Research into Early-Stage Identification of Entrepreneurs and Innovators with Development of an Identification Guidance Framework

Youth unemployment is increasing and some countries are exhibiting unprecedented levels of youth unemployment, which according to research from Price Waterhouse Cooper (PwC), is costing the British economy £45bn per year, as well as blighting the careers of workers who miss out on a job in their teens and twenties. Unemployment exists because jobs do not, therefore one way to act to reduce it is to create jobs. It isn’t the governments remit to create jobs, not in the private sector therefore this responsibility is falling more and more on entrepreneurs. This paper seeks to establish a paradigm as to what it is that makes someone entrepreneurial, primarily focussed on positively identifying traits exhibited by entrepreneurs which can be used to assist in that identification process. It seeks to identify the traits and characteristics that make individuals entrepreneurs with a view to devising a framework of identifiable indicators for the tertiary education age group of 16–18-year-olds, leading potentially to early-stage identification of entrepreneurs.