Are serial entrepreneurs different? An examination of Australian microfirms.

Schaper, Michael ; Mankelow, Gary ; Gibson, Brian 等

Introduction

Most studies of entrepreneurship, and of the entrepreneurial individual, are effectively moments frozen in time: they examine the business venture, or the person, at a particular point and often overlook the fact that, for many people, entrepreneurship may as much be an on-going way of life as it is a particular business project. For these individuals, enterprising activity may mean undertaking several different projects over the course of a working life. The end result is the creation, expansion and termination of a series of different business ventures over many years.

In recent years, this notion of so-called "habitual," "serial" or "continual" entrepreneurship has begun to be explored in some detail within the academic community. However, the body of knowledge about such operators is still limited. Much more remains to be known about serial entrepreneurs. What are the particular personal characteristics and demographic features of such businesspeople? How do they operate their businesses? Do they differ in any substantive way (especially with respect to performance and growth) from other entrepreneurs?

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to shed some further light on serial entrepreneurs. Drawing on data from a recent survey of employing micro-enterprises in New South Wales, Australia, the paper examines the personal background and business operating features of serial business owners, and compares them to other entrepreneurs.

Literature Review

The notion that some entrepreneurs may engage in multiple business ventures, either simultaneously or sequentially, has been explicitly recognised by a number of researchers over the last twenty years. Early contributors to the field included MacMillan (1986) and Donckels, Dupont and Michel (1987), and since that time a small number of other writers have examined these issues in more detail. However, despite MacMillan's (1986) challenge to learn more about habitual entrepreneurs, Wright, Westhead and Sohl (1998) argue little has been achieved in recent years, apart from a special edition of Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice dedicated to the topic in 1998. A search of the literature since that time also reveals only a small handful of new research contributions, of which Westhead et al. (2005) is most notable, although at a more practical level entrepreneurs are regularly referring to themselves in these terms (Clifford, 2005).

A first issue to be dealt with in this field is semantic: what exactly is a serial, habitual, repeat or continuous entrepreneur? All of these terms have been employed at one stage or another, yet different authors have occasionally ascribed different interpretations to each of them. For example, Hall (1995) developed a dichotomous classification of definitions, which were further refined by Kolvereid and Bullvag (1993), Westhead and Wright (1998), and later by Westhead, Ucbasaran, and Wright (2003). Included in these definitional discussions is the related concept of the portfolio entrepreneur (Hall, 1995). This refers to an individual who concurrently operates two or more enterprises (Ucbasaran and Wright, 2003). The differentiating characteristic between serial and portfolio entrepreneurs is the timing of business ownership, namely whether two or more businesses are operated simultaneously. The serial entrepreneur only ever operates one business after another, whilst the portfolio entrepreneur owns multiple businesses at the same time; the two categories frequently overlap (Hall, 1995).

Whilst the terms are sometimes said to be quite different, the phrases "habitual" and "serial" entrepreneur are also frequently used as interchangeable terms, and can be regarded most simply as an individual who starts one enterprise and then later begins another (Wickham, 2004). For the purpose of this paper we focus on serial entrepreneurs as individuals who currently own and operate a business and who have previously owned another enterprise. While the "serial" entrepreneur characteristic might more usefully be ascribed to more than one repetition of business ownership, the data available for this paper restrict us to this narrow definition. We also discuss the number of serial entrepreneurs who may also be portfolio entrepreneurs.

Serial entrepreneurs are frequently juxtaposed against novice entrepreneurs. The latter category represents most entrepreneurs and includes current business owners who have no prior experience in creating or owning a business venture (Westhead, Ucbasaran and Wright, 2003).

Most research into this phenomenon to date has employed a qualitative case research methodology (e.g., Rosa, 1998) with limited quantitative analysis (e.g., Alsos and Kovereid, 1998). This makes it difficult to generate valid, generalisable findings. Even when quantitative methodologies have been employed, the data and subsequent analysis have frequently been so highly aggregated that detailed information about serial entrepreneurs has been difficult to ascertain (Wright, Westhead and Sohl, 1998). However, some entrepreneurial demographics appear to have emerged, although the findings are sometimes contradictory. Birley and Westhead (1993) found that the proportion of habitual entrepreneurs to total entrepreneurs tended to be quite small, ranging from 12% to 36%. In contrast, Schollhammer (1991) in a US study found that 51% of entrepreneurs had two or more ventures, and Westhead et al. (2005) reported 43.5% of firms involved habitual entrepreneurs (24.9% portfolio and 18.6% serial). Most habitual entrepreneurs appear to be men, and they tend to have higher educational qualifications than novice entrepreneurs (Kolvereid and Bullvag, 1993; Westhead and Wright, 1998).

At the same time, many characteristics of habitual entrepreneurs appear to be either highly heterogenous or quite variable. It appears that they do not always tend to remain in the same industry (Wright, Robbie and Ennew, 1997), and that their motivations, the type of venture they operate, and the way they manage may in fact vary significantly between their first and subsequent ventures (Wright, Westhead and Sohl, 1998).

Environmental considerations and contextual frameworks, such as enterprise location and stage of the business life cycle, are some issues which seem to have an impact on serial entrepreneurship (Wright, Westhead and Sohl, 1998). The motivations for habitual entrepreneurship can be quite diverse, and include a desire for independence, monetary security, the belief that it "adds to the excitement of life" (Westhead and Wright, 1998), a sense of duty, and the desire to contribute to local communities (Mankelow and Merrilees, 2001; Rosa, 1998).

Serial entrepreneurs conceivably also have some skills and resources that other novice entrepreneurs will not. It might reasonably be supposed that they will have gained greater experience in launching and operating a business, and thus overcome many of the "learning curve" problems typically experienced by first-time business venturers. However, this does not always appear to be the case: neither Kolvereied and Bullvag (1993) nor Birley and Westhead (1993) could find any evidence to support this contention. On the other hand, there is some evidence to suggest that serial entrepreneurs are able to better access sources of funding for their next start-up, arguably because of a "better track record" (Alsos and Kolvereid, 1999; Westhead and Wright, 1998).

One of the most recent studies in the field has been the work of Westhead et al. (2005), who examined the search process, financial resources, organisational capabilities, and performance levels of firms operated by novice, serial and portfolio entrepreneurs in independent private firms in Scotland. They found that portfolio entrepreneurs tended to have more diverse experience and resources than other cohorts. Within the serial entrepreneur set, they found that most respondents tended to be operating their second business venture, had launched the venture as a new business (rather than buying or inheriting an existing one), and were family-based enterprises.

Wright, Westhead & Sohl (1998) identified a number of areas in which future research into habitual entrepreneurship was seen as desirable. These included, inter alia, the background characteristics of the entrepreneur, their management practices, and their behaviour within specific segments of the business population. Identifying the characteristics, firm behaviour and growth orientation of habitual entrepreneurs is also an important issue for policy makers (Westhead, Ucbasaran and Wright, 2003). Such research may help in determining if serial business ownership is a reliable indicator of future business performance, and whether or not specific programs should be targeted towards this entrepreneurial subset.

However, the phenomenon of serial entrepreneurship appears to have received only minor analysis so far amongst one part of the business population: the micro-firm sector. Micro-firms represent the majority of firms operating in most nations today, yet their role and impact is often overlooked or poorly understood (Jay and Schaper, 2003). Traditionally they have been treated as a phenomenon with limited relevance to the wider economy, even though they are in fact a major structural force in almost all societies. In Australia, for example, a business enterprise is deemed to be a micro-firm if it has less than five employees (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002). In June 2001, there were an estimated 1.1 million small and medium-sized business enterprises (SMEs) in the country, of which 80% were regarded as micro-sized (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2002).

Methodology

Information on respondents was collected during 2003, as part of a study examining the structure and operating practices of employing micro-businesses within the state of New South Wales (NSW), Australia. The study was undertaken by the NSW Department of State and Regional Development, and was based on a survey instrument employed in a prior study of micro-businesses undertaken by the Canadian Government in 2000 (Industry Canada, 2001; Papadaki and Chami, 2002). The NSW survey was restricted to the population of employing firms who had been in existence for at least four years, and stratified to account for proportionate variations in population distribution between regional and metropolitan areas, as well as differences between the goods and services sectors of the economy. The survey was limited to the owner-operators of firms, and conducted through a telephone interview.

The data was collected as part of a larger study into established micro-firms, and imposes some limitations which might limit the generalisability of the results. For example, the findings cannot be regarded as representing all small enterprises, since they specifically relate to micro-firms; there is also a survivorship bias in that only firms which have existed for four or more years were included. Caution is therefore essential in interpreting the results. Despite these limitations, the results do provide some important understandings of serial entrepreneurs and how they differ from other owner-operators.

As discussed in the preceding literature review, there are a number of ways in which to define a "habitual entrepreneur." For the current study, a simple and easily operationalised definition was employed, in which a serial entrepreneur was taken to be any person who currently owns and operates a business, and who has previously owned and managed another enterprise.

For the data set examined in this paper, a total of 753 responses were available, of which 199 respondents (26%) indicated that they had previously owned and operated a business before their current venture. The proportion of total respondents who fell into the serial entrepreneur category supports the earlier arguments of Birley and Westhead (1993), Alsos and Kolvereid (1998), and Westhead et al. (2005) that serial business venturers exist in substantial numbers amongst the general business community.

Results

In any exploratory analysis of entrepreneurship in applied situations, two sets of factors are often equally important: the personal characteristics and background of the entrepreneurial individual, and the characteristics of the firms that they own. Both aspects were examined in this study. This section provides both a descriptive summary and a comparison of results between serial and non-serial entrepreneurs. These comparisons are intended to give an insight into questions such as: Are serial entrepreneurs, and the firms that they operate, different from those run by other entrepreneurs? Are the activities of serial entrepreneurs merely an interesting sideshow, or can it be inferred that there are substantive differences that set them apart from other owner/operators? As most of the data were collected using categorical responses, a Chi-squared test for independence was employed (Cavana, Delahaye and Sekaran, 2001).

Personal Characteristics

As a group, serial entrepreneurs tend to be male, relatively well educated, aged between 30 and 49, locally born, and not to have come from a family background of business ownership. More detailed results are discussed below and are included in Table 1, which also forms the basis of comparisons with non-serial entrepreneurs.

There was a clear gender imbalance, with a majority of habitual entrepreneurs being male (145, or 73%). Eighty-two (41%) of the serial entrepreneur respondents possessed some level of high school education, a further 52 (26%) held a trade or technical qualification, and 53 (27%) had obtained either a bachelor's or postgraduate degree. Only 5 (2%) serial entrepreneurs were aged less than 30 years, 83 (42%) were between 30 and 49, and 110 (55%) were aged over 50. Another notable feature of the serial entrepreneur cohort is that they were overwhelmingly born in Australia: 139 respondents (70%) were locally born, and only 60 (30%) were migrants into the country. Many (but not a majority of) serial entrepreneurs also reported that they had come from families with a prior history of business ownership: 93 respondents (47%) indicated that their family had owned a business during their childhood.

From the perspective of these personal characteristics of the owner, there are statistically significant differences (at p <= 0.05) between serial entrepreneurs and other entrepreneurs in respect of gender distribution (with serial entrepreneurs more likely to be male than the overall respondent cohort) and age (continuous entrepreneurs tended to be slightly older than other respondents). In contrast, no significant differences could be found between the two groups on the grounds of educational attainment, country of origin, or early family business involvement.

The fact that serial entrepreneurs tend to be slightly older than other respondents should not be surprising; as Westhead and Wright (1998) and Wright, Westhead and Sohl (1998) have suggested, prior business experience is accumulated over time, producing a cohort that is usually older than novice entrepreneurs. The relatively low proportion of female habitual entrepreneurs supports the earlier suggestion of Kolvereid and Bullvag (1993) that most serial venturers are males. However, the current findings do conflict with their suggestion that serial entrepreneurs are more likely to have obtained higher educational qualifications than other entrepreneurs; no such difference could be found in this study.

Business Characteristics

Overall, firms owned by serial entrepreneurs tend to have been started from scratch, be family owned, have operated for over ten years, be run as independent firms (that is, they tend not to be franchises), and be based in premises separate to the entrepreneur's residence. They tend to have experienced positive sales growth (but not growth in employee numbers) and express a likelihood that they will expand in the short term. As was the case for personal characteristics, more detailed results are discussed below and are included in Table 2, which also forms the basis of comparisons with non-serial entrepreneurs.

Entry methods for habitual entrepreneurs were variable. Whilst most (124 respondents, or 62%) had started their current enterprise as a new venture, almost a third (62, or 31%) bought their current business as a going concern. The remainder of respondents (7%) did not indicate their mode of entry. There was also a marked tendency amongst serial entrepreneurs to keep ownership of the current business venture within their own family. A majority of firms (179, or 90%) were owned by just one family--that of the entrepreneur.

Most businesses had been in existence for a significant period of time (although the significance of this finding must be tempered by the fact that the sampling frame for this study excluded firms under 4 years old). It total, 88 firms (44%) had been operating for between 4 and 10 years; 42 businesses (21%) had been trading for 11-15 years, and another 69 (35%) had been in existence for more than 15 years. The longevity of enterprises indicates that serial entrepreneurs have the capacity to create and manage quite long-lasting business ventures.

Few of the entrepreneur's business projects were operated as franchises. Only a very small proportion (11 firms, or 6%) operated in this mode, with the remainder (188, or 94%) being constituted as stand-alone ventures. Home-based businesses were also relatively lowly represented in the results. Only 61 enterprises (31%) were operated at or from home, a figure that is much lower than the norm in Australian enterprises. Again, however, some caution must be exercised in accepting this finding, as the nature of the sampling frame (i.e., only those micro-businesses with employees) would lead to a skew in the results.

Although, by definition, most serial entrepreneurs have previously owned another business venture, only a minority continued to concurrently operate another enterprise. In total, 76 respondents (38%) reported that they also simultaneously owned another firm at the present time, but the majority (123, or 62%) did not. As previously discussed, these 76 represent what has been referred to in the literature as "portfolio" entrepreneurs--individuals who own and operate a number of different ventures at the same time.

Most of the habitual entrepreneurs (152, or 76%) indicated a growth in sales over the four-year period of the study. However only 74 (37%) had an increase in number of employees over the same period. The majority also had a focus on growth and business venture expansion: 109 firm owners (55%) reported that expansion was likely within the next two years of trading activity, compared to 81 (41%) who did not. A small proportion (4%) were unable to articulate their future goals.

From the business perspective there are statistically significant differences (at p <= 0.05) associated with five characteristics. Compared to other respondents, serial entrepreneurs are more likely to buy a going concern than other entrepreneurs; less likely to operate their current venture as a home-based enterprise; more likely to concurrently operate another business; more likely to have higher levels of sales growth; and more likely to want to expand their business in future. No significant differences are evident in respect of the family business ownership, duration (years of operation) of the current business venture, franchise operation, or employee growth. While not reflected in the tables, serial entrepreneurs were also asked why they left their previous business. Interestingly only 33 indicated a profitable sale while 23 indicated a lack of profitability. Another 67 cited other reasons that were not available.

These results lend support to the arguments of Wickham (2004), who suggests that the prior experience of serial entrepreneurs means they are likely to operate their business in a somewhat different manner to novice entrepreneurs. They are more likely to engage in portfolio entrepreneurship as a means of spreading or diluting their business risks, and are more comfortable with the notion of operating simultaneous enterprises than are novices. In addition, prior commercial success may provide them with greater financial assets (accumulated capital and access to lenders), which gives them a greater opportunity to buy a going concern than is possible for other business venturers. Their high growth orientation may also reflect a different set of priorities and motivating factors to those of novice entrepreneurs (Wright, Westhead and Sohl, 1998).

Conclusion

This paper has presented some descriptive statistics and exploratory analysis about serial entrepreneurship within the employing micro-firm sector, a group that has not previously been extensively examined. It has confirmed that, for this cohort, the unique differences in personal characteristics and business attributes associated with habitual entrepreneurs do indeed exist. Serial entrepreneurs in the micro-firm sector are more likely to concurrently own another business, more likely to have higher sales growth and be more inclined to expand than other owner-managers. These latter differences compared to the non-serial business cohort suggest that there may be a policy advantage in focusing on serial entrepreneurs as a group more likely to generate greater economic growth and wealth than novice venturers. Business support services might be better focused on improving managerial deficiencies in habitual entrepreneurs rather than being spread thinly over the entire entrepreneur population.

Although this paper has identified some important characteristics about serial entrepreneurs, much more still remains to be revealed. For example, why are serial entrepreneurs motivated to start a second or subsequent business? And why do they exit a venture? Does exit reflect a desire to start another business because of "boredom" with the existing business or a need to experience the thrill of starting another business? Does the overlap with portfolio entrepreneurs suggest preplanning of habitual activities? Alternatively, do serial entrepreneurs exit because they lack the managerial skills to grow a business? Is there a particular point in the business lifecycle at which they are more inclined to exit? These, and many other issues relating to serial entrepreneurship, need to be investigated in more detail by the research community, and may help build a much more complete picture of this little understood sector.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the NSW Department of State and Regional Development in collecting the data utilized in this study.

References

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Westhead, P. and M. Wright. 1998. "Novice, Portfolio, and Serial Founders in Rural and Urban Areas," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 22, no. 4: 23-42.

Wickham, P.A. 2004. Strategic Entrepreneurship, 3rd ed. London: Prentice-Hall, London.

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Michael Schaper, Graduate School of Business, Curtin University of Technology

Gary Mankelow, Newcastle Business School, University of Newcastle

Brian Gibson, Murdoch Business School, Murdoch University

Contact Information

For further information on this article, contact

Dr. Michael Schaper, 213 Preston Point Road, Bicton Western Australia 6157

Tel: (+61) 0 423 731 311

Email: michael.schaper@gmail.com

Table 1. Differences in Personal Characteristic Between Serial
and Other Entrepreneurs

 Serial Other
 Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs

 (N = 199) * % (N = 554) * %

Gender
Male 145 72.9 329 59.4
Female 54 27.1 225 40.6
Education
Post-graduate 24 12.1 50 9.1
 qualification
Bachelors degree 29 14.6 74 13.4
College/trade 52 26.3 149 27.0
 certificate or diploma
School certificate or 42 21.2 140 25.4
 equivalent
Up to year 10 school 40 20.2 114 20.7
 certificate
Other 11 5.6 24 4.4
Age (years)
<30 5 2.5 18 3.3
30-39 33 16.6 101 18.2
40-49 50 25.1 199 35.9
50-59 73 36.7 160 28.9
60+ 37 18.6 72 13.0
No response 1 0.5 4 0.7
Born in Australia
Yes 139 69.8 414 74.7
No 60 30.2 140 25.3
Family owned business during childhood
Yes 93 46.7 252 45.5
No 106 53.3 302 54.5

 Statistical Analysis Results

 [chi square] d.f. P

Gender
Male
Female 11.403 1 0.001
Education
Post-graduate
 qualification
Bachelors degree
College/trade
 certificate or diploma
School certificate or
 equivalent
Up to year 10 school
 certificate
Other 3.084 6 0.798
Age (years)
<30
30-39
40-49
50-59
60+
No response 11.798 5 0.038
Born in Australia
Yes
No 1.787 1 0.191
Family owned business during childhood
Yes
No 0.092 1 0.804

* Except where missing values excluded.

Table 2. Differences in Business Characteristic Between Serial and
Other Entrepreneurs

 Serial Other
 Entrepreneurs Entrepreneurs

 (N = 199) * % (N = 554) * %

Business entry method
Started from scratch 124 62.3 370 66.8
Bought as going 62 31.2 122 22.0
 concern
Other 13 6.5 62 11.2

Owned by one family
Yes 179 12.189.9 504 91.0
No 20 10.1 50 9.0

Years operating
4-10 88 44.2 207 37.4
11-15 42 21.1 107 19.3
15+ 69 34.7 240 43.3

Franchise
Yes 11 5.5 18 3.2
No 188 94.5 536 96.8

Home based
Yes 61 30.7 237 42.8
No 138 69.3 317 57.2

Own other businesses
Yes 76 38.2 51 9.2
No 123 61.8 503 90.8

Sales growth (% over 4 years)
Declined 18 9.1 67 12.1
No increase 26 13.1 113 20.4
<20 49 24.6 125 22.6
20-49 52 26.1 127 22.9
50-99 17 8.5 56 10.1
100+ 34 17.1 45 8.1
Refused 3 1.5 21 3.8

Employee growth
Decline 36 18.1 98 17.7
No change 89 44.7 289 52.2
Increase 1-4 62 31.2 145 26.2
Increase 5+ 12 6.0 22 3.9

Expanding next two years
Not likely 81 40.7 299 54.0
Somewhat likely 42 21.1 103 18.6
Very likely 67 33.7 121 21.8
Don't know 9 4.5 31 5.6

 Statistical Analysis Results

 [chi square] d.f. P

Business entry method
Started from scratch
Bought as going
 concern
Other 8.636 2 0.013

Owned by one family
Yes
No 0.182 1 0.671

Years operating
4-10
11-15
15+ 4.663 2 0.097

Franchise
Yes
No 2.053 1 0.195

Home based
Yes
No 9.003 1 0.003

Own other businesses
Yes
No 87.727 1 0.000

Sales growth (% over 4 years)
Declined
No increase
<20
20-49
50-99
100+
Refused 20.346 6 0.002

Employee growth
Decline
No change
Increase 1-4
Increase 5+ 4.326 3 0.228

Expanding next two years
Not likely
Somewhat likely
Very likely
Don't know 141.108 3 0.003

* Except where missing values excluded.