Personal Initiative: A Catalyst for Youth Impact Entrepreneurship

This chapter seeks to explore whether personal initiative as a theory of proactive behaviour could be used to catalyse impact entrepreneurship led by South African youth. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 interviewees in South Africa selected using a purposeful non-probability sampling method. The study determined that personal characteristics linked to personal initiative such as persistence, proactiveness, resourcefulness, resilience, innovation and creativity influence the sustainability of youth-founded entrepreneurial ventures. Emerging themes such as faith/spirituality, its relationship to personal initiative and its role in impact entrepreneurship, have the potential to add value to the personal initiative theory. The study extends the personal initiative narrative by introducing attributes such as action orientation and importance of learning from failure as critical characteristics for venture sustainability. The research revealed that collaborative ecosystems, access to resources and networks are important for impact entrepreneurship, although the relationship of these constructs to the primary initiative theory was not a primary objective in this study and are therefore not discussed in depth. Although existing literature has confirmed the influence of personal initiative traits on new venture creation in a social entrepreneurial context, the theory has not been tested in the context of youth entrepreneurship and in particular in relation to the construct of impact, often referred to as sustainable entrepreneurship. This paper confirms the applicability of the personal initiative construct to the sustainability of youth entrepreneurship but goes further to identify other factors such as faith and spirituality, action orientation and failure that drive and motivate youth to achieve impact within this context.