In this study, we examined and drew attention to the entrepreneurial characteristics of students who were potentially at the beginning of an entrepreneurial process. Furthermore, we have analyzed the entrepreneurship literature to develop an understanding of the cultural dimensions that may have an impact on entrepreneurial process. A sample of students was selected as the study participants in the provinces of Kayseri and Yozgat. The data was collected employing face to face interviews. The results have indicated that culture has an impact on entrepreneurship and locus of control.
Keywords: Entrepreneur,Entrepreneurship,Locus of control,Culture.
Received: 15 May 2017 / Revised: 14 June 2017 / Accepted:4 July 2017/ Published: 20 July 2017
Knowledge economy is growing with respect to the globalization. In this process, entrepreneurship has become a critical factor for countries in order to sustain their competitive advantages in a globalized economic order. Researchers have claimed that countries that are characterized with higher levels of entrepreneurial activity perform better than others in terms of economic development (Mueller and Thomas, 2000). Hence, entrepreneurship is considered as an important indicator of the economic development of a given country. Further, both academics and practitioners have given a great deal of time and effort to identify what leads to successful entrepreneurial performance and what factors lead to entrepreneurial failure. Yet, some other researchers have also scrutinized the question of what motivates people to become entrepreneurs and what factors distinguish those entrepreneurs with success stories from those who failed in their attempt to become entrepreneurs. A body of existing research evidence suggests that entrepreneurship is strongly related to the locus of control and innovativeness.
People’s ambitions to follow their dreams, to prove their talents and to express their creativity without depending on others; and trying to realize these objectives have been accepted as the critical factors leading to entrepreneurial activity and successful performance (Stevenson, 1985; Çetindamar, 2002; Thompson, 2002). There is an abundance of research evidence suggests that entrepreneurs are motivated by several distinctive factors to start a small business. For instance, Ozsoy et al. (2001) have evidenced that the main reason for Turkish entrepreneurs to start a business is to own a business and to guarantee their family’s future financial security. The findings also indicate that the desire for flexibility, work freedom, and to be his/her own boss were considered critical forces motivating people to become business owners. Cetindamar (2005) claimed that gaining work independence is the most important motivation for entrepreneurs working in technology-producing firms. Other crucial motives include the creation of employment opportunities, high income, and personal satisfaction.
An entrepreneurial aspiration is said to involve a willingness to face risks. and that researchers describe an entrepreneur as a person who risks his/her labor and capital to produce goods or services that society needs (Burgelman, 1983; Stevenson and Gumpert, 1991). While being aware of the risks involved, the underlying goal of an entrepreneur is to earn benefits in either monetary terms or in several other ways as a result of the service he/she provides. This aim constitutes the main attribute of being an entrepreneur (Cunningham and Lischeron, 1991; Hisrich and Peters, 1998). Entrepreneurship involves the motivation of a person, either independently or within an organization, to pursue the opportunities in order to create a new value or to gain an economical return (Naffziger, 1995). An entrepreneur utilizes creativity or innovation to enter a current market and compete to alter the current market conditions, make an impact and even to create a new market (Stevenson and Gumpert, 1991). Çelik and Akgemci (1998) also postulated that entrepreneurship involves innovation, flexibility, agility, risk taking, creativity and being development focused. They also claimed that the main motive behind the emergence of entrepreneurship is to carry individual interests to their highest level.
While a number of previous researchers have examined the role of certain economic, social, cultural, and political factors in the emergence of entrepreneurial processes in Turkish context, in this study, our goal is to examine the possible effects of culture on the locus of control and desire to become an entrepreneur. The extant research evidence has shown that personality traits and environmental conditions are among the important factors contributing to the emergence of entrepreneurship. The underlying goal of the personality traits research stream was to correlate the personality traits associated with the emergence, development, and survival of entrepreneurial initiatives. An existing body of past research findings indicate that need for accomplishment, risk taking, locus of control, and innovativeness are among the characteristics that are correlated to entrepreneurial personality (Markman and Baron, 2003; Solmuş, 2004). In addition to personality traits, research evidence also points to the role family structure plays in the emergence and development of an entrepreneurial culture. There is an assertion that the behaviors and manners learned within the family can affect a person throughout his/her life. For instance, a number of research studies concluded that individuals whose family members engage in entrepreneurial activities come out to take part in the entrepreneurial activities themselves later in their lives (Stevenson and Gumpert, 1991; Harding, 2004; Shaw, 2004).
Locus of control includes personality attributes related to where a person perceives the control of his/her life (Rotter, 1990). With this concept, which has also been explored in the social learning theory, consolidation of an individual’s behaviors is connected to both inner and outer conditions. Because of this, it is considered that desire to be an entrepreneur has similarities with this concept that mostly depends on personal attributes.
It is widely accepted that the entrepreneurial spirit can be either genetically transferred or become prominent through effects of factors such as the environment, education and income level (Stevenson and Gumpert, 1991). The main factors affecting the desire for entrepreneurship should be examined especially during the term where professional preferences start to form. Findings should be verified and revealed by reliable data, which will make great contributions for further research. Taking this into account, possible effects of culture on locus of control and desire for entrepreneurship are examined in this study; on which only few studies exist in the literature (Hamedoglu et al., 2012; Lantara et al., 2012; Keshavarz and Baharudin, 2013). In order to explore potential effects of the socio-cultural environment of entrepreneur on locus of control and desire for entrepreneurship, a questionnaire is prepared, using the scales tested previously in the literature for their validity and reliability. The survey is conducted in Kayseri and Yozgat provinces of Turkey.
In this study, the question of defining and explaining locus of control and desire for entrepreneurship is approached from the cultural point of view. The reason is the widely supported finding that the entrepreneurial behaviors are affected by values, beliefs and assumptions and it is mainly due to these motives that entrepreneurs are driven to entrepreneurial behaviors. Within this approach, entrepreneurial attributes come out through the interaction of the entrepreneur with the social structure one lives in.
2.1. Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is a trending topic in especially developing countries, where it seen as an employment opportunity via getting people self-employed. It is vital for the economic growth since it helps to create wealth and decrease unemployment rates (Hsiao et al., 2016).
Inspecting its etymology, the word entrepreneur comes from the French word “ettreprendre” and has the meaning of “doing something” (Smilor and Sexton, 1996). An entrepreneur is defined as a person who can look into her environment and know how to see the needs, turn these needs into a business idea, take risks, think creatively and be open to innovation (Kuratko and Goldsby, 2004; Bagheri et al., 2016).
The most famous and influential contribution to entrepreneurial research is done by J. Schumpeter so far. In his work titled “The Theory of Economic Development” Schumpeter describes the entrepreneur as a person who can move a market from a static equilibrium to a new equilibrium point through the innovations done using one’s entrepreneurial attributes (Stevenson, 1985; Titiz, 1994; Omorede et al., 2015). According to his definition, the entrepreneurs are known for their innovative features. They continuously watch the markets and determine the gaps in the demand, create new demand, allocate resources, make investments, and accept the competition as the raison d’etre. Within this context, the power of an entrepreneur comes from doing innovation and depends on the capacity to transform innovation into solid commercial products that generate profit in the business (Korkmaz, 2000; Maresch et al., 2016).
According to a psychologist, entrepreneur is the one who moves with certain motives, needs to acquire or reach to something, works to succeed or avoids working under the rule of somebody else (Savaşır and Şahin, 1997). From the perspective of an industrialist an entrepreneur is seen as a threat and an aggressive rival. Another industrialist explains the same entrepreneur as a person who increases the resources used as inputs, the number of customers or the living standards of other people. He/she finds ways to utilize resources more efficiently and produces things that will make other people happy (Glancey et al., 1998; Lazonick, 2002; Othman et al., 2015).
Entrepreneurs can willingly take responsibility, can face pre-calculated risks, have a strong desire to succeed, possess a high level of energy, see opportunities and have a keen sense of the future. They want to convert the vision to reality, care for success more than money, can bear changing situations, can adapt to change and new conditions faster than others (Birley, 1993; DeNisi, 2015). Most entrepreneurs want to be their own bosses. They are interested in opportunities to create and do new things more than managing a large and long-established organization. Smilor and Sexton (1996) state that three main attributes of a successful entrepreneur are vision, mission and ambition. According to them, successful entrepreneurs are not the ones that earn more money, but the ones that do works they consider as important and pleasant..
The success of the entrepreneurs originates from their risk taking, courage, beliefs and engagement in business with passion (Beaver and Jennings, 2005; Van Der Lingen and Van Niekerk, 2015). Entrepreneurs, above all things, are people and therefore are the product of the socio-economic environment they live in. Although entrepreneurship is closely tied with personal abilities and education, these two factors are not solely sufficient to account for the entrepreneurial propensity to arise. Other than these, the organizational culture that the individual is in and several environmental factors affect the behaviors and decisions of the entrepreneurs (Kets De Vries, 1977; Davis et al., 1991; Bygrave and Minniti, 2000). Entrepreneurship has a multidimensional structure where environment (push and pull factors) surrounding the business, personal characteristics of individual involved in starting the business, organizational factors and behavioral processes interact during the entrepreneurial process (Estay et al., 2013; Van Der Lingen and Van Niekerk, 2015).
The factors influencing entrepreneurship are given in the Birley’s study as follows (Birley, 1993):
Table-1. Factors Shaping Entrepreneurship
| Historical Factors | Organizational Structure | Environmental Factors |
| Genetic Factors | Geographical Location | Economic Conditions |
| Family | Gained Knowledge, Experience and Abilities | Availability of Venture Capital |
| Education | Relations with co-workers | Examples of Entrepreneurship |
| Experience | Motivation | Ability to Utilize Consultancy Services |
Depending on both the above table and the knowledge gained from the literature, the following comment can be made safely: For the entrepreneurial activities, especially in the context of its relation to locus of control, besides genetic factors, the medium (environmental or organizational culture) that one lives in affects the entrepreneurial attributes.
In various studies, it is emphasized that there exists a close relation between engaging in entrepreneurial activities and societal/cultural structures. Some societies can show higher performance in entrepreneurship whereas others cannot show the same performance (Covin and Slevin, 1986; Müftüoğlu, 1994; Prabhu, 1999). Because of this, many social scientists showed interest in this topic. Realizing that entrepreneurship not only creates economic value but also has societal and cultural dimensions, the subject attracted many interest in recent years.
2.2. Locus of Control
The concept of locus of control is mainly studied in the framework of social learning theory and is defined as a personality trait for the first time by Rotter in 1966. Belief in locus of control is a concept related to the attribution of the reinforcement that someone gets, depending on the results or rewards achieved or success/fail situations (Coleman et al., 1999; Strauser et al., 2002; Ng et al., 2006; DeNisi, 2015). These attributions can either be made to outside factors such as luck, fate or a powerful people or to the consequences of a person’s own actions.
Locus of control, being one of the many psychological attributes of entrepreneurs, includes the personal traits through which a person perceives and exercises the control over one’s life. The concept mainly originates from the social learning theory (Ajzen, 2002). According to this concept, human behavior is function of reinforcements and one’s perception of where the locus of control of the reinforcement lies (Hansemark, 2003). The theory states that reinforcement of a behavior depends on either an inner condition (internal locus of control) or an external one (external locus of control) (Spector, 1982; Rotter, 1990; Macan et al., 1996; Cromie, 2000).
Locus of control is, in brief, the belief a person has about what controls the situations one faces (Siu and Cooper, 1998; Armitage and Conner, 1999; Mueller and Thomas, 2000). Some people have a higher feeling of personal control whereas some cannot make necessary connections between their behaviors and the events they experience (Judge and Bono, 2001). This theory claims that people differ according to their perception of the reasons behind the good or bad incidents they get involved in. This differentiation in the belief about their locus of control results in alterations in the perceptions and evaluations of the situations related to either themselves or other people (Dağ, 2002; Taylor et al., 2006). Stated differently, belief of locus of control repeatedly arises as a method to explain the situations when environmental conditions cannot come up with a definite explanation to an individual’s successes, failures or other experiences.
In general, it is stated that people having beliefs for inner locus of control can resist to negative effects coming from the environment better, show stronger reactions to restrictions on their independence, perceive themselves as more effective, secure and independent than other people, have positive self-perception and are more venturous and entrepreneurial (Markman and Baron, 2003). They believe in themselves other than fate, luck or other external powers and think that they control and influence any setbacks or accomplishments (Borchers and Park, 2010). For the people possessing these traits, probability to reach their goals are positively correlated with striving and ability to derive lessons from their experiences. Moreover, people with internal locus of control are noted to have stronger entrepreneurial tendencies (Spector, 1988; Judge and Bono, 2001; Strauser et al., 2002; Tajeddini and Muller, 2009).
On the contrary, individuals having external locus of control believe that there is not a serious connection between the effort and the result achieved in the end. They take “luck” as a determining factor for the important situations they encounter and other than that, these people are more passive and have less confidence in themselves and other people since they believe they do not have any control over the environment (Anderson, 1977; Kinicki and Vecchio, 1994).
Locus of control is also considered to have a critical role on a person’s life through affecting one’s physiological and psychological health considerably. For example, people with external locus of control consider environment as dangerous and more stressful, thus experience more work strain (Asiedu-Appiah and Addai, 2014). On the other hand, individuals with internal locus of control have lower stress levels, thus can exert more effort on their job and perform better.
According to Chelariu et al. (2008) the connection between locus of control and entrepreneurship has been investigated in various studies in the literature and in general, a positive correlation between internal locus of control and various measures of entrepreneurial propensity has been found.
2.3. Culture
Culture is one of the distinctive properties of social union of human beings. According to anthropologist Edward Burnett Taylor, culture is a complex union comprising knowledge, belief, art, ethics, legal order, customs and traditions and any other skills and habits one gains through being a member of the community (Çetin, 2004). Hofstede (1980) considers culture as the collective programming of the mind that differentiates individuals of one group from another. According to Hofstede (1980) culture contains a system of values, which are identified early in life and their effects on behavioral patterns continue to exist over time.
In terms of management science, culture is the way of living that can be transferred from one person to another and it refers to the environment both constituted and created by other people. It should be emphasized that culture covers the relations between people and between people and society. It also includes all of the knowledge, interests, habits, value metrics, general conditions, notions, mindsets and any other behavior patterns within the society (Hasanoğlu, 2004). A few main properties of culture that the literature has a consensus so far on can be listed as follows (Eren, 2006):
Culture plays an important role for the entrepreneurs via influencing entrepreneurial behavior. Berger (1991) states that national culture affects individuals’ personality and behavior, political and legal system, companies, economic conditions, social norms and customs; therefore it is compulsory for entrepreneurial researchers to consider doing cultural studies. There are various studies in the literature connecting culture and entrepreneurship such as Shane (1994) or Mueller (2004).
According to Chelariu et al. (2008) entrepreneurship research includes two major approaches; one of which focuses on national culture antecedents illustrating diversity in entrepreneurship across countries, while the other concentrates on the entrepreneurial traits at individual level. Although at individual level, some theories are developed to increase motivation to become an entrepreneur, it is of question whether these theories can be applied to different countries having different cultures (Mueller and Thomas, 2000). The way to answer this question is only possible through cross-cultural and cross-contextual research; nevertheless it is relatively hard to access data about entrepreneurs in different countries (Mueller and Thomas, 2000).
Hofstede (1980) identified four cultural dimensions to explain differences among countries, which are power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism and masculinity/femininity. On top of this, Lee and Peterson (2000) combined achievement/ascription and universalism/particularism dimensions from the analysis of Trompenaars (1994) and portrayed the culture that is most suitable to develop a strong entrepreneurial orientation; but noted that cultural factors are not directly responsible from high level of entrepreneurial activity within a society.
In the related literature it is emphasized that cultural differences in the regional and national level are important factors for the creation of entrepreneurs (Davidson and Wiklund, 1995). Nevertheless, it is mentioned that the experimental studies related to the subject matter is not at a substantial level (Klyver and Foley, 2012). In a few studies it is asserted that the entrepreneurial propensity and locus of control differs from one culture to another (Ward and Kennedy, 1992; Klyver and Foley, 2012; Keshavarz and Baharudin, 2013). Moreover, some research showed that gender also has some relation both with entrepreneurial propensity and locus of control (Astuti, 2007; Lantara et al., 2012).
In their work, Chelariu et al. (2008) tried to find out the link between locus of control and individual cultural values, and overall, the impact of cultural values on locus of control came out to be weak, except power distance. Brandstätter (2011) classified countries according to two cultural dimensions uncertainty avoidance and performance orientation and inspected entrepreneurship using Big Five. He found that entrepreneurs have higher scores on conscientiousness, openness to experience, extraversion whereas lower scores on agreeableness and neuroticism.
Tiessen (1997) studied national culture’s link to entrepreneurship through examining individualist and collectivist orientations. Categorizing entrepreneurial functions into two as variety generation and resource leverage, he linked the former function to individualism and the latter one to collectivism. It is discussed by Peterson (1980) that individualism facilitates entrepreneurial behavior. But Tiessen contends that while international research at individual and firm level supports this idea, at national level studies show that entrepreneurial outcomes are positively associated with both individualism and collectivism.
Building on these, taking into account the evaluations, suggestions, results reached and because of the lack of applied research on this topic in the literature, the hypothesis and the research questions within the framework of the findings are created as follows:
Hypothesis 1: There is a significant relationship between entrepreneurial propensity and cultural attributes.
Hypothesis 2: There is a significant relationship between locus of control and cultural attributes.
Hypothesis 3: There is a significant relationship between entrepreneurial propensity and gender.
Hypothesis 4: There is a significant relationship between locus of control and gender.
Also we searched some questions that are related to the aim of this study. These are;
Research Questions: Is there a significant difference between entrepreneurial propensity and a) education level of parents b) income level c) desired occupation.3.1. Sampling
During the selection of schools, an advanced type of cluster sampling is used to select randomly Yozgat as a city in the Central Anatolia Region, and a town in Yozgat as a sub-cluster. The list of schools in that town is taken, a number is selected from random number table and the school corresponding to that number is identified from the list. For the selection of the classrooms within that school, all of classes from the grades 9, 10, 11 and 12 are put into a bag and classes are picked randomly from that bag. A similar procedure is followed for the selection of the classes in Kayseri.
A total of 600 questionnaires are used for evaluation and analysis. For this purpose, a statistical program (SPSS) that is widely used in the literature is utilized.
General characteristics of the sample population answering the questionnaire in Kayseri are determined as follows:
The results of the analysis for Yozgat is as follows:
When statistical values are examined for the randomly selected sample;
In addition to these, it is observed that fathers are mostly self-employed in Kayseri, whereas most of the fathers are civil servants in Yozgat. While mothers in Yozgat are mostly housewives (88%), in Kayseri 27% of mothers work for the public sector and 9% work for the private sector. These are some important inferences for the main assumptions of this study.
3.2. Measures
In this study, data is collected from primary resources. This quantitative study utilized surveying and face-to-face meetings held at randomly selected schools. The reason behind the selection of this method is that face-to-face meetings have the flexibility to inform the respondents, where every type of questions can be answered during the application of the survey. Moreover, holding face-to-face meetings is thought to increase the response rate.
For the selection of survey questions and scale, among the studies whose validity and reliability has been previously tested, Rotter’s Locus of Control Scale and Mueller and Thomas (2000) 5 statements Likert-type scale, which is used to determine the entrepreneurial propensity, are utilized. An exemplary statement from the scale can be given as: “Relying on my instincts, I can succeed in any kind of work.”
Rotter’s Internal and External Locus of Control Scale has each item with two choices marked as either “a” or “b”. The respondent is asked to choose and mark the suitable statement. 6 out of 29 items (1, 8, 14, 19, 24, 27) are “filler” statements and therefore not graded. In other words, 6 items are placed as “fillers” in order to conceal the purpose of the questionnaire and other 23 items’ choices regarding the externalities are graded as “1” point. That is, “a” choices of items 2, 6, 7, 9, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, 29 are graded as “1”; “b” choices of items 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 22, 26, and 28 are graded as “1”. By this way, it is possible to get a total grade between 0 and 23. Higher grades mean higher belief in the external locus of control. Each item comprises 2 choices. i.e. “(2a) The misery in one’s life, at some point, is due to one’s misfortune. (2b) The misfortunes in one’s life are the results of one’s mistakes.”
In order to investigate culture, Hofstede (1980) study on cultural analysis is utilized. An exemplary statement in this scale is “Any ambiguity or unidentified things within my surroundings make me feel nervous”.
Test-retest reliability coefficient for Rotter’s Internal and External Locus of Control Scale is .83; whereas Cronbach’s Alfa value is .78. The grades vary between 0 and 23 and higher grades show the increase in the belief in external locus of control. Reliability coefficient for entrepreneurial propensity is .68 and Cronbach’s Alfa value is .86. For culture, reliability coefficient is found to be .61 and Cronbach’s Alfa value is .73.
4.1. Entrepreneurial Characteristics
According to the responses 35% of the students in Kayseri are aiming at establishing their own work, but the same percentage is 12% in Yozgat. Furthermore, when the factors affecting the formation of professional aims are examined, it is seen that students in Kayseri have desire to work independently whereas students in Yozgat prefer a stable and risk-free job.
When the relation between professional goals and entrepreneurship is examined from the gender perspective, the primary goal for the male and female students in Kayseri are determined to be establishing their own work. Moreover, female students in Kayseri have more desire to work in the private sector rather than working in public sector.
For Yozgat, although the primary focus for both male and female students is to become civil servants, there is also an interesting outcome. That is, female students in this province want to establish their own work more than male students do.
69% of the students in Kayseri agree or totally agree on the statement “Depending on my instincts, I can succeed in any case.” which is one of the statements to measure the entrepreneurial propensity. For Yozgat, matching percentage is 30%. This points that students in Kayseri tend to become entrepreneurs, they trust their instincts to overcome a hurdle and it is expected that these students may have internal locus of control. In the analysis made by using Rotter’s scale, the probability of students in Kayseri having internal locus of control is predicted from these answers. Furthermore, another statement “every obstacle can be overcome by courage” results in similar consequences and the 89% approval rate shows that students in Kayseri have entrepreneurial propensity and most probably they have internal locus of control.
84% of the students in Kayseri and 41% of the students in Yozgat either agree or totally agree that they have a dream to run their own business, being one of the characteristics of entrepreneurs. On the contrary, 72% of the students in Yozgat approved the statement mentioning working at a secure and sustainable workplace providing career opportunities. The last question measuring the entrepreneurial propensity is about working for the public sector. Looking at the answers to this question, it can be noted that students in Yozgat are more inclined towards working as public servants. Examining the answers given to the statement related to risk taking, which is one of the important attributes of entrepreneurs, it is observed that 55% of the students in Kayseri and 37% of the students in Yozgat think, “Entrepreneurship is a risk”.
4.2. Correlations and Regression Analysis
Findings and inferences related to change in entrepreneurial propensity according to the local culture and determination of differences are explained below.
It is deduced that students in Kayseri have more entrepreneurial propensity (Mean: 2.25, sd:0.41) than the ones in Yozgat (Mean: 3.74, sd:0.74) (p<0.05). Results of the regression and correlation analysis to determine the relationships are given as:
Table-1. Descriptive Statistics and Correlation Analysis
| Variable | Mean |
sd |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
| 1. Gender | 0.52 |
0.53 |
1 |
|||
| 2. Entrepreneurial propensity | 3.19 |
0.47 |
0.22** |
1 |
||
| 3. Locus of control | 12.52 |
9.38 |
0.16** |
0.63** |
1 |
|
| 4. Culture | 3.05 |
0.41 |
0.09* |
0.46** |
0.32** |
1 |
n = 600, *p<0.05, **p<0.01.
Internal Locus of control =1; External Locus of control =0; Man=1; Woman=0.
Table-2. Regression Analysis Results: Effect of Culture on Entrepreneurial
| Model | β |
t |
Sig. |
| 1 | |||
| Constant | 8.517 |
0.000 |
|
| Culture | 0.457 |
3.067 |
0.000 |
Dependent Variable: Entrepreneurial Propensity
Table-3. Regression Analysis Results: Effect of Culture on Locus of control
| Model | β |
t |
Sig. |
| 1 | |||
| Constant | 11.126 |
0.000 |
|
| culture | 0.316 |
7.529 |
0.000 |
Dependent Variable: Locus of control
According to these results, it can be said that the entrepreneurial propensity and locus of control change with respect to culture. Culture’s part that accounts for the changes in entrepreneurial propensity is estimated to be 45.7% and the effect on locus of control is estimated as 31.6%. Moreover, the results of the correlation analysis done to determine the relation between entrepreneurial propensity and locus of control emphasize that there exists a significant relationship. With these results, we can conclude that all four hypotheses are accepted. These inferences are in line with the previous findings in the literature. For example, Freytag and Thurik (2007); Hamedoglu et al. (2012); Martin et al. (2005); Lantara et al. (2012) found in their studies that entrepreneurial propensity and locus of control changed with respect to culture and the relationship was found to be statistically significant. Furthermore, studies claiming that gender had a significant level of relationship with entrepreneurial propensity and locus of control reached to similar conclusions with this study (Tannen, 1995; Shinta, 2006; Astuti, 2007; Lantara et al., 2012).
4.3. Additional Analyses
Additional analyses are performed to see if there a significant difference between entrepreneurial propensity and a) education level of parents b) income level c) desired occupation.
According to the analyses done to determine whether or not entrepreneurial propensity differs with respect to mother and father’s level of education, it is seen that there is not a significant difference (p<0.05) between level of education of mother/father and entrepreneurial propensity level of the student.
There is a significant difference between household income level and entrepreneurial propensity is determined (F: 3.360; Sig. : 0.019; p<0.05). This is said to be in line with the norms because existing environment and income level of the family are two important factors for engaging in entrepreneurial activity. People choose riskier positions only when either they have nothing to lose or have too many resources so that losing some would not bother them at all.
There is also significant difference between desired occupation and entrepreneurial propensity is determined (F: 5.626; Sig. : 0.000; p<0.05). It is due to the fact that entrepreneurial attributes of a person willing to work as a public servant and another one wanting to work independently are obviously not the same.
Evaluations based on average locus of control for both of the provinces are given below. Proceeding from these tables, average results of the study done in Kayseri and Yozgat are presented.
For Kayseri, frequencies and percentage distributions of the results derived from Rotter’s Internal-External LoC Scale are expressed below, where total scores vary between 0-23:
Table-4. Rotter’s Internal-External LoC Scale Total Scores for Kayseri
N |
Mean Score |
Minimum Score |
Maksimum Score |
Std.Dev. |
350 |
9.42 |
1 |
20 |
2.16 |
From Table 4, it can be noted that the lowest score for Rotter’s Scale is 1 and the highest score is 20. The average of the scores of all students is 9.42. Since scores between 0-11 denotes existence of internal locus of control, it can be inferred that students in Kayseri have internal locus of control.
Table-5. Rotter’s Internal-External LoC Scale Total Scores for Yozgat
N |
Mean Score |
Minimum Score |
Maksimum Score |
Std.Dev. |
250 |
15.62 |
4 |
22 |
3.85 |
Table 5 states the lowest score as 4, the highest score as 22, and the average score for all of the students is found to be 15.62. Since according to literature scores between 11-23 shows existence of external locus of control, it can be said that students in Yozgat have external locus of control.
These results support the analysis done previously in this study on entrepreneurial propensity. That is to say, Kayseri, where higher entrepreneurial propensity and stronger relationship between culture and entrepreneurial propensity is identified, has more individuals with internal locus of control than Yozgat. This finding supports the literature stating that individuals with internal locus of control have more entrepreneurial spirit (Markman and Baron, 2003).
Parallel to the increasing importance of entrepreneurship, ways of raising individuals as entrepreneurs and disseminating entrepreneurship is a phenomenon that should be evaluated at the social level. Within the current society where knowledge has increasing importance, entrepreneurs come out to be the most crucial element for creating economic value. These advancements matters more to our country possessing a young and dynamic population.
Especially in recent years, as a result of women’s taking more active roles in the business life and showing interest in entrepreneurship, the phrase of “business woman” corresponding to “entrepreneurial businessman” is widely being used in literature and daily life. Thus, when the relationship between job preferences and entrepreneurship is considered in terms of gender, it would be more suitable to look ahead instead of the past. For, in the following periods attributes that women possess like tolerance, settlement, affection, patience and willingness to share will be the major factors that will enable women entrepreneurs to become more powerful and successful.
Although entrepreneurial attributes are somewhat affected by genetic heritage, as discussed in this study, cultural values of the society one lives in contribute to the entrepreneurial propensity. Similarly, in spite of the fact that concept of locus of control emphasizes attributes of genetic heritage, individual’s position in the social learning environment influences how to take into consideration inner or outer factors in one’s behavior. Starting from this point, whether or not concepts of entrepreneurship and locus of control differ with respect to cultural attributes is examined in this study. Eventually, it is determined that students in Kayseri have more internal locus of control than ones in Yozgat and factors comprising entrepreneurial attributes are more commonly observed in the students living in Kayseri. As a result, all the hypotheses are accepted and it is identified that entrepreneurial propensity and locus of control differ with respect to cultural attributes.
5.1. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Study
This study, like other studies, has some superior aspects. Especially working with a young sample with wide participation provides important findings for the assessment of entrepreneurial propensity and sheds light on measures to be taken. Another superior aspect is conducting surveys via face-to-face meetings helped minimizing the surveying errors. Lastly, this study contributes to entrepreneurship and locus of control literature with various assessments on the cultural level.
At the same time, this study has some weaknesses regarding the proposed results. First of all, despite the use of a large sample, this sample group does not have too much variation in demographic distribution. In addition, the data within this study is collected from high school students. Therefore, generalization of the results is not suggested.
5.2. Suggestions for Further Research
Various incentives should be provided for young and dynamic people to increase their qualitative attributes in order to make them high caliber individuals and utilize their potential in the best possible way. In the framework of this study more detailed research must be done on how to motivate people in different cultures. Thereafter, there will be a need for educational programs in order to increase the skills of individuals and these programs must be included in the curriculum.
This study has an interesting outcome, which is, students in Kayseri consider the desire to gain personal satisfaction as the second important factor during the job selection process. Nevertheless, further analysis should be done to define the factors having effect on this outcome. The scales used in this study do not contain any questions regarding this objective and therefore more research should be conducted to identify the main reasons behind this outcome.
Moreover, it is observed that women in Yozgat consider establishing their own work more than men do. It will be suitable to assess in detail the factors entailing this outcome, taking cultural attributes into consideration.
Funding: This study received no specific financial support. |
Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no competing interests. |
Contributors/Acknowledgement: Both authors contributed equally to the conception and design of the study. |
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