A competency-based model for the success of an entrepreneurial start-up

Many people envy entrepreneurs and want to emulate them as a road to wealth, fame, and freedom. A large number of works have argued about what makes a person act entrepreneurially, and various traits and characteristics of entrepreneurs have been enthusiastically discussed. This study focuses on one particular point: how to facilitate a person’s efforts to become a small firm entrepreneur through competency assessment and development. To this end, this study proposes an entrepreneur competency model and employs the rough set theory (RST) and the best attribute-value (BAV) to investigate whether there are diverse competencies between small firm entrepreneurs and large firm managers. The results of this study indicate that the small firm entrepreneur generally excels in “building a mechanism for talent development”, while a large firm manager is good at “knowing the different urgency of elements of a problem” or “making feasible solutions for actions”. Thus, if a large firm manager wants to emulate a small firm entrepreneur, the suggestion is to de-emphasize methodical thinking and paper work, and to undertake more human networking.