Entrepreneurs’ creativity

Internal locus of control influences entrepreneurs creativity through the belief of individuals who strongly think that they are in control of their destinies (higher internal locus of control). Those with a strong internal locus of control, believe that they can understand and control the outcome of events. These people are more likely to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. These individuals are more likely to be creative because creativity is important to being able to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. They are more likely to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities because they believe that their ideas, actions, imaginations and ability to recombine resources will have positive outcomes.

Creative contexts are characterized by incomplete information and uncertainty. Tolerance for ambiguity is the tendency for individuals to find uncertainties, lack of clear solutions and unclear circumstances attractive. Therefore, it influences creativity in the sense that people with a higher tolerance for ambiguity are more likely to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities. Given that, entrepreneurship leads to growth or gains under conditions of risk and uncertainty.

Risk-taking is the willingness to commit significant levels of time, money and effort to pursue an activity with a reasonable chance of failure. The process of generating a new or imaginative idea and pursuing it to the point of profitability is a risky process. The creative process is shrouded in uncertainties, as such, risk-taking individuals are more likely to be creative and exploit opportunities compared to the risk-averse individuals.

Self-efficacy is the extent to which an individual believes he or she has the ability to achieve a desired effect or a certain level of achievement for a given task. Individuals with high self-efficacy are more likely to creative because they have confidence in their ability to generate and execute the exploitation of opportunities successfully.

Knowledge influences entrepreneurs creativity at the point of critical thinking. Critical thinking contributes to creativity – the ability to critically accept premises, assumptions, and values of a particular knowledge base. Individuals who have the ability to critically assess knowledge are creative because they are able to easily produce divergent thinking. That is, create new ideas, modify existing ideas or substitute conventional wisdom.

Context influences creativity in the sense that it is a frame of reference for forming an opinion. Ideas or products are judged as being creative or otherwise within a context. Internally, the perception of and judgement of creativity differs. In some contexts, creativity is appreciated and encouraged, even when it does not sell. In other contexts, creativity is stifled and only accepted when an idea sells. Externally, context also influences creativity in terms of how a product or an idea can engage with the consumer. Context effects influence people’s judgements of products and this vary vastly in different markets.