ID-Entrepreneurship – HRID | Entrepreneurship Test

ID-Entrepreneurship

The ID-Entrepreneurship (Ent) is designed to assess the key characteristics of potential entrepreneurs that distinguish themselves by their success in business. The test covers all the important aspects of entrepreneurship, i.e. the conditions for success, the ability to take risks, the motivation, and interest in becoming an entrepreneur, the personal characteristics that are necessary to carry out such a project and the concrete intention to start a business.

Characteristics of our entrepreneurship aptitude test

Available languages

English | French

Required time

20 minutes

Administration

103 questions | Multiple Choice

Target audience

Anyone wishing to start or take over a business, or accompany entrepreneurs in this type of activity.


Why should employees test for entrepreneurial characteristics?

The role and perception of entrepreneurship in society changed radically during the latter half of the 20th century. The entrepreneurial spirit developed over the years and has been a key aspect in the consolidation of the Western economy. Through their career choices, entrepreneurs created wealth and allowed modern societies to grow and create jobs for the vast majority of the working-age population. In other words, entrepreneurship is an important characteristic that merits special attention.

Studies have shown that exposure to entrepreneurship education can greatly improve one’s enterprising capabilities. When it begins at an early age, entrepreneurial education can have massive benefits for future working professionals. These are traits that can be measured and improved, as long as one has the information available to act on. Entrepreneurial journeys can begin at any age and at any stage of one’s career.

Standard Report

Presents results based on two main factors: strength and direction. They help determine the style of entrepreneurship among four different styles:

  • Builder;
  • Developers;
  • Collaborator;
  • Explorer;
Presents their entrepreneurial style as well as the more detailed results of the evaluated aspects of entrepreneurship.

Key points

  • Provides a portrait of the entrepreneurial style.
  • Identifies the individual's motivational factors.
  • Allows for instant, simple, and detailed results.

Entrepreneurship and Entrepreneurial Characteristics

Learn more about entrepreneurship and HRID’s tests

Although the terms “entrepreneur” and “entrepreneurship” are commonly used, there is no real consensus as to their meaning. Hisrich et al. (2008) wrote one of the definitions of entrepreneurship used by numerous st-century researchers. This definition encompasses four main components:

  1. Developing new processes, products, or services with higher value than the previous
    ones, on a specific market;
  2. Devoting the necessary time, energy, and effort to the new business venture;
  3. Assuming the financial, cognitive, emotional, and social risks associated with undertaking something new;
  4. Receiving the resulting rewards of monetary and personal satisfaction and
    independence.

The HRID Entrepreneurship Model

The HRID Entrepreneurship Model is based on both an exhaustive review of the scientific and professional study of entrepreneurship, as well as a series of structured interviews conducted with entrepreneurs. The evaluation instrument aims to cover every personality factor of potential entrepreneurs and makes it possible to estimate the extent to which a participant possesses the necessary predispositions for business ventures.

ID-Entrepreneurship was designed to be an assessment tool that promotes personal development and enables participants, or the people guiding them, to predict their likelihood of becoming a successful entrepreneur.

How does it work?

ID-Entrepreneurship provides information about two crucial aspects of entrepreneurial potential. First, the test determines the participant’s preferred style, based on two essential factors:

  1. Entrepreneurial strength: This factor indicates how prepared the participant is to make the necessary effort to achieve their objectives. People who score well in this area are highly proactive. They feel like they are in control of their environment and tend to persevere in spite of any difficulties they may encounter. They know how to operate in stressful, ambiguous environments and devote a significant amount of effort to building networks of contacts that can help them see their projects through to completion;
  2. Entrepreneurial direction: This factor indicates how motivated the participant is to execute an entrepreneurial project. People who score well in this area are optimistic and have the firm intention of launching a new business venture. For them, entrepreneurship is their preferred lifestyle. They enjoy being the centre of attention and want to innovate and offer new products or services that will meet their clients’ needs

Types of Entrepreneurs

The ID-Entrepreneurship model measures the relationship between these two entrepreneurial personality characteristics, resulting in four distinct entrepreneurial types.

Builders

Builders are prepared to expend a great deal of energy to achieve their goals. They are proactive and highly results oriented They are self-confident and do not hesitate to take risks. They can handle stress and are able to build an elaborate network of contacts. They do not see pure entrepreneurship, or the creation of a small, medium, or large company, as the only way to meet their goals. This category includes self-employed workers and people who are interested in participating in entrepreneurial projects, without being their main promoters.

Developers

Developers display both the necessary motivation and the characteristics required to create a company from the ground up. They are energetic and results oriented. They are self-confident and do not hesitate to take risks, even in high-stress situations. To them, an entrepreneurial career is more like a lifestyle. They are optimistic and want to create something new that will meet a spoken or unspoken customer need. This category includes founding owners of small, medium, and large companies, as well as people who want to make an existing company grow and thrive. Whatever the case, they all want to be the driving force behind new initiatives

Collaborators

Collaborators share certain characteristics associated with entrepreneurs. However, they do not always have the necessary energy to launch a new business. They can be excellent allies for an entrepreneur and can play a leading role in starting a company. Having said that, they often choose to offer support rather than assume the inherent risks of any new venture. They may see the stress, ambiguity, and energy of new ventures as negatives. In addition, they may not always feel the desire to create a new product or service.

Explorers

Explorers demonstrate a keen interest in starting a business. To them, entrepreneurial careers present an opportunity to play a significant role in creating a new product or service. Explorers are optimistic and want to move forward. However, they sometimes hesitate to put their plans into motion, given the risks and effort that are inherent to such undertakings. The ideas are there, but the stress levels, the investment required, and the potential obstacles can curb their enthusiasm. Some people in this category may decide to work with developers and/or builders. In those instances, they play the role of spark plugs.

ID-Entrepreneurship Test Structure

The ID-Entrepreneurship assesses the main characteristics of entrepreneurs who stand out for

their business success. The model includes the previously mentioned four entrepreneurial types, derived from cross-referencing two key factors, entrepreneurial leadership/strength and force/direction.

There are five key aspects taken into consideration in the evaluation process when calculating those two factors:

  • Motivation,
  • Background,
  • Personal Characteristics,
  • Intention,
  • Problem Solving.

Personality and cognitive abilities are personal characteristics that enable people to succeed in their entrepreneurial projects. They are, therefore, associated with entrepreneurial force.

On the other hand, motivation, intention, and background (i.e. previous exposure to entrepreneurship or encouragement from the people close to the individual) relate more to entrepreneurial leadership, meaning the individual’s desire to start a business.

The desire to pursue entrepreneurship (entrepreneurial leadership), combined with the person’s abilities (entrepreneurial force), represents the ideal intersection of variables.

Research on the Characteristics of Potential Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurial intention is an individual’s intention to create or launch a new business at some point in the future. According to psychological research, the best way to predict the future occurrence of a specific activity is to measure people’s intention with regard to that activity (Ajzen, 1991; Carsrud & Brännback, 2011). As a result, the entrepreneurial intention is an excellent indicator of an individual’s decision to start their own company (Lee et al., 2011; Thompson, 2009).

Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour (1991) suggests three antecedents capable of predicting intention:

Personal attitude toward the behaviour;

Subjective norms;

Perceived behavioural control.

Attitude toward entrepreneurship

Ajzen (1991) defined personal attitude as “the degree to which a person has a favourable or unfavourable evaluation of the behaviour of interest.” Fishbein and Ajzen (1975) classified personal attitude in the expectancy–value model as a behavioural belief, which is one of the two behavioural antecedents of behavioural intention.

In entrepreneurship research, personal attitude is an individual’s opinion of specific results associated with entrepreneurial behaviour, such as launching a new business venture (Fayolle, 1991; Fayolle et al., 2014).

Social norm

Subjective norms refer to a person’s perception of the social pressures that encourage them to adopt (or not adopt) the behaviour in question (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Social pressure is a contextual factor determined by the perceived degree of approval or disapproval on the part of people who are important to the individual (Ajzen, 1991; Fayolle et al., 2014), such as family, close friends, and colleagues (Liñán & Chen, 2009). Subjective norms are the second belief preceding behavioural intention (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975) and include normative beliefs and the motivation to conform to those beliefs (Fayolle, 1991; Fayolle et al., 2014).

In the study of entrepreneurs, subjective norms indicate a person’s perception that other, essential reference people or groups will approve or disapprove of their decision to be self-employed (Liñán & Chen, 2009).

Perception of control

Perceived behavioural control refers to a person’s perception of the ease or difficulty of performing a task, taking factors like experience, expected obstacles, resources and available opportunities into account (Ajzen, 1991; Lortie & Castogiovanni, 2015). This concept of control differs from how it is used in Rotter’s locus of control (Rotter, 1966) and in Atkinson’s theory of achievement motivation (Atkinson, 1964). The first involves a general expectation that perception of control is a constant, separate from the situation and the type of action, while the second suggests that control is a joint function of the motivation to succeed and the expectation of achieving one’s goal.

The point of view of control presented here was heavily influenced by Bandura’s concept of perceived self-efficacy (Bandura & McClelland, 1977), which is a reflection of confidence in a person’s ability to achieve a specific goal or result by exercising pressure on others. Evidence shows that perceived behavioural control has both a direct and an indirect effect on behaviour, by influencing behavioural intention (Madden et al., 1992). Ajzen (1991) postulated that the perception of behavioural control has more of an impact on intentions and actions than actual control.


Cognitive Abilities

The search for evidence of the entrepreneurial spirit has shown that there are cognitive differences between them and non-entrepreneurs and that those differences affect the decision-making, biases, and heuristics observed in both groups. Previous studies have shown that entrepreneurs are more likely to take shortcuts when making decisions (i.e. generalizations based on small, non-random sample sets, such as personal experience). Cognitive factor differences also explain why some people decide to become entrepreneurs and not others.

There is a high degree of correlation between individuals with a high need for cognition and entrepreneurial potential, because of their propensity for creativity. An entrepreneur’s work is complex, non-routine and risky (Busenitz & Barney, 1997), so cognitive efforts (such as learning new skills and knowledge and practising divergent thinking) must continuously be made in order to successfully detect, activate, and exploit opportunities. Individuals with a high need for cognition are appropriate candidates for becoming entrepreneurs because they feel at ease performing stimulating cognitive tasks.


HRID Model Conclusions

Overall, the HRID Model can not only identify a person’s entrepreneurial style, but also provides information related to five key aspects associated with entrepreneurship. That information enables a better grasp on how dynamic a participant would be when it comes to starting a new business venture.

The more characteristics of the model a person exhibits, the more likely they are to start a new business and achieve the entrepreneurial goals they have set for themselves. Conversely, the fewer characteristics of the model a person has, the less likely they are to succeed in their entrepreneurial career. ID-Entrepreneurship results can identify these challenges, giving participants the chance to develop and grow.