USM Chief Executives: Do They Fit the Entrepreneurial Stereotype?

Abstract

Dr Sturat Slatter is director of the institute of small business Mangement at London business School, England, Roy Ransley wa midland Bank Fellow at London, Business School through 1984-85.Elizabeth Woods isa Ph.D. student and research assistant at LBS. The development of the unlisted securities market (USM) in the United Kingdom has identified a small group of successful chief executive. who have become role models for both existing and aspiring enterprenuer. This paper presetns the result of a study undertaken to see if the USM chief executives fit th exisiting enterpreneural sterotypes. The paper review the various factors that influence the enterpreneurial character and identifies four enterpreneruial steretypes in the mangament literature. The profileof the USM chief executives are then analysed to see how well theri skills, values, abilities and roles fit with theri enviornment. The study shows that the USM chief executives fit quite well into the existing stereotype of an oppertunitstic enterpreneurs, suggested by Smith(1967),although theri attitudes towards ownership and internal mangerial control may be different from those identified in some earlier studies(weinshall, 1983).

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