Applied Critical And Analytical Thinking
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Abstract: This essay discusses the certain personality traits and cognitive style a person has that makes them successful entrepreneurs. The certain cognitive style, moral reasoning, is proven in a DIT test that a sample of entrepreneurs have taken. The results showed that entrepreneurs have a higher test score than the average, meaning that on average, entrepreneurs have a higher degree of moral reasoning than the norm. Another research has been done to evaluate the certain traits that entrepreneurs possess that may have affected them to go toward Again, a number of different issues or problems with given information were given, and their results showed that the entrepreneurs had a high locus of control and a high risk-taking propensity. A real life example of a successful entrepreneur is then analyzed to determine if he fits into the certain traits and cognitive style that researchers assume that a typical entrepreneur should possess. I will be focusing on the difference and uniqueness that describes an entrepreneur; things that do not match with the norms of society.
What makes certain people become entrepreneurs? Are they different in some ways than others that they decide to be an entrepreneur? Entrepreneurship and the creation of new businesses are thought to be critically important to the growth of the economy, and as a result, this broad discussion has been researched continuously in many angles and views. One of the two main reasons that individuals become entrepreneurs is suggested to be of the higher level of moral reasoning skills that some individuals have compared to others, whether this ability is initially imbedded into the individual or it is developed throughout the moral issues that they are faced in their daily obstacles of their business. The second reason is the specific personality traits and characteristics an individual have that give him/her the incentive and the opportunity to engage in entrepreneurship, becoming an entrepreneur. These two factors complement each other, and one without the other may not trigger the transformation from an individual to an entrepreneur. The paper will be discussing these two reasons and give strong suggestions that these are the two main ingredients in which certain people possess to become entrepreneurs.
(I find that only describing the researches that have been conducted may not be enough to sound persuasive. I have included an introduction to the terms and the skills of an entrepreneur before going on to the details.)
Before describing the details of the two researches, there are some terminologies that must be defined and an overall analysis of characteristics is necessary. Cognitive style is the mental processes used to perceive and make judgments from information. Moral reasoning, a type of cognitive style, is reasoning about what, morally, one ought to do in a given situation. An entrepreneur is a thinking-type individual. It is assumed that an entrepreneur is one that cannot fit into society and cannot be employed by someone else. This description fits nicely to thinking-type individuals and opposite of feeling-type individuals – those who rely on reason and intellect to deal with problems, and they do not feel a need to conform and adapt to the wishes of others. People who are the thinking-type are decisive, dependable, creative, perceptive, and progressive- characteristics that an entrepreneur and those who manage should have (DuBrin & Geerink, 2001).
(I tried shortening the following 3 paragraphs to make it more focused and not too in detail as it may bore the reader, go out of topic, and lose its persuasiveness.)
In a sense, an individual who decides to become an entrepreneur is going against the norms of society. These individuals have gone beyond the norm of seeking for employment of other people or companies, and have made themselves self-employed. One major factor that may be behind this action of and choice of path for individuals is that these certain people may possess a higher level of moral reasoning skills than the general adult population. Teal and CarrollÐŽ¦s research on entrepreneurs have suggested that entrepreneurs use cognitive reasoning processes that are of a higher level of moral development than the level observed either in the general adult population. Their method is to measure the level of moral reasoning skill of entrepreneurs using the Defining Issues Test (DIT), a test of moral judgment, developed by Rest from the many previous studies that he conducted. It consists of a series of issues and scenarios, and the people would then be asked to rate the importance of each. The evaluation of the DIT results in a in a P score ranging from 0 to 95, a measure of the personÐŽ¦s tendency to use moral reasoning skills at the upper levels of moral development. Rest (1986) has already reported that the P score of the adult population is averaged to be 40.00, which provided a benchmark for Teal and Carroll to compare the moral reasoning of entrepreneurs. Firstly, two null hypotheses were stated to be: 1.) ÐŽ§There are no differences between entrepreneurs and the general adult population in their levels of moral reasoning development,ÐŽÐ and 2.) ÐŽ§There are no differences between entrepreneurs and middle-level managers in their levels of moral reasoning developmentÐŽÐ (Teal and Carroll, 1999). Overall, the P scores of all twenty-six entrepreneurs were averaged, giving a mean of 43.22 and is, therefore, higher than the sample P score of 40.00 of the general adult population. To address back to the first hypothesis, it is observed that the moral reasoning skills in this sample of entrepreneurs are higher than the level of adults in general that Rest identified. To address the second hypothesis, when the mean sample P score for entrepreneurs was compared against the mean sample P score of 41.00 for middle-level managers that Elms and Nichols (1993) have found in their own research, it is also observed that the moral reasoning skills in this sample of entrepreneurs is higher than the level of the middle-level managers. Based on this research, it is reasonable to suggest that it may be the fact that these individuals have chosen become self-employed because of their higher level of moral reasoning skills. They cannot be employed for someone else and be like the norms of society as they have a higher than average level of moral reasoning skills.
Other than focusing on the skills, the psychological characteristics of the entrepreneur are crucial reasons for an individual to become an entrepreneur. It is because of these characteristics ÐŽV ambition,