The Role of Personal Values in the Entrepreneurial Process

Abstract

This work aims to explore different stages of the entrepreneurial process from the perspective of personal values as main predictors and guides of behavior. This work focuses on personal values for two main reasons: first, following the concept stated by Gartner (1988) about entrepreneurship being a role and a set of behaviors, and considering personal values as regulation agents for attitudes and thus for behavior. Second, personal values are desirable, trans-situational goals that vary in their importance as guiding principles in people’s lives and behavior (Schwartz, 1992). Thus the main objective of this research is to explore the role that personal values play as determinants of attitudes and behavior oriented to different stages of the entrepreneurial process, and learn how the influence of personal values in this process may affect the decisions that the entrepreneurs take within the organization as well as influencing the expected outcomes. To address this general objective the following specific objectives are proposed: - Analyze the literature of personal values and specifically those researches that have studied the role of entrepreneurs’ values on the entrepreneurial process. - Analyze the relationship between personal values, a positive attitude toward entrepreneurship, and entrepreneurial intentions. - Identify how an entrepreneur’s values can have a specific influence on the perception of growth and how these values have an impact on the process of growing of new ventures, specifically on the firm’s way of growing. - To show the case of a company where the entrepreneur’s personal values have strongly influenced organizational culture and the process of growing. In this sense, this work is focused on the role of personal values as factors that predict or influence attitudes towards the intention to create a new venture, the decision making regarding the creation process, and the way the entrepreneurs conceive of their company and decide to make it grow. Chapter 1 presents the introduction and main objectives of this research. In Chapter 2, a review of the literature concerning theories on values is presented in order to narrow down the origin of the study; a set of definitions of values is presented to contextualize the concept and another literature review is presented to analyze the state of the art of the study of personal values related to entrepreneurship. Chapter 3 presents an empirical quantitative research study conducted among students at the University of Barcelona exploring the influence that personal values have on attitudes towards entrepreneurship and the link between them and entrepreneurial intention. Chapter 4 describes the relation that exists between personal values and the perception and expectation of growth of founders of new high-technology ventures: this chapter explores the role that personal values play in the way these founders conceive of their firms and what type of growing process their goals are aimed at. This research follows The Functional theory for analyzing entrepreneur’s values. Chapter 5 presents an in-depth case study of one firm in particular of those mentioned in Chapter 4. This firm provides a clear example of how the personal values of the founder are transmitted to the organization and how these values govern the life of the company. This chapter highlights the role of personal values as the basis of the philosophy of the company and hence of the decision making and strategy designing processes. In this last case, personal values are the key factor for the subsistence and growth of the company. Finally Chapter 6 presents a general discussion and the conclusions of the research as well as the implications for theory and practice, limitations of the present study, and future lines of research.