Founder Characteristics and Start-up Policies of Entrepreneurial Ventures: A Comparison between British and Indian Enterprises

Abstract

An earlier study by the author on ’Entrepreneurial Heuristics’ had shown that entrepreneurial performance (especially in terms of innovativeness which is the essence of entrepreneurship) varies significantly with the types of policies and strategies adopted by the enterprise/entrepreneur during the start-up phase. Such policies and strategies were then designated as ’heuristics’ because of their nonformal and evolutionary nature. In an entrepreneurial venture the primary source of such policies, strategies or heuristics is naturally the founder who normally has the maximum influence on the decisions made in the enterprise. Based on this logic, it was decided to undertake a follow-up study to ascertain the extent of such association, if any, between the founder characteristics and start-up policies. Coinciding with the design of the follow-up study, the author obtained data from British enterprises using the same research design. This research investigated two important issues in entrepreneurship: (a) the relationship between founder-characteristics and start-up policies of the enterprise, and (b) comparison of British and Indian enterprises in terms of their start-up policies and founder characteristics. The present paper deals only with the second part. The first part is mentioned here only to explain the rationale for choosing the variables. There are four sets of variables being investigated in this study: (a) Background and early experiences of the entrepreneur, (b) Personal policies (traits) of the entrepreneur, (c) Motives of the entrepreneur and (d) Management practices (policies and strategies) of the enterprise. The findings are explained and a few hypotheses generated on cross-cultural perspectives on entrepreneurship and enterprise management.