Entrepreneurship and Risk Taking

According to the definition of entrepreneurship and everyday observation, entrepreneurs are perceived as more risk prone than other people. However, laboratory studies do not provide conclusive support for this claim. In our study, three groups of students served as subjects. One group of students did not express any intention of starting up their own business in the near future. The second group consisted of students who had participated in a special course designed for future entrepreneurs. The third group consisted of students or alumni who became entrepreneurs before graduating. In accordance with Knight’s claim, we found that actual entrepreneurs revealed the highest, and students who did not express an intention of starting their own business the lowest, level of self-confidence of all groups participating in the experiment. On the other hand, in well-defined risky situations we did not confirm a hypothesis that would-be entrepreneurs or actual entrepreneurs were more risk prone than students with no intention of starting a business. Yet, in naturalistic-business risky situations we found more risky choices among entrepreneurs than among non-entrepreneurs. Conformement a la definition meme de l’esprit d’entreprise et a l’observation quotidienne, les entrepreneurs sont percus comme etant plus enclins que les autres personnes a prendre des risques. Seulement, les recherches experimentales ne confirment pas de facon definitive cette conception. Notre etude a porte sur trois groupes d’etudiants. L’un des groupes n’avait aucunement l’intention de creer une entreprise dans un avenir previsible. Le deuxieme groupe etait compose d’etudiants qui suivaient un cours specialement destine aux futurs entrepreneurs. Le troisieme groupe rassemblait des etudiants ou d’anciens etudiants qui devinrent entrepreneurs avant d’etre diplomes. En accord avec les propositions de Knight, on a constate que les entrepreneurs etaient ceux qui avaient la plus forte confiance en eux-memes et les jeunes qui n’eprouvaient aucune vocation d’entrepreneur la plus faible. D’autre part, face a des situations de risque bien precises, il fut impossible de corroborer l’hypothese que les aspirants entrepreneurs ou les chefs d’entreprise etaient plus portes sur le risque que les etudiants n’ayant aucunement l’intention de fonder une entreprise. Toutefois, devant des decisions risquees dans des situations concretes