Factors of success amongst high-growth entrepreneurs in South Africa

Abstract

Entrepreneurship in South Africa is an area in which limited literature exists. Limited literature surrounding entrepreneurship as a whole and more specifically, factors that contribute to that success. Historically, entrepreneurial studies have been conducted predominantly around individual personality traits and the traits impact on entrepreneurial intentions. The purpose of this study was to identify if the Big Five characteristics (Urban & Venter, 2015) contribute towards business success. The Big Five characteristics used in this study are made up of self-efficacy, need for achievement, locus of control, need for autonomy and risk taking (Urban & Venter, 2015). Eighty-five responses were obtained for the study and the data was obtained through the distribution of an online based quantitative survey. The survey consisted of five baseline business success questions as well as thirty-two Likert scale questions, comprising the Big Five characteristics. This study made use of descriptive statistics to analyse the results. The findings suggest that need for achievement is the highest contributor of business success with self-efficacy contributing somewhat to business success. Need for autonomy indicated a moderate relationship existing between the characteristic and business success. Locus of control was calculated as above average, indicating a sentiment of internal locus of control and that this plays a part in business success. The findings suggest that risk-taking in its base state does not contribute towards business success. However, when decomposing the components that form risk-taking the findings indicated that entrepreneurs with successful enterprises are prone to taking risks, provided the calculable variable have been measured. Recommendations have been made to aid future research in conducting studies with fewer factors of business success and to utilise additional statistical methods.