Entrepreneurs’ brains are wired differently to those of managers, says research that seems to say that, after years of debate, entrepreneurs are indeed born, and not made.
Yet closer inspection of the first study to assess entrepreneurs by neuroscience rather than psychological tests, says managers can learn to possess the same entrepreneurial powers.
So while managers’ brains are much less active in the region reserved for “hot” decisions, they can be taught the decision-making process critical to the entrepreneurial mind.
In their study, published in the journal Nature, academics at Cambridge University also found that the type of risk-taking essential to being an entrepreneur could be enhanced by drugs.
The research also clears entrepreneurs in that psychological and biomedical research traditionally sees risk-taking as an abnormal expression of behaviour, as in substance abuse.
But the university’s tests on entrepreneurs found they are more likely to show risk-taking behaviour which can result in “positive outcomes during stressful economic circumstances.”
This 'functional impulsivity', the ability to make quick decisions under stress, may have evolutionary value as a means of seizing opportunities in a rapidly-changing environment.
To carry out the test, the academics went to Silicon Fen, a regional cluster of high-tech firms, to pick 16 entrepreneurs who had each founded at least two successful ventures.
They were pitted against 17 managers from the public and private sectors, matched with the entrepreneurs in terms of their intelligence, age and social background.
On a decision-making task that required 'cold' processes, generally unemotive tasks with no pros and cons, entrepreneurs and managers performed equally well.
But on a ‘hot’ or ‘risky’ decision-making task, involving evaluating reward versus punishment outcomes, both groups did well, though entrepreneurs were much bolder.
Entrepreneurs also emerged as being more flexible with their ideas and thoughts and, upon questioning, showed more impulsiveness, than the managers.
“These cognitive processes are intimately linked to brain neurochemistry, particularly to the neurotransmitter dopamine,” the researcher said.
Professor Barbara Sahakian, who led the study, said: "Not all risk-taking is disadvantageous, particularly when combined with enhanced flexible problem solving.
“In fact, risky or 'hot' decision-making is an essential part of the entrepreneurial process and may be possible to teach, particularly in young adults where higher risk taking is likely and age-appropriate.”
She said previous studies found that drugs can be used to manipulate dopamine levels, leading to changes in risky decision-making, raising the question of whether entrepreneurship can be boosted by pharmaceuticals.
According to her findings, entrepreneurs have more activity in the “medial and orbital sectors of the prefrontal cortex,” the brain area above and behind the eye sockets, responsible for hot mental processes.
Nov 14, 2008
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