The Individual Expertise Assessment also suggests your likely venturing "Role", given your venturing "Type".  The questionnaire that you completed also evaluated three main constructs that have been linked to individuals' venturing roles.  The role constructs derive from the differences in scriptbased "cue recognitions" (Mitchell, 1995) that have been documented between experts and novices, and help to map the type of involvement or "role" that an individual is likely to play in the new venture formation arena.  The questionnaire asks questions that determine the level of:

Venturing Arrangements (in place to support script "entry")

Venturer Willingness (to motivate script "entry")

Venturer Ability  (to enable the "doing" required to take full advantage of venture opportunities by taking action consistent with script requirements)

Leddo and Abelson (1986) provide theory that helps to explain the three constructs used for the venturerole analysis.  They explain that the avoidance of script failure (the exercise of expertise) depends upon an individual's properly performing the actions that are most central to a given script.  Specifically, Leddo and Abelson assert that two script functions (Entry, and Doing) are central, as follows:

These privileged functions we label Entry and Doing; the former occurs early in the script, and the latter near the end.  Entry presupposes the success of script entry arrangements . . . Doing presupposes the actor's willingness and the ability to carry out the action serving the main goal of the script. (1986, p. 121) (emphasis added)

The "Arrangements" construct means having funds, a trend of performance increases, technology, and experience.  Venturers who possess these preparations to venture have made the arrangements necessary to facilitate script entry.

The "Willingness" construct refers to willingness to take risks, to act versus miss opportunity, and to go after a piece of the big money; accompanied by enormous drive, an attraction to actiontakers, a propensity to invest, to want a "say," and to venture versus recreate.  The willing individuals are more likely to "enter" the venturing script.

When attempting to label the third construct according to expert theory, it becomes necessaryif the label "Ability" is to be considered as suggested in Leddo and Abelson (1986)to define the kind of ability that is necessary in new venture formation.  Stevenson, Roberts and Grousbeck (1994) assert that it is the ability to recognize, capture and protect opportunity that characterizes success in new venture formation.

When this definition is applied to "Ability," new venture "Opportunity - Ability" is the result.  The ability to protect a new venture with knowledge or with entry barriers, the ability represented by knowledge of specific industry scripts and success scenarios, and the ability to know how to solve new venture problems with specialized new venture knowledge are some of the concepts embodied in this construct.

The various combinations of these three constructs results in the following venturing role types:


 

©Copyright 1998-2003 Ron K. Mitchell under license to Wayne Brown Institute