Interpreting Your Entrepreneurial Attributes Scale score from the BCII

(Note: this is a significantly abbreviated version of this material; the full version is available for users of CareerLeader™.)

In this section of CareerLeader™ we will help you to assess the potential of entrepreneurial activity as a meaningful career path. The first point that we want to make is that there is no such thing as one "entrepreneurial type." Many different types of people choose to start or acquire their own business. Entrepreneurs come from many backgrounds, have many interests and will find career satisfaction in different types of businesses. They will also assume different roles and have different styles as the leaders of their own companies. That being said, however, our research and that of others has shown that there are personality and interest dimensions that differentiate entrepreneurs as a group from non-entrepreneur business professionals as a group.

In our research we have studied a large sample of individuals who own their own company and who truly enjoy their work. We compared them to business professionals who are not entrepreneurs. From this research we developed the Entrepreneurial Attributes Scale (EAS). which is derived from your results on the Business Career Interest Inventory. The EAS is composed of BCII items that, when scored together with appropriate weightings, differentiate those with interests similar to entrepreneurs from those whose interests are less similar. We will first discuss how to interpret your EAS score and we will then discuss other important issues to consider if you are contemplating an entrepreneurial career. The latter part of this discussion is also found in the CareerLeader^TM profile for Entrepreneurship (note: not available with the guided tour).

Your score on the EAS compares you to a general sample of business professionals. The average score for the general business comparison group is 50. If your score is 50, this means that your interests and the way you describe yourself are similar to entrepreneurs to the same extent as most business professionals. A higher score indicates that your interests and self description are significantly more similar to entrepreneurs than the interest patterns and self-descriptions of most business professionals. A score of 60 or higher is indicative of interests and a self-description that are very similar to those of entrepreneurs.

Jan's EAS score was 64, a significantly high match with interests of entrepreneurs. One way for Jan to think about a high or very high range EAS scale score is as an indication that she will value entrepreneurial organizational cultures, whether or not she chooses to start or own her own business. An entrepreneurial culture is one that: values individual initiative, allows genuine autonomy, places profit and loss responsibility as far down in the organizational structure as possible, aggressively structures compensation to reward individual initiative, and assumes that individuals are willing to take compensation risks in favor of exceptional compensation opportunities that will be realized with the success of a business project. Organizational cultures attract individuals who see themselves as innovative, and creative, have high needs for autonomy, prefer less structure in job descriptions, are less tied to traditional definitions of career progress and are more willing to take risks (though the effective entrepreneur, like any effective business professional, always seeks to reduce risk). Since Jan's EAS score is in the very high range, it is more likely that she will prefer an organizational culture of this nature. Thus the greatest value of the EAS score is as an indicator to help Jan locate the most rewarding organizational culture, whether or not this means owning her own business.

Our next stop on the tour will be to look over possible career 'Achilles' Heels,' and discuss how Jan can use her results from our three inventories to identify these -- and how to take steps to correct them.