Speaker Series 2007-2008

Psychology of Entrepreneurship – State of the Art

Michael Frese

Department of Psychology
University of Giessen
Monday, November 5, 2007, 2:00 - 3:30 PM
Room 1303

Abstract:

Entrepreneurship research most recently puts the perception and exploitation of opportunity into the foreground. This is a useful definition of entrepreneurship. Such a conceptualisation has a number of psychological implications. What are opportunities? How can they be used? What relationship exists to the more traditional research on initiative, innovation, and other areas? What kind of strategies do entrepreneurs use to actually accomplish the understanding of opportunities and their exploitation?

 Bringing psychology into entrepreneurship improves entrepreneurship research. The other way around, bringing entrepreneurship research into work and organizational psychology, will also improve work and organizational psychology. Entrepreneurship is an important area because 1) It is important to understand the relationship between individuals and organizations, and the most important issue is indeed how individual make and design organizations when they first start them. 2) Entrepreneurs are sometimes seen as being the most important factors to contribute to innovations and to make adaptations in developed, but particularly in underdeveloped economies. 3) The number of entrepreneurs seems to be increasing and quite clearly it is mostly entrepreneurial units that increase the number of jobs in societies. 4) With the changes at work even employees will be forced to think much more entrepreneurially, even when they are employees of large organizations.

 The psychology of entrepreneurship is a relatively new field. To give an overview of this field, we edited a book in the Frontiers Series of the Society for Industrial and Organization Psychology (SIOP) (Baum, J. R., Frese, M., & Baron, R. A. (Eds.). (2007). The Psychology of Entrepreneurship. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers). I shall discuss what I think we should learn from this book . My discussion provides a summary of psychological approaches to entrepreneurship in such topics as personality, cognitive ability, human capital, cognitions, actions, motivation, leadership, environment, networks, the entrepreneurial process, innovation, and national culture to understand better how psychology can predict success and starting a business in the area of entrepreneurship.

Michael Frese received his Diploma and Doctorate from the Free University of Berlin and Technical University Berlin respectively and holds now a chair for work and organizational psychology at the University of Giessen; He also teaches as a Visiting Professor at London Business School. Prior to this appointment, he has taught in Berlin, was Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and professor at the Universities of Munich and Amsterdam. In addition to lecturing within Germany, he lectured in the U.S.A., England, Finland, Sweden, Zimbabwe, Philippines, China (Visiting Professor at Zheijang Univ., Center for Human Resource and Strategic Development), and elsewhere internationally.

Prof. Frese’s research spans a wide range of basic and applied topics within work and organizational psychology. Most important are the longitudinal studies on psychological effects of unemployment, impact of stress at work, predictors of personal initiative in East Germany and psychological success factors in small scale entrepreneurs. These studies have led to a larger project on innovation. His field studies on errors and on shift work are also well known. In addition he is studying training - most importantly the concept of error training, leadership training and psychological training for increasing entrepreneurship and personal initiative. Most recently, he has done studies on cultural factors in organization and across nations, as well as research that looks at psychological success factors in entrepreneurs in developing countries (Africa, Latin America, and Asia) and in Europe.

Curriculum Vita