Predicting Entrepreneurship From Ideation and Divergent Thinking

In order to find out why certain entrepreneurs are successful we administered two measures of ideational skill to 47 successful entrepreneurs. The first asked about the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats (SWOT) to their own businesses; it assessed the participants’ ideational productivity (i.e. fluency ) and originality . The second measure was a self‐report of ideational tendencies in the natural environment. Statistical analyses indicated that the more successful entrepreneurs did indeed have particular ideational tendencies. This was especially apparent in the self‐report measure of ideation. The two groups did not differ in terms of secondary criterion questions (e.g. profitable years within the last five, number of employees), nor in their SWOT scores. This last finding with the SWOT was unexpected but easy to understand, given the paper‐and‐pencil format of the test. The significant difference that were uncovered suggest that ideation is an important talent for entrepreneurs. Predictions about entrepreneurial success may, for example, be improved if an individual's ideational skills are assessed. Furthermore, it would be reasonable to encourage and support entrepreneurial potentials via programmes that target ideation.