Individual and Environmental Determinants of Entrepreneurship

I argue that to better understand the emergence of entrepreneurial activity in a given country, we need to complement the analysis of the psychological and non-psychological characteristics of the individual entrepreneur that currently dominates entrepreneurship studies with the analysis of environmental characteristics in terms of the availability of resources and competition, as well as the conditions of the institutions that govern economic activity. These three groups of factors enable the entrepreneur not only to identify a business opportunity, but also to exploit it, and create a firm that achieves profitability and generates wealth.