Genetics of Entrepreneurship
Are the key qualities of entrepreneurs genetic? That was the question behind a seminar by international expert in entrepreneurship, Prof Scott Shane of Case Western University, visiting professor at Newcastle University.
The answer seemed to be a qualified yes, according to a number of rigorous academic studies comparing identical and fraternal twins. Of course it’s not quite as simple as that, as I will attempt to explain.
There is a lot of interest in entrepreneurship recently, not least the idea that innovation and enterprise can help stimulate the economy, but also that Universities and Colleges can help support and develop entrepreneurship. It’s not all about making money either, as illustrated by the recent presentation at AURIL conference by HEFCE, UnLtd and Bristol University, on Social Enterprise.
Entrepreneurship plays a part in the JISC Business and Community Engagement (BCE) agenda in several ways including enterprise education for student employability skills, graduate startups, spinouts and support for commercialisation, innovation, and social enterprise.
I’d also like to stretch this slightly and drop in creativity as well as I believe there are strong links between creativity, enterprise and innovation. Anyone who has listened to Ken Robinson on creativity in education may have a view on whether “schools kill creativity” but it’s certainly something worth thinking about when we look to stimulate entrepreneurship and innovation at higher levels of education.
Scott Shane’s presentation in fact focused on some key behaviours/traits/qualities that are linked to entrepreneurship, but that we may consider also to be relevant to innovation and/or creativity.
One approach was looking at the “Big 5″ personality traits, highlighting openness to experience and extraversion as key qualities in entrepreneurs.
Another study looked at the propensity for “sensation seeking” or novelty seeking, examples including those drawn to extreme sports or exotic travel. This linked with the willingness to take risks in order to do new things.
From the 5 studies, another important factor was opportunity recognition, the ability to identify business opportunities from bits of information. Strong social networks were also an environmental factor, with perhaps a role here for JISC in Web 2.0 and social media, the benefits argued persuasively by Brian McCaul at AURIL conference recently.
A layman’s interpretation of the conclusions were that the same genetic factors influence opportunity recognition and the tendency to be entrepreneurial, and that openness to experience and extraversion correlate to a tendency to be entrepreneurial.
Anyone wishing to see a more academic and rigorous analysis (and check if they think I’ve interpreted it correctly) should look further at Scott Shane’s work
Nicolau, N., Shane, S. A., Hunkin, J., Cherkas, L., Spector, T. (2008). Is the tendancy to engage in entrepreneurship genetic? (1 ed., vol. 54, pp. 167-179). Hanover, MD: Management Science.
On a final note, the breadth of Business and Community Engagement was reflected in the attendees at the seminar. It brought together a mixture of business school staff and students, academics from genetics, medicine and bioscience, with knowledge transfer and exchange staff and two Pro Vice Chancellors including one for Engagement. Genetics and entrepreneurship proved to be an effective “boundary spanner” stimulating interest across several disciplines and organisational structures, another driver for the JISC BCE programme and innovation more generally.