“Who Is an Entrepreneur?” Is the Wrong Question

Abstract

Entrepreneurship is the creation of organizations. What differentiates entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs is that entrepreneurs create organizations, while non-entrepreneurs do not. In behavioral approaches to the study of entrepreneurship an entrepreneur is seen as a set of activities involved in organization creation, while in trait approaches an entrepreneur is a set of personality traits and characteristics. This paper argues that trait approaches have been unfruitful and that behavioral approaches will be a more productive perspective for future research in entrepreneurship.