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Introduction
Entrepreneurial studies in the literature reveal that small organizations can be influenced dramatically by the type of leader in determining strategies and structure. There are various typologies that deal independently with each environment, structure or strategy, each of which has been shown to influence the nature of entrepreneurship[1]. However, to date, there has been no synthesis of entrepreneurial type and business strategy.
This article reports on a survey of entrepreneurs in the US restaurant sector. Its purpose was to test empirically Smith's[2] typology of entrepreneurial type and Miles and Snow's[3] typology of strategy as applied to the restaurant industry, in order to establish whether or not there is a relationship between type of entrepreneur and type of strategy.
The entrepreneur and strategy
A key premiss in the creation and early development of organizations is the importance of the role played by individuals, structured processes and environments[4-6]. Furthermore the leader is viewed as being responsible for influencing the organization's direction, particularly through infancy to the growth stage. In addition to the leader himself, as supported by Van de Ven[6], the presence or absence of formal planning (strategy) in the early stages of organizational development contributes to the success of the organization.
Strategic planning in a small, entrepreneurial company is usually done by the individual entrepreneur. Various studies have found that the personality of the entrepreneur[7], the management style of the entrepreneur[8,9] and the leader's perceptions of the opportunities and threats in the external environment[10-12] all significantly affect strategic decision making.
From this, it would be pertinent to suggest that strategic decision making may be related to the type of entrepreneur making the decisions. To the extent that this is true, little attempt has been made to determine whether there is a relationship between type of entrepreneur and strategy pursued.
Theoretical framework
Entrepreneurial typologies
There are a number of commonly cited typologies of the entrepreneur in the literature. Smith[2] first pioneered the idea of a classification for entrepreneurs according to their personality, background and behaviour. From his research, Smith identified two distinct entrepreneurial types, "craftsmen entrepreneurs" and "opportunistic entrepreneurs", based on detailed interviews with 52 entrepreneurs in the manufacturing sector. These two types of entrepreneur are held to be polar opposites representing extreme parameters of behaviour...