GİRİŞİMCİNİN PERSPEKTİFİNDEN KENDİ GİRİŞİMSEL BAŞARI DEĞERLENDİRMESİ VE BAĞLAM TARTIŞMASI
DISCUSSION OF SUBJECTIVE SUCCESS EVALUATION AND CONTEXT FROM ENTREPRENEURSHIP PERSPECTIVE

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this study is to demonstrate the effect of context in evaluating subjective entrepreneurial success. Subjective entrepreneurial success is about what an entrepreneur does and where he finds himself as successful. The literature suggests that entrepreneurs who are founders of businesses and generally managers, which is an economic unit for rationality (e.g.: Perren,1999;2000; Barreria, 2004; Parker, 2009), find themselves successful with their achievement rates, according to Wach et al.’s success criteria.The fundamental claim of this study is that depending on the perspective of the entrepreneurs’ perspective, that is, the meaning they place on the success criteria which arise from the context will be different. The basic assumption of this study is that the context, which entrepreneurs are one part of it, is influenced by their own actions as well as their behavior and strategic decisions (Kim et al., 1989; Denicolai et al., 2015). In order to test this claim, a three-stage research is conducted. In this study, the effect of context on entrepreneurs to finding themselves as successful is being empirically investigated. This study is designed to be related to the sense of accomplishment of the entrepreneurs depending on their level of reaching their goals determined by rational or irrational means. Considering that the context is not something that can be seen directly, from the perspective of the entrepreneur, what is seen and how it is assessed is gaining importance (Hanks, 1992). In this case the reality, which surrounds individuals, is that they live in it and how they explain/interpret it varies depending on their perspectives. Therefore, everything that will affect the interpretation of individuals in a situation (i.e. education, personal characteristics, background) becomes variable (Augier, 2001).Consequently, the context in which events develop and the interpretation of this context from the perspective of the entrepreneur becomes a factor which influences how the entrepreneur see his/her behavior and success. The success feeling which is based on an event in the market conditions and taking a position opportunity which emerged in these conditions on the entrepreneur should not have the same causality mechanism with the other entrepreneur who has to overcome with the insufficient resources. In the first step of the research, the scale which was developed by Wach et al. (2015) has been translated into Turkish. The questionnaire is a tool used by researchers to show why qualitative study was needed for this research. The questionnaire is modified for 100 entrepreneurs to understand what it means for Turkish entrepreneurs with the convenient sampling technique. At the end of this process, 55 questionnaires were obtained. The survey, which has 17 items, is conducted as the pilot study and determined that most of the entrepreneurs significantly chose important (4) and very important (5) options. In terms of Turkish entrepreneurs, this situation reveals that the perception of the scale items mentioned in the questionnaire have equal priorities among the participants. But when we consider the situation of Turkey as an emergent market having different institutional backgrounds from other countries, it can be anticipated that the importance degree of these items may differ. Therefore, we added a new stage to this research to investigate and understand how the entrepreneurs give consciousness response and comparative importance attributed to the questionnaire. After the pilot study, to ease the qualitative part of the research and to present more powerful justification, Multiple Criteria Decision Making Technique was used. For this technique, entrepreneurs are asked to evaluate the five criteria by making binary comparisons. To this end, we conducted interviews with 6 entrepreneurs who have different backgrounds from each other. In order to find out whether there is a difference in context we asked a “why” question after every binary comparison. Through this way, we collected detailed qualitative datum. As a result of the Multi-Criteria Decision Making Technique and the qualitative data analysis, the main points determined by the researchers can be expressed as follows: (i) In the main study, which is conducted by Wach at al (2015), 5 criteria have been evaluated separately from each other but in our study, interviewees have built indirect relationships between these 5 criteria. (ii) When we ask the question “what is success?” to the entrepreneurs, all of them insistently stated that “this/it will be relative”. This result prompted us to think and inquire the requirement of a study to conduct on subjective entrepreneurial success which has generalization aim on this issue. (iii) One of the interviewees stated that the ‘modern world has already made people hypocritical;” again, this statement prompts us to inquire the responses especially on workplace associations/relations and collective impact criteria. (iv) Entrepreneurs, who are expected to be rational, associating success with happiness can evaluate the effects of the context as they leave concrete evolution dimension on the second plan. (v) Also, it is observed that as the effect of the context, the distinction between financial rewards, firm performance equal rights, and fair partnership statements gain more importance rather than institutionalism. (vi) Another contextual element which is observed in the study is sectoral differences, because sectoral differences affect the evaluation of success from sector to sector. (vii) Due to Turkey’s still emergent market economy, entrepreneurs are in a dilemma of sorts, which is being materialist and spiritual. (viii) Furthermore, it is understood that entrepreneurs, who have entrepreneurs in their family, have higher success satisfaction than the others.Results of this three-step study show that, entrepreneurs were affected by different context conditions while evaluating their subjective achievements. As a result of this study; data supporting the “Three-Level Context Model” developed by authors is obtained. Context is found to effect subjective entrepreneurial success phenomenon by the dimensions of “formal/informal institutions”, “industry structure” and “entrepreneurial characteristics”. The contextual qualifications considered in this study and new studies that are conducted in the future may be possible to make more qualified and general comparative studies in the field of entrepreneurship. Besides another contribution of context studies in entrepreneurship may be the point of distinguishing the identity of entrepreneurs. Moreover, through this study scholars can develop a more comprehensive and robust scale for the entrepreneurial success.

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