Geslagsverskille in persoonlikheid, prestasiemotivering en loopbaanankers by entrepreneurs

English: During the late 1960's, the South African economy started to stagnate and this situation has continued until the present day. Since the midseventies the economy of the USA has moved from a "management economy" to a "entrepreneurial economy". Employment in the USA in the decade between 1974 and 1984 rose by 24 million. Since the 1960's the focus of employment and economic growth has moved from the large manufacturing sector to medium and small business sector. Small businesses comprises approximately 75% of the Japanese and 50% of the American economy. In South Africa the participation of the government on all levels of the economy was detrimental to the total economy. During the years of "Apartheid" even the white population was so indoctrinated by the idea of the "Total Onslaught" and the stopping thereof, that no serious consideration was given to the establishment of small businesses or the development of en trepreneurshi p. According to the literature, entrepreneurship is a very complex phenomenon and attempts to understand it according to the psychological characteristics of the entrepreneur has made it even more complex. In the literature it is clear that there is much confusion about what entrepreneurship is and the exact psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs are. Only through research can the psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs be more clearly understood. Through this understanding the right climate for the developmen t of entrepreneurs can be developed. Further it can be clearly seen that there is a shortage of recent information and research on female entrepreneurs as well as on the psychological characteristics of female entrepreneurs. In the literature it can also be seen that the identification of the characteristics of entrepreneurs is very important for the identification of entrepreneurial potential and the development of these characteristics in non-entrepreneurs and potential entrepreneurs. In this study a comparison has been made between male and female entrepreneurs on personality, achievement motivation and career orientations to determine if any significant statistical differences exist. In the literature study attention was given to entrepreneurship, the social and psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs, personality, achievement motivation and career orientations. In every chapter of the literature study attempts were made to give as wide a theoretical perspective as possible as well as showing the relationship between male and female entrepreneurs on each of the constructs. In this study questionnaires were used to gather the research information of the 81 respondents. The questionnaires that have been used are more specifically the Career Anchors Inventory of Schein (1990), the 16 Personality Factor questionnaire (16-PF) of Cattell, the Achievement Motivation questionnaire (AMQ) and a self-developed biographical questionnaire. The statistical techniques that have been used to determine the differences between male and female entrepreneurs on personality, achievement motivation and career orientations are the t-test and stepwise discriminant analysis. The results of the study have shown that there are significant statistical differences between male and female entrepreneurs on personality and career orientations. The results of this study show that female entrepreneurs are more likely to take risks than are male entrepreneurs. Male entrepreneurs got significantly higher scores on the Lifestyle- integration career orientations than female entrepreneurs. This could be a significant finding as the Lifestyleintegration orientation is one of the career anchors that have been identified in the literature as a preference of female entrepreneurs. Further it can be said that the three constructs, personality, achievement motivation and career anchors, can be used as good'.. predictors of group membership of male and female entrepreneurs. . To summarize it can be said that differences exist between male and female entrepreneurs as far as personality, achievement motivation and career orientations are concerned. In actual fact these differences are not as large as one came to expect them to be from the literature. Further research is necessary as a variety of differences between the literature and the results of this study have been found.