The Individual and its Motivations in the Entrepreneurship Process

In order to identify the most important motivations in the process of company creation, this research combines qualitative and quantitative aspects. In the first place, an exploratory study was carried out with entrepreneurs from Medellin, to whom a semi-structured questionnaire was applied, in which an open question was asked about the motivations to create and manage their own company. Based on the results of this study, and the literature review, which is based more on theoretical contributions on human behavior and motivational aspects,
rather than on more recent empirical developments, a construct with the Likert scale was designed, constituted by 6 dimensions and 35 subdimensions, which was applied to another group of entrepreneurs. Finally, in-depth interviews
with some of the respondents of the latter group were conducted. Factors such as fulfillment of a dream, personal growth, new challenges and the need for independence were found to be the most important factors in making the decision; while economic and environmental aspects were less significant. As a contribution to the motivation theory, among others, the resulting proposal is to break away from the paradigm of the traditional classification between entrepreneurship by necessity and entrepreneurship of opportunity.