NEW RESEARCH | 4 paths to entrepreneurial success

Former entrepreneurship students rarely run companies a few years after graduation. However, they benefit from the knowledge gained in other career roles. Researchers have identified four entrepreneurial archetypes.

– Entrepreneurial skills tend to include the ability to make decisions under uncertainty and being good at creative problem solving. Social skills and the ability to build an organization around an idea are also strongly associated with entrepreneurial skills, says Martin Stockhaus, Chalmers.

He is a teacher at Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship and has studied the careers of former students in his doctoral thesis. The results show that the absolute majority, 80 percent, work with entrepreneurial methods after graduation. But only one in three of that group runs a business.

– The rest instead use their entrepreneurial skills in other roles, ranging from driving change in large organizations to managing complex projects as specialist managers.

Four archetypes

The business builder, the intrapreneur, the surrogate and the nomad. These are the four archetypes that Martin Stockhaus has found in his research. The business builder is the classic entrepreneur who builds a business from scratch and identifies strongly with their company.

– Building businesses is for them a personal journey and a way of self-realization. They focus on building an organization with structures that enable long-term success.

The intrapreneur is instead employed and drives change from within. They use entrepreneurial methods to create value in an organization, and are adept at navigating internal political landscapes to gain support and resources for their projects.

– The creative space and innovation are more important to them than climbing the hierarchy.

Surrogates on the other hand, like to work on specific stages of a company’s development and often take leading roles for a limited time.

– They are the experts who step in, usually as CEOs, in a company that needs specialist knowledge in a particular area, such as sustainability transitions or launches.

– When they’re done, they move on to the next company with new challenges, explains Martin Stockhaus.

The fourth archetype is the nomadwho bounce between projects and roles in different companies. They may have completed a PhD, started their own business, then worked in a larger organization before returning to the start-up world.

– They are interesting because they feel completely free and confident in what they know. Curiosity and learning are their primary drivers, and they are motivated by exploring new opportunities and constantly challenging themselves. IT consultants are typical nomads, says Stockhaus.

Wants to broaden the image of entrepreneurship

The thesis shows that entrepreneurial competences are valuable in many different roles and contexts. This challenges the idea that entrepreneurship is only about starting a business.

– These archetypes help us see that entrepreneurship can be about anything from building a business to driving change within an organization, says Stockhaus, who wants to redefine entrepreneurship as a skill rather than a career path.

– It’s about training change-makers – whether they start companies or not, he says.

Contact martin.stockhaus@chalmers.se