Assessments of entrepreneurial traits in Swedish biotechnology companies

Abstract: Entrepreneurship is currently a very celebrated occupation and is often mentioned by politicians as the cure for the present economic downturn. There are many ways to measure entrepreneurship, but this study has chosen to study entrepreneurial traits using a questionnaire measuring the entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of a company. The focus of this bachelor thesis is companies in the biotechnology field that are situated in Science Parks in the south of Sweden. The study revealed the Chief Executive Officers (CEO) to be more proactive with more networking compared to non-­CEOs, and that people who previously started companies scored higher on the entrepreneurial desire in relation to those who never started a company before. Furthermore, these respondents currently are working in smaller companies than those who never previously started. This might be explained by different goals and exit-strategies or that these entrepreneurs are more likely to fail compare to those with lower entrepreneurial desire. To improve subsequent studies of entrepreneurship, two additional traits (entrepreneurial driving force and entrepreneurial resilience) are suggested to be included to the entrepreneurial orientation survey in order to increase the overall understanding of entrepreneurs. Finally, a new scale facilitating comparisons between studies measuring the entrepreneurial orientation is purposed.