Measuring The Entrepreneurial Level Of The Businessmen: The Relationship Between Personal Traits And Entrepreneurial Level

With a focus of trait approach, the aim of this paper is to determine the personal characteristics of entrepreneurs that are related with their entrepreneurial drive level. The level of entrepreneurship is tried to be measured on a sample of 452 Turkish businessmen with the instrument of Carland Entrepreneurship Index - CEI. For this study, a questionnaire consisted of some demographical information about the businessmen, information about their enterprises, 5 instruments that are for measuring need for achievement, locus of control, risk taking behavior, innovativeness and CEI was designed. The questionnaires were delivered to all of the Turkish businessmen who are the members of Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association. With a return rate of 35 %, 452 questionnaires were evaluated for analysis. According to correlational analysis, other than internal locus of control, need for achievement, risk taking propensity and innovativeness showed strong interrelation within and with entrepreneurial level. According to the linear regression model, innovativeness, risk taking propensity, yearly revenue more than 1 million $ compared to the revenue less than 1 million $ and the reason of investment (“create employment, contribute to the country’s economy, gain status/power” compared to “make profit/earn money”) positively and significantly affect the entrepreneurial level of the businessmen.