On literature review, the author found that the previous studies on the relationship between various factors of an entrepreneur and venture firm performance have not been actively conducted.
Moreover their findings have not been consistent among them. The inconsistency in results occurred because researchers had not considered the various characteristics of the venture.
This thesis examines the contingency relationship between characteristics of an entrepreneur and venture firm performance when product innovativeness is considered as a contingency variable. The purpose of this research is to confirm the relationship of an entrepreneur's characteristics and firm performance and to analyze this relationship more elaborately through contingency analysis.
The scope of this study includes a new start-up firm with relatively new technology and the unit of analysis is an individual firm.
The research model was established to represent the contingency relationship mentioned above. According to the contents of the study, the model contains 3 dimensions of characteristics of an entrepreneur, firm performance and product innovativeness. The characteristics of an entrepreneur have 3 aspects: psychological, biographical and behavioral characteristics. The profitability and growth are specific indicators of performance of venture firm. Product innovativeness is composed of 2 independent dimensions: the product uniqueness and the degree of product improvement. Then the contingency relationship was hypothesized through literature review and reasoning.
Through procedures of field survey, 48 new start-up firms in Korea were selected as samples. The correlation and multiple regression analysis were employed to examine simple relationship between characteristics of an entrepreneur and performance. Fisher's Z statistic was used to test the contingency relationships.
The results show that a strong contingency relationships are partially prominent : When product uniqueness is low, the entrepreneur should make an effort more to operate an internal activity well.
On the other hand, when product is relatively unique, the high level of entrepreneur's educational background can be useful to some aspects of high technology. In this case, it is advantageous for an entrepreneur to have a high need for achievement and to be a moderate risk taker. It is also preferable to have more frequent communication among the departments of the firms(especially with R\&D department).
The lower the degree of product improvement is, the more experience in the line of business is required. And in that case, the frequent interpersonal contact inside the firm could promote the performance.
There are some things to be discussed :
First, a good understanding of a product is essential in the venture success.
Second, when an entrepreneur starts a firm only with an experience related to management dimension, the firm may become unsuccessful because a rigid management pattern may hinder the flexibility of the management.
Third, the previous experience in a large firm tends to be more favorable than those of small and medium-sized firm till now.
We can conclude that the impact of an entrepreneur's characteristics on the performance depends on the degree of fitness between them and the characteristics of a venture because of partially prominent contingency relationships.
The implications are :
First, further entrepreneurship research requires a more refined framework. It is obvious from the fact that the contingency analysis outperforms simple method in the results.
Second, in the practical point of view, an entrepreneur should search a venture in which his ability, background and knowledge function well and venture capitalist should consider the different way of evaluation according to characteristics of a venture.
