University of Louisville

    Rob.Sinclair@lousiville.edu

     

    ************************************** This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list. You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1 If you have questions or need help, please contact Dr. John Bunch jbunch@benedictine.edu. Ventures HO!


  • 2.  Cognitive Measures of Entrepreneurship

    Posted 09-20-2007 13:34
    Dear Rob,
    For entrepreneurial personality you might consider the Big-Five. A recent JAP paper found that while the individual components of the Big Five had a small effect on predicting entrepreneurial status, as a whole these personality dimensions had a moderate effect on entrepreneurial status. A benefit of using the Big Five is that it is a commonly used personality measure and that helps entrepreneurship scholars to be able to converse with other audiences. The JAP paper is:

    Zhao, H., & Seibert, S.E. (2006). The Big Five personality dimension and entrepreneurial status: A meta-analytical review, Journal of Applied Psychology, 91 (2), 259-271.

    For entrepreneurial self-efficacy, you could consider a paper by Zhao, Seibert and Hills (2005) where they used a short scale which is easily administered. Please see page 1286 of that paper and the full reference is:

    Zhao, H., Seibert, S.E., & Hills, G.E. (2005). The mediating role of self-efficacy in the development of entrepreneurial interests. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(6), 1265-1272.

    For self-efficacy you might also consider a general perceived self-efficacy scale. Some researchers argue that entrepreneurship requires a wide range of skills, knowledge and abilities. Therefore a general self-efficacy scale is a good predictor of entrepreneurial outcomes.

    Best,
    Maw-Der Foo

    ------------------
    Maw-Der Foo
    University of Colorado at Boulder

    Website: http://www.mawder.com/




    ---- Original message ----
    >Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2007 18:07:54 -0400
    >From: Rob Sinclair <rob.sinclair@INSIGHTBB.COM>
    >Subject: [ENTREP] Cognitive Measures of Entrepreneurship
    >To: ENTREP@AOMLISTS.pace.edu
    >
    > My current stream of research deals with the
    > cognitive aspects of entrepreneurship. However, I am
    > finding it difficult to locate psychometrically
    > strong instruments. I need your help, if you are
    > aware of any instrument used, or one that could be
    > used, to measure the cognitive process leading to
    > entrepreneurial action (values, beliefs, attitude,
    > intentions, motivations, etc...) please let me know.
    > I have already evaluated the following instruments.
    >
    >
    >
    > (Entrepreneurial Orientation (EO) scale) Covin,
    > Jeffrey G. and Slevin, Dennis P. (1986) The
    > Development and Testing of an Organizational- Level
    > Entrepreneurship Scale
    >
    >
    >
    > Lumpkin, G. T. and Dess, Gregory G. (1997)
    > Proactiveness versus Competitive Aggressiveness:
    > Teasing Apart Key Dimensions of an Entrepreneurial
    > Orientation
    >
    >
    >
    > (Corporate Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy (CESE))
    > Ehrlich, Sanford, de noble, Alex and Singh, Gangaram
    > (2005) Corporate Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy: The
    > Development of a Domain-Specific Measure
    >
    >
    >
    > Entrepreneurial Attitude Orientation (EAO) Robinson,
    > Peter B., Stimpson, David V., Huefner, Jonathan C.
    > and Hunt, H. Keith. (1991) An Attitude Approach to
    > the Prediction of Entrepreneurship
    >
    >
    >
    > (Entrepreneurial Leadership Questionnaire (ELQ))
    > Eggers, John H. and Leahy, Kim T. (1994) Stages of
    > Small Business Growth Revisited: Insights into
    > Growth Path and Needed Leadership/Management Skills
    > in Low and High Growth Companies
    >
    >
    >
    > (Entrepreneurial Personality) Sexton, Donald L. and
    > Bowman, Nancy B. (1984) Personality Inventor for
    > Potential Entrepreneurs: Evaluation of a Modified
    > JPI/PRF-E Test Instrument
    >
    >
    >
    > While my intent is to measure the cognitive process
    > at the individual level, as you can see, I am also
    > reviewing firm-level instruments for potential
    > modification or reinterpretation for use at the
    > individual level. If you are aware of any
    > instrument, used in any aspect relating to the
    > cognitive process, I would greatly appreciate the
    > reference.
    >
    >
    >
    > Robert F. Sinclair
    >
    > Entrepreneurship Ph.D. Student
    >
    > University of Louisville
    >
    > Rob.Sinclair@lousiville.edu
    >
    >
    >
    > ************************************** This message
    > is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the
    > Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of
    > Management. Please do not post messages with
    > attached files. Commercial messages or spammed
    > messages are not allowed on the list. The use of
    > auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also
    > lead to your removal from the list. You can manage
    > your subscription options, including joining or
    > leaving the list here:
    > http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1
    > If you have questions or need help, please contact
    > Dr. John Bunch jbunch@benedictine.edu. Ventures HO!

    **************************************
    This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management.

    Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list.

    You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here:
    http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1

    If you have questions or need help, please contact Dr. John Bunch jbunch@benedictine.edu.

    Ventures HO!


  • 3.  Cognitive Measures of Entrepreneurship

    Posted 09-20-2007 16:13
    Rob - Great opportunity here to perhaps bridge the person-level and firm-level. Thanks for stimulating my thinking

    I'd agree on the Big 5, but disagree a bit on self-efficacy. I'd still use Alex DeNoble's scale, despite its length (I've had great alphas). [And, frankly, Zhao's study troubles me.] As for general self-efficacy, I'd argue that it has its uses, but it is not specifically aimed at entrepreneurship. (One would hope that entrepreneurs would score well on GSE, but it need not differentiate entrepreneurs per se. In the earlier days of the field, we found scales where entrepreneurs scored well, but so did top managers, even Peace Corps volunteers.) PLEASE have sound theoretical reasons a priori for picking scales.  Fortunately, I think you have that.

    You know I'm going to plug measures based on intentions and their associated attitudes [including self-efficacy] & I am happy to send you the latest version of that.

    Nor will you be surprised to hear me suggest Ron Mitchell, et al.'s measure re expert entrepreneurial scripts. Excellent theory base - it's hard to not want to look at how far along entrepreneurs are on the road from novice to expert entrepreneurial thinkers.

    An oldie that isn't actually - but if we care at all about action (e.g., moving across the tipping point from intent to action - or even from interest to intent) we need to elicit the barriers they perceive. [Research from elsewhere in psych suggests also looking at perceptions of past barriers they've hurdled.] I've started to notice interesting patterns of the causal attributions made about those barriers - is getting funded a matter of adding a facilitator or removing a barrier? I suspect that the optimistic attributions may be more functional.  Seligman's learned optimism scale has terrific psychometric properties & can be adapted here to give you a baseline for the barriers attributions.

    Finally (whew - avoiding work here, LOL) - why not consider simply adding individual-level analogs to the firm-level constructs? For "proactiveness" use the "proactiveness" scale (or Kuhl's action orientation or even Seligman's scale). For risk-accepting, use venturesomeness or ambiguity tolerance or ?) For innovativeness use Kirton's scale or the like. I took a stab at this & a battery of such measures did associate significantly with measures of opportunity identification, but pretty low r-squared.

    Again, Rob, thanks for making me think a bit today... /NK

    p.s. if you want to use less domain-specific scales like GSE - consider measures of the "dark side" - like the narcissistic personality inventory [college professors are the second-highest scoring group, btw]
    --
    Keep entrepreneuring!
    Norris

    Norris Krueger, Jr., Ph.D.
    Entrepreneurship Northwest: "How can I help YOU to help grow entrepreneurs?"
    (208) 440-3747; skype: norris.krueger
    "I criticize by creation, not by finding fault" -Cicero

    ************************************** This message is from ENTREP which is sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management. Please do not post messages with attached files. Commercial messages or spammed messages are not allowed on the list. The use of auto-responder "out-of-office" messages may also lead to your removal from the list. You can manage your subscription options, including joining or leaving the list here: http://aomlists.pace.edu/scripts/wa.exe?SUBED1=entrep&A=1 If you have questions or need help, please contact Dr. John Bunch jbunch@benedictine.edu. Ventures HO!