What Makes a Successful Pettah Entrepreneur?: A Competency Approach to Understanding Entrepreneurial Orientation

Abstract

The aim of this study was to understand what lay behind the success of entrepreneurs within Pettah, the entrepreneurial hub in Colombo, Sri Lanka. Many small businesses in Sri Lanka are entrepreneurially run with a large percentage concentrated in Pettah, which has been described as a multi ethnic, multi-cultural business arena; and is the centre of Sri Lankan trade and commerce. Despite its importance, this physical avenue and the entrepreneurial aspects within it have received little attention from researchers. This study focused on correcting this and probed the entrepreneurial orientation, advocating the competency approach to understanding key characteristics of successful entrepreneurs in Pettah. Indepth interviews with six successful entrepreneurs using a modified grounded theory approach were carried out and analysed through inductive coding. An integrated competency-based framework was adopted and incorporated into a novel multidimensional approach of Head, Heart and Hands framework (3H) in exploration of competencies of entrepreneurs. The findings revealed that within the 3H model there was an interrelationship between the Head, Heart and Hand competencies, where Heart competencies acted as a bridge between Head and Hands. In addition, some factors derived acted as enablers. These are the forces that combined to help ensure the success of the entrepreneurs. Pettah and what it represented was identified as one such enabler due to its powerful influence to the entrepreneurs’ behaviour. Furthermore, the results revealed that the strength of the various competency clusters within the 3H model varied according to the lifestage at which the entrepreneurs were.