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Personal skills
The exhaustive list in the category of personal skills includes stress management, intuition, creativity, perseverance, rigorousness, meticulousness, tenacity, self-awareness, accountability, emotional coping, motivation, self-efficacy, self-confidence, expressiveness, commitment, stamina, motivation, achievement and passion. Single-mindedness emerged from the data as one of the significant personal skills need for successful business venturing. Table 4-18 presents personal skills across the nascent, new-business and established entrepreneurship phases. Vital skills in the nascent phase are accountability, communication, hard work, intuition, passion, self-motivation, single-mindedness, tenacity and time management, emotional coping, assertiveness and patience. All these skills are important in starting a business. In the process of starting a business, nascent entrepreneurs emphasised that they rely on their intuitive knowledge to make decisions. Respondents indicated that, as they started engaging with clients, they needed to be assertive and know which business to take and which to decline. If things are not working as planned, they had to manage their emotions and deal with situations without being too emotional.
Leadership skills
Skills in the leadership category are having a vision and sharing it with employees, leading others, instilling team spirit and inspiring employees. Additional skills derived from the data are instilling a culture of performance and thought leadership. Table 4-19 shows leadership skills across the different entrepreneurship phases. The data showed that, among nascent-phase entrepreneurs, leadership skills begin with crafting the vision, inspiring the few employees in the business and sharing the vision with them. As the phases unfold, some leadership skills are continued to the new-business phase. Skills in the new-business phase include instilling a culture of performance, inspiring employees and sharing the vision with employees. In the new-business phase, respondents noted that they start to clearly articulate their vision – basically what the business aims to achieve. Since there are new people brought on board in the new-business phase, sharing the vision remains important. A new-business entrepreneur highlighted that this will make employees part of the business:
“Share the vision with them; make them feel as part of the business so that they don’t feel discouraged. Somehow make them see the big picture, it is not easy for people to work for a small business, people want things that are established but when you sort of share the vision with them they see the possibilities of where this company [is] going and they start somehow marrying in the vision” (Pheladi).
Another important element in running a business is to ensure set performance objectives are met, said respondents. So instilling a culture of performance can be one of many ways of achieving the goals of the business. One respondent highlighted:
“I am instilling a culture of consistent good behaviour or performance right from the beginning” (Xavi).
Leadership skills in the new-business phase are continued to the established phase. The skills of drafting a vision, sharing the vision, cultivating a culture of performance and inspiring employees still apply in the established phase. Sharing the vision is all about connecting employees with the business and keeping the goals of the business alive.
“I think it will be important to keep the goal alive, to keep the mission alive, from the top man, to a person cleaning the floor. People must understand what I am doing, I am not chopping rocks here, I am building a cathedral. They must see how they connect and must see what the goal is, then they understand” (Floyd).
What distinguishes leadership skills in the established phase from those in the new-business phase is thought leadership. Established businesses are in the position to take the lead in their field of expertise. This is a skill that an entrepreneur may transfer to the business and to the employees. Entrepreneurs aiming to be industry leaders emphasised:
“And our success is attributed to strong partnerships with market on thought leadership in the company in terms of being able to take new products into the markets, thought leadership in terms of knowing and understanding our market and the industry and also willingness to take risks” (Lee). So it can be argued that, in the nascent phase, entrepreneurs start to develop the vision of the business and share it with employees. There was unanimous agreement that having a vision and sharing it with employees is an essential leadership skill required by entrepreneurs. As they hire people, they inspire employees and try to cultivate a culture of performance. So leadership skills are applied more in the new-business and established phases than the nascent phase.
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE RESEARCH
1.1 INTRODUCTION
1.2 BACKGROUND
1.3 STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1.5 RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
1.6 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY
1.7 LIMITATIONS AND DELIMITATIONS
1.8 ASSUMPTIONS
1.9 DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS
1.10 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS
CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 INTRODUCTION
2.2 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AS A DOMAIN
2.3 ENTREPRENEURSHIP PROCESS AND PHASES
2.4 HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY
2.5 SKILLS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP PHASES
2.6 HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENTS IN DIFFERENT PHASES
2.7 HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENTS, SKILLS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP PHASES
2.8 SOUTH AFRICAN CONTEXT
2.9 SUMMARY OF LITERATURE REVIEW
CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
3.1 INTRODUCTION
3.2 RESEARCH PHILOSOPHIES
3.3 RESEARCH PARADIGMS IN SKILLS RESEARCH
3.4 RESEARCH APPROACH
3.5 RESEARCH CHOICE
3.6 RESEARCH STRATEGY
3.7 PHASE I – QUALITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
3.8 PHASE II – QUANTITATIVE RESEARCH METHODS
3.9 ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
3.10 SUMMARY OF RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
CHAPTER 4
QUALITATIVE FINDINGS AND REFINED HYPOTHESES
4.1 INTRODUCTION4.2 SKILLS IN THE DIFFERENT ENTREPRENEURSHIP PHASES
4.3 HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENTS IN DIFFERENT ENTREPRENEURSHIP PHASES
4.4 CONCLUDING SUMMARY AND HYPOTHESIS
CHAPTER 5
QUESTIONNAIRE DEVELOPMENT
5.1 INTRODUCTION
5.2 SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN PROCESS
5.3 SUMMARY ON QUESTIONNAIRE DESIGN
CHAPTER 6
QUANTITATIVE FINDINGS
6.1 INTRODUCTION
6.2 PREPARING DATA FOR ANALYSIS
6.3 DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
6.4 RESEARCH QUESTION 1
6.5 RESEARCH QUESTION 2 AND HYPOTHESIS 1
6.6 RESEARCH QUESTION 3 AND HYPOTHESIS 2
6.7 RESEARCH QUESTION 4 AND HYPOTHESIS 3
6.8 SUMMARY OF QUANTITATIVE FINDINGS
CHAPTER 7
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
7.1 INTRODUCTION
7.2 RESEARCH QUESTION 1: CLUSTERS AND CATEGORIES OF SKILLS
7.3 RESEARCH QUESTION 2 AND HYPOTHESIS 1: SKILLS IN THE DIFFERENT ENTREPRENEURSHIP PHASES
7.4 RESEARCH QUESTION 3 AND HYPOTHESIS 2: HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENTS ACROSS THE DIFFERENT ENTREPRENEURSHIP PHASES
7.5 RESEARCH QUESTION 4 AND HYPOTHESIS 3: RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENTS, SKILLS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP PHASES
7.6 SUMMARY OF THE DISCUSSION
CHAPTER 8
THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION
8.1 INTRODUCTION
8.2 SKILLS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP PHASES
8.3 HUMAN CAPITAL INVESTMENTS AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP PHASES
8.4 CONCEPTUAL MODEL
8.5 SUMMARY OF THEORETICAL CONTRIBUTION
CHAPTER 9
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
9.1 INTRODUCTION
9.2 CONCLUSIONS ON RESEARCH QUESTIONS
9.3 CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE STUDY
9.4 RESEARCH LIMITATIONS
9.5 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
REFERENCES
