DEVELOPING A NEW MEASURE OF ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSET: RELIABILITY, VALIDITY, AND IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTITIONERS

摘要

There has long been interest in the personality traits, motivations, attitudes, and behaviors that contribute to entrepreneurial status and success. To date, however, efforts to measure these constructs have typically proceeded in a piecemeal fashion. This article describes the development of a new measure of entrepreneurial mindsetthe Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile (EMP)-which seeks to measure them in a more comprehensive way. In a series of 3 studies, we describe the development of the instrument and provide evidence for its psychometric adequacy and construct validity. As expected, entrepreneurs and corporate managers differed significantly from one another on each of the EMP's 14 scales. Relationships between the EMP scales and measures of the Five Factor Model patterned largely as expected, with Openness to Experience displaying the broadest and strongest associations with EMP scales. Finally, the EMP dimension that explicitly assesses the ability to think creatively (Idea Generation) was associated with 2 different performance measures of divergent thinking. Thus, evidence to date supports the view that the EMP is a valid and reliable measure of entrepreneurial mindset. In addition to being a useful tool for research, the EMP can also be a valuable resource for consulting psychologists.