Hugh Hefner Research Paper
Titans of venturing paper
Mr. Playboy
Hugh Hefner and the American dream
A qualitative analysis in the fields of Psychology, Economy, Sociology and Geography
[pic]
Plus entrepreneur interview with Robert Keus, The founder of Brothers Media
Created by :
Joris de Vos 350919jv@eur.nl
Syamsuria Syamsuddin 349980ss@eur.nl
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to analyse a titan and an entrepreneur we interviewed by using the insights gained from the foundations of entrepreneurship course. The Titan we choose is Hugh Hefner, the famous founder and editor of the Playboy magazine and the entrepreneur we choose to interview is Robert Keus, he is the founder and owner of Brothers media which is a company …show more content…
that does project managing and marketing of iPhone apps and various other ICT-solutions. The fields we address are Psychology, Economy, Sociology and Geography. And we will perform the analysis by using qualitative research techniques. In the case of Hugh Hefner we have gathered the data from a biography and the data from Robert Keus comes from an interview. When people think of Hugh Hefner they think of a millionaire surrounded by many young beautiful girls called bunnies, a grotto where they ‘relax’ and a magazine that has become a true American icon worldwide. Hugh Hefner is to sex what Andre Hazes is to Dutch music. He owns not only the magazine, but various night clubs, hotels, resorts and recording labels; the Playboy brand encompasses a true business empire. But how did he get in that situation and who is the real Hefner? Those are a few questions we will try to answer in this paper.
Data
The data on Hugh Hefner, as mentioned earlier is gathered from a biography called Mr. Playboy, Hugh Hefner and the American dream, which is written by Steven Watts. Watts is a professor of history at the University of Missouri and prior to writing this book he wrote various other books including biographies about Henry Ford and Walt Disney. He gathered the data on Hugh Hefner from interviews with Hugh Hefner and a lot of people he worked with and a massive room full of old notebooks and the magazines. In the contract there was an arrangement that Watts maintained editorial control and according to Watts Hefner also honoured this agreement. Throughout the book both the perspective of Hugh himself and people around him is represented and compared. This allows for good psychological and sociological analysis. When we look at the weaknesses in the data, the interviews will probably have had a great hindsight bias because the questions will have related to events over a large timespan. The notebooks dating back from those periods will have helped Watts a great deal though. The data on Robbert Keus comes from a forty-five minute interview which was held in person at his office at home in Utrecht. By using this location and this communication channel we were able to gather more information than if we were to hold a Skype interview. We got a chance to see his ‘natural habitat’ and experience his lifestyle which put his answers to the questions in context.
Brief history of the Entrepreneurs
Currently Hugh Heffner owns various mansions, hotels, clubs and a black Douglas DC-9 jet called “big bunny” with a large motorized elliptical bed and 8 “jet bunnies” which wear black miniskirt uniforms with boots and serve as stewardesses. But how did Hefner become so successful? Hefner grew up in a conservative religious family together with one brother. During his childhood he became interested in creating cartoons and he created a series of comic books in which he would be the main character. This passion for writing and drawing sustained throughout high-school, where he worked on the school newspaper. After high-school Hefner joined the army because of World War II but never saw action and got a desk job because of his typing skills. After the army he decided to go to university and got degrees in Psychology and Sociology. He felt the need to understand people in order to use this knowledge to improve his writing. He even considered becoming a professor and started a PhD. He made up his mind after a few months though and started working for a magazine. At the magazine he was unhappy with the management and the pay and swapped employer a few times. Over the course of a few years Hefner got depressed. His job didn’t satisfy him and his marriage and children didn’t help either. On a rainy day on a bridge he decided he was going to take control of his life and start his own magazine. He worked alone for long days, got the financing from friends and family and got a deal with a printer which he knew from a previous job to print the magazine for free. From there on the story of the magazine is history. Throughout the years the magazine grew from the streets of Chicago, where the magazine was first launched, to the rest of the world.
Robert Keus grew up in the Hague, and being the son of an entrepreneur he quickly got entrepreneurship flowing though his veins. During his early high-school years he was working in a supermarket and he was earning 2 guilders an hour. Being dissatisfied with this low pay he decided he could do better and quit his job to stand in front of the super market to offer people help with putting the groceries in the car in return for brining the trolley (with a guilder in it) back. Later on in high-school he met Sebastiaan Kooijman with which he shared an interest in computers. They decided to put an ad in the newspaper to offer their services with regard to computer maintenance to the public. This was a huge success and the company started growing. After high-school the couple founded Brothers Media and after having lived in Groningen for a while they decided to settle the company in Utrecht. Currently they operate as project managers in the app and website industry with programmers in India, Pakistan and Eastern Europe.
Theory and propositions
In this section, selected theories are used to investigate our titan Hugh Heffner. The selection of the theoretical framework is based on relevant academic literature, which relies on multidiscipline entrepreneurial literature. The theoretical models are converted into some existing propositions (replication) and new propositions (initial testing) to be tested throughout the analysis and discussion section. Due to length constraints we decided to analyze Robert Keus in a separate section, not making use of hypothesis
Insights from psychology In this section, some selected psychological theories will be used to analyse the entrepreneurial career of our titan and entrepreneur. Psychology is the study of the mind and behaviour (APA, 2006), therefore the theories of psychology are a good way to analyse and to explain the entrepreneurial career of an entrepreneur. One of theories to understand the personality of an individual which is provided by field of psychology is the trait approach. This approach describes the personality traits of an entrepreneur that have a significant effect on entrepreneurial behaviour. Traits are defined by Caprane and Cervone (2000) as “enduring dispositions to exhibit a certain kind of response across various situations”. There are five big traits that have become popular in the science of psychology; Neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. According to Costa & McCrae (1992), Neuroticism represents individual differences in adjustment and emotional stability. Individuals high on Neuroticism tend to experience a number of negative emotions including anxiety, hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness and vulnerability. People who score low on Neuroticism can be characterized as self-confident, calm, even tempered and relaxed. Due to high uncertainty, financial risk and conflicts between work and family, entrepreneurs typically score low on neuroticism (Zhao & Seibert, 2006). Extraversion trait describes the extent to which people are assertive, dominant, energetic, active, talkative, and enthusiastic (Costa & McCrae, 1992 in; Zhao & Seibert, 2006). Entrepreneurial activity requires a good relationship among individuals. An entrepreneur should have good interaction within the organization or outside the organization. Zhao & Seibert (2006) think that entrepreneurs score higher on extraversion. Openness to experience was explained by Zhao & Seibert (2006) as the degree of creativity, innovativeness, imagination and originality of individuals. People who score lower on this trait are more conventional, narrow in interest and analytical. This trait is also related to intelligence, especially on aspects of intelligence like creativity and divergent thinking. Another trait is agreeableness, which assesses one's interpersonal orientation. An entrepreneur who is high on agreeableness can be characterized as trusting, forgiving, caring, altruistic and gullible (Costa & McCrae, 1992;Digman,1990;in Zhao & Seibert, 2006). Low score on agreeableness hinder entrepreneurs in bargaining hard deals and serving one's interest. The last trait is Conscientiousness, which indicates an individual's degree of organization, persistence, hard works, and motivation in pursuit of goal accomplishment. Entrepreneurs will score higher than managers on Conscientiousness (Zhao & Seibert, 2006). From this trait approach we derived the following propositions:
Preposition 1 Low level on Neuroticism, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, correlate positively with entrepreneurial behaviour.
Proposition 2 High levels of extraversion and openness to experience correlate positively with entrepreneurial behaviour.
Insights from Economy The entrepreneur has been absent in the economic literature for a very long time. Neoclassical theories of the firm have denied the existence of the entrepreneur as an imperative economical actor. It is necessary to differentiate between the entrepreneur and the manager. A manager is an individual who oversees the efficiency of on-going processes, entrepreneurs on the other hand locates new ideas and puts them into effect. He leads and inspires. He is interested in improving by changing and coming up with new innovations. (Baumol, 1968). Schumpeter (1934) views entrepreneurship as an innovation process. An entrepreneur emerges through the creation of a new innovation. The innovation can be an introduction of a new good, a new quality of good and a new method of production. In the phase of creating a new venture, an entrepreneur should have some experiences and knowledge in the field in which the company operates. Some empirical research showed that the education background of entrepreneur does not affect the success of venture creation, but in another way it can be seen that an entrepreneur who has a specific knowledge about certain field has higher likelihood of success. From economic theory we derived the following propositions:
Preposition 3 A Schumpeterian entrepreneur conduct the business by innovation
Proposition 4 Possession of industry specific knowledge helps entrepreneur to establish the company
Insights from Sociology Sociology is important when looking at the career of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are not an independent being. Individuals are constantly influenced by outside forces that have made them what they are. All entrepreneurs are embedded in one social institution, the family. Family ties can trigger venture creation and play a key role in the resource mobilization process. Often founding teams of ventures include family members (Aldrich & Cliff). The success of creating a new firm, it is not merely determined by the family ties, strong ties from another network are also absolutely needed. According to the Stanford Project of Emerging Companies (SPEC) there are some organizational models and blueprints that entrepreneurs brought to bear in launching their new ventures. (Baron, 2002). The blueprints types of the founder are: Star, Commitment, bureaucracy, engineering and autocracy. From these sociological theories we derived the following propositions:
Preposition 5 The degree of social embeddedness determines the success of creation a new firm
Proposition 6 ‘Commitment’ firms attach the employees to the firm, they are selected on their love for the work, and whether or not they fit within the culture of the firm, these employees create a competitive advantage.
Insights from Geography Economic geography, studies the relationship between various economic dimensions; the activities of firms, and the subsequent spatial dimensions; location of firms and the subsequent regional characteristics. The latter includes the external conditions that influence the subsequent development of the new firm (De Smidt 1975). Therefore it is a good approach to look at entrepreneurship from a geographical perspective. Dahl & Sorensen (2007) argue that nascent entrepreneurs and ventures in start-up processes are constraint by social capital with regard to location choice of an entrepreneur when starting a new company, due to lack of connections in areas he or she does not come from. Therefore, entrepreneurs tend to open ventures in their home regions where they have built up a network of connections and relations with other actors, their social capital. This social capital is crucial in gaining resources, funding (finance) and identifying opportunities among other benefits. (Dahl & Sorenson, 2007). Whilst adjusting to the new location, companies sometimes face difficulties. Therefore there are some strategies to deal with a mismatch: Immunization, relocation, manipulation and adaptation. Every strategy has its own characteristic and depends on the industry and the size of the company. From these theories we have derived the following propositions:
Preposition 7 Entrepreneurs are limited in their choice of location to their home region
Proposition 8 Big companies have a bigger ability to use the manipulation strategy to deal with an environmental mismatch.
Results and Discussion
For each scientific field we will now discuss our findings. We will subsequently argue if our propositions are confirmed or rejected.
Psychological results During childhood, adolescent age and the founding of Playboy, the personality traits of Hugh Hefner have been clearly demonstrated. Hugh Heffner’s personality traits were mostly influenced by his childhood era when he grew up with a puritanical mother and workaholic father. During childhood and adolescence Hugh Hefner immersed himself in a fantasy world that he created from available elements in his young life. As Victorian tradition vied with modern social science in Hefner’s household, he encountered vestiges of restraint while enjoying a general atmosphere of indulgence and encouragement. Authority appeared distant, abstract and vaguely defined. When strictures were imposed by parents, school, or church, they seemed all the more severe because of their infrequency. A family atmosphere of emotional repression created longings for emotional connection to little Hugh. Hugh always saw himself as an ‘iconoclastic rebellion’ that was unintentionally formed by his parents. This personal struggle not only provided the seedbed for his later career, but also framed larger issues in modern America that explained the enormous appeal of Playboy. Hugh Hefner can be classified as a person with a low score of Neuroticism.
This is proven by his confidence and calm and relaxed personality in order to face a high uncertainty condition, family conflict with his parents thought and his ex-wife and some problems before founding Playboy like difficulties to raise fund and the sue from Stag magazine about the name usage of Stag Party (Watts, 2008 page 64). In 1949, Hefner landed a position at Esquire writing promotional copy at $60 a week. In Hefner's mind, this was very disappointing. After Esquire closed down its Chicago operation and planned to move to New York, Hefner was offered an increase of salary, but according to his personal consideration he decided to quit. He wanted to decide his own future no matter how undefined it was. This moment clearly shows the level of agreeableness of Hugh Hefner is low. Maybe if he decided to move to New York and worked for Esquire his career will have never been as successful as now. Hugh Hefner is an energetic man, enthusiastic to pursue his dreams and very ambitious. From that evidences, it can be concluded that he has low level on conscientiousness and high level on extraversion. When he decided to join army it can be seen that he is a person with high level of openness to experience. Based on the explanations above, we declare proposition 1 and 2 clearly
confirmed.
Economical results Hefner's intuition told him that there was an opportunity to be had, in publishing a magazine for men that focused on sex. His plan was to publish pictures of nude women - a move which had not been widely attempted for fear of being prosecuted for the distribution of obscene material through the U.S. mail. This kind of thinking is the way of Schumpeterian entrepreneur. Hugh Hefner has made an innovation in the publishing world by the remarkable social innovation to publish Playboy magazine. Initially Hugh Hefner tried to fulfil his passion for writing being employed in the publishing world. He found a job as copywriter at the Carson Pirie Scott department store, after that he worked for Esquire magazine and after he quit he created Playboy. From his previous work he got his industry specific knowledge to start a new magazine in publishing world. These two events demonstrate that propositions 3 and 4 are confirmed.
Sociological results Even though Playboy magazine is not a family business, the process of founding Playboy involved much effort from the family and friends. " Much effort went into raising money with family and friends. A wealthy girlfriend of Seller's invested $2.000 and Hefner Borrowed $200 from a local bank and hocked his furniture with a loan company for $600 more. Zollo (Hefner's friend) invested $300, while Keith Hefner contributed $1000 to his brother's venture. Grace Hefner invested $1000" (Watts, 2008 page 63). It showed the strong embeddedness of Hugh Hefner with his social ties, the family and his friends that contributed a lot in the start-up of Playboy. Analysing the organizational models and the founder blueprint of Playboy, it can be easily seen that Hugh Hefner put Playboy in commitment model that makes everyone that have work in Playboy will do their job with passion and fully committed to their job. Hugh Hefner's ethic of self-fulfilment has influenced the entire company to do the same things. This proves both propositions 5 and 6 are confirmed.
Geographical results Hugh Hefner started Playboy magazine in his Hyde Park kitchen on Chicago's South side in 1953, He chose Chicago because Chicago is the place that located most of his social capital and social network. Whilst starting up Playboy, He was supported by all of his families and friends, this was proven by the financial aid from his networks. Beside that Chicago become a region that he understand-well about the readers and publication world. Another side of the geographical perspective can be seen from the decision of spreading Playboy all over the world. During the expansion Playboy wanted to enter a new region, Playboy uses manipulation strategy because Playboy has "big name" and bigger power to influence their environment. Also with regard to geography both propositions (7 and 8) are confirmed.
Analysis result of Robert Keus.
When we look at Robert Keus and his motivation to become an entrepreneur from a psychological perspective, we see that his father forms a real role model. He has looked up to him ever since he was born, and he saw being an entrepreneur gave his father a lot of freedom and wealth. His entrepreneurial activity as a young boy also added to this belief. We believe this made Robert strive to become independent as well. In the early years of business in ICT, he got asked if he could develop a website for a company. Although having never developed a website before, he replied “off course I can!” We believe this is a sign of a strong optimism bias which probably contributed in starting up the firm. When we asked Robert how he sees his company in 5 to 10 years, he replied he wanted it to have grown. Important aspects in the growing process would be that the company would stay informal and profit wasn’t the main driver. When we look at the entrepreneurial activity of Robert Keus from an economic perspective, we would like to argue that he is a Schumpeterian entrepreneur. He creates opportunities through innovation and really thinks up ways to earn money. He didn’t possess any industry specific knowledge in any of the opportunities he pursued. He didn’t even acquire any knowledge from an undergraduate degree. When we look at the market in which he operates we see that it is a market with very low entry barriers and large “gales of creative destruction” since new generations off technologies make the old versions completely obsolete. The sociological aspects of Brothers Media, is that they used a lot of bricolage and bootstrapping. They invested a lot of time and very little capital, but more importantly the market is controlled my market rebels which act out of cool movements. We could even argue that Brothers Media is part of the cool movement because they use a relative low budget and contribute to the emergence of the app industry. When we analyse the decision making process at Brothers Media with regard to geographical location, we can see different stages in the lifecycle of the firm. During the early years when they first put an ad in the newspaper, they relied heavily on their social network to get the first customers. These customers partly granted brothers media assignments because of social ties. They were very embedded in the community and wouldn’t have survived without these ties. In a later stage they decided Utrecht was the location for them, they didn’t rely on the social network anymore, the only recourse they really needed was a computer with an internet connection. Utrecht was ideal with regard to travel distances to various areas in Holland (most central) in the case they had to visit customers. Now that their company is growing even larger, they are considering relocating to Rotterdam. They feel Rotterdam can offer them more knowledge, the city promotes entrepreneurship more and they don’t rely on customers in Holland any more since apps are worldwide.
Conclusion
When try to look back on this exercise, it turned out that some critical events in the biography of Hugh Hefner were somewhat subjectively described. Even there were many negative sides on his life, the author putted it on more positive light. As an entrepreneur, Hugh Hefner always live with his dream, it can be proven from his turning point in his life when decided to quit from Esquire to start his own magazine Playboy. He did not merely want to make money, He wanted to make dreams come true. That is the key of his success, living the dream with passion and Playboy brand will never lost it luster. Robert Keus is one example of nascent entrepreneur that has ability to read the opportunity and use that opportunity with innovation to create success. He is also become the evidence of the sentence " entrepreneur is the most easiest job in the world" by showing us an ability to start a company without certain degree and status and without abundant of resources.
List of references
Aldrich, H.E. & Martinez, (2001), ‘Many are called, but few are chosen: an evolutionary perspective for the study of entrepreneurship’, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 26: 41-56.
APA, (2006) in Psychology class Slide 1 by Andreas Rauch
Baron, James N. & Hannan, Michael T. (2002), Organizational Blueprints for Success in High-Tech Start-Ups: Lessons from the Stanford Project on Emerging Companies, California Management Review; Spring, Vol. 44 (3): 8-36.
Baumol, W. J. (1968). Entrepreneurship in economic theory. The American Economic Review 58(2): 64-71.
Caprana, G.V., & Cervone, D. (2000). Personality: Determinants, dynamics, and potentials. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: PAR. In: Zhao, H. S., & Seibert, S. E. (2006). The big five personality dimensions and entrepreneurial status: A meta-analytical review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(2), 259-271.
Dahl, M.S. & Sorenson, O. (2007). Home sweet home? Social capital and location choice. Druid Working Paper.
Smidt, de (1975) In Geography 2 Class Slide by Annet W.
Watts, Steven. (2008) Mr. Playboy Hugh Hefner and the American Dream. John Wiley & Sons Inc. New Jersey
Zhao, H. S., & Seibert, S. E. (2006). The big five personality dimensions and entrepreneurial status: A metaanalytical review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(2), 259-271.
Mr. Playboy
Hugh Hefner and the American dream
A qualitative analysis in the fields of Psychology, Economy, Sociology and Geography
[pic]
Plus entrepreneur interview with Robert Keus, The founder of Brothers Media
Created by :
Joris de Vos 350919jv@eur.nl
Syamsuria Syamsuddin 349980ss@eur.nl
Introduction
The purpose of this paper is to analyse a titan and an entrepreneur we interviewed by using the insights gained from the foundations of entrepreneurship course. The Titan we choose is Hugh Hefner, the famous founder and editor of the Playboy magazine and the entrepreneur we choose to interview is Robert Keus, he is the founder and owner of Brothers media which is a company …show more content…
that does project managing and marketing of iPhone apps and various other ICT-solutions. The fields we address are Psychology, Economy, Sociology and Geography. And we will perform the analysis by using qualitative research techniques. In the case of Hugh Hefner we have gathered the data from a biography and the data from Robert Keus comes from an interview. When people think of Hugh Hefner they think of a millionaire surrounded by many young beautiful girls called bunnies, a grotto where they ‘relax’ and a magazine that has become a true American icon worldwide. Hugh Hefner is to sex what Andre Hazes is to Dutch music. He owns not only the magazine, but various night clubs, hotels, resorts and recording labels; the Playboy brand encompasses a true business empire. But how did he get in that situation and who is the real Hefner? Those are a few questions we will try to answer in this paper.
Data
The data on Hugh Hefner, as mentioned earlier is gathered from a biography called Mr. Playboy, Hugh Hefner and the American dream, which is written by Steven Watts. Watts is a professor of history at the University of Missouri and prior to writing this book he wrote various other books including biographies about Henry Ford and Walt Disney. He gathered the data on Hugh Hefner from interviews with Hugh Hefner and a lot of people he worked with and a massive room full of old notebooks and the magazines. In the contract there was an arrangement that Watts maintained editorial control and according to Watts Hefner also honoured this agreement. Throughout the book both the perspective of Hugh himself and people around him is represented and compared. This allows for good psychological and sociological analysis. When we look at the weaknesses in the data, the interviews will probably have had a great hindsight bias because the questions will have related to events over a large timespan. The notebooks dating back from those periods will have helped Watts a great deal though. The data on Robbert Keus comes from a forty-five minute interview which was held in person at his office at home in Utrecht. By using this location and this communication channel we were able to gather more information than if we were to hold a Skype interview. We got a chance to see his ‘natural habitat’ and experience his lifestyle which put his answers to the questions in context.
Brief history of the Entrepreneurs
Currently Hugh Heffner owns various mansions, hotels, clubs and a black Douglas DC-9 jet called “big bunny” with a large motorized elliptical bed and 8 “jet bunnies” which wear black miniskirt uniforms with boots and serve as stewardesses. But how did Hefner become so successful? Hefner grew up in a conservative religious family together with one brother. During his childhood he became interested in creating cartoons and he created a series of comic books in which he would be the main character. This passion for writing and drawing sustained throughout high-school, where he worked on the school newspaper. After high-school Hefner joined the army because of World War II but never saw action and got a desk job because of his typing skills. After the army he decided to go to university and got degrees in Psychology and Sociology. He felt the need to understand people in order to use this knowledge to improve his writing. He even considered becoming a professor and started a PhD. He made up his mind after a few months though and started working for a magazine. At the magazine he was unhappy with the management and the pay and swapped employer a few times. Over the course of a few years Hefner got depressed. His job didn’t satisfy him and his marriage and children didn’t help either. On a rainy day on a bridge he decided he was going to take control of his life and start his own magazine. He worked alone for long days, got the financing from friends and family and got a deal with a printer which he knew from a previous job to print the magazine for free. From there on the story of the magazine is history. Throughout the years the magazine grew from the streets of Chicago, where the magazine was first launched, to the rest of the world.
Robert Keus grew up in the Hague, and being the son of an entrepreneur he quickly got entrepreneurship flowing though his veins. During his early high-school years he was working in a supermarket and he was earning 2 guilders an hour. Being dissatisfied with this low pay he decided he could do better and quit his job to stand in front of the super market to offer people help with putting the groceries in the car in return for brining the trolley (with a guilder in it) back. Later on in high-school he met Sebastiaan Kooijman with which he shared an interest in computers. They decided to put an ad in the newspaper to offer their services with regard to computer maintenance to the public. This was a huge success and the company started growing. After high-school the couple founded Brothers Media and after having lived in Groningen for a while they decided to settle the company in Utrecht. Currently they operate as project managers in the app and website industry with programmers in India, Pakistan and Eastern Europe.
Theory and propositions
In this section, selected theories are used to investigate our titan Hugh Heffner. The selection of the theoretical framework is based on relevant academic literature, which relies on multidiscipline entrepreneurial literature. The theoretical models are converted into some existing propositions (replication) and new propositions (initial testing) to be tested throughout the analysis and discussion section. Due to length constraints we decided to analyze Robert Keus in a separate section, not making use of hypothesis
Insights from psychology In this section, some selected psychological theories will be used to analyse the entrepreneurial career of our titan and entrepreneur. Psychology is the study of the mind and behaviour (APA, 2006), therefore the theories of psychology are a good way to analyse and to explain the entrepreneurial career of an entrepreneur. One of theories to understand the personality of an individual which is provided by field of psychology is the trait approach. This approach describes the personality traits of an entrepreneur that have a significant effect on entrepreneurial behaviour. Traits are defined by Caprane and Cervone (2000) as “enduring dispositions to exhibit a certain kind of response across various situations”. There are five big traits that have become popular in the science of psychology; Neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. According to Costa & McCrae (1992), Neuroticism represents individual differences in adjustment and emotional stability. Individuals high on Neuroticism tend to experience a number of negative emotions including anxiety, hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness and vulnerability. People who score low on Neuroticism can be characterized as self-confident, calm, even tempered and relaxed. Due to high uncertainty, financial risk and conflicts between work and family, entrepreneurs typically score low on neuroticism (Zhao & Seibert, 2006). Extraversion trait describes the extent to which people are assertive, dominant, energetic, active, talkative, and enthusiastic (Costa & McCrae, 1992 in; Zhao & Seibert, 2006). Entrepreneurial activity requires a good relationship among individuals. An entrepreneur should have good interaction within the organization or outside the organization. Zhao & Seibert (2006) think that entrepreneurs score higher on extraversion. Openness to experience was explained by Zhao & Seibert (2006) as the degree of creativity, innovativeness, imagination and originality of individuals. People who score lower on this trait are more conventional, narrow in interest and analytical. This trait is also related to intelligence, especially on aspects of intelligence like creativity and divergent thinking. Another trait is agreeableness, which assesses one's interpersonal orientation. An entrepreneur who is high on agreeableness can be characterized as trusting, forgiving, caring, altruistic and gullible (Costa & McCrae, 1992;Digman,1990;in Zhao & Seibert, 2006). Low score on agreeableness hinder entrepreneurs in bargaining hard deals and serving one's interest. The last trait is Conscientiousness, which indicates an individual's degree of organization, persistence, hard works, and motivation in pursuit of goal accomplishment. Entrepreneurs will score higher than managers on Conscientiousness (Zhao & Seibert, 2006). From this trait approach we derived the following propositions:
Preposition 1 Low level on Neuroticism, Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, correlate positively with entrepreneurial behaviour.
Proposition 2 High levels of extraversion and openness to experience correlate positively with entrepreneurial behaviour.
Insights from Economy The entrepreneur has been absent in the economic literature for a very long time. Neoclassical theories of the firm have denied the existence of the entrepreneur as an imperative economical actor. It is necessary to differentiate between the entrepreneur and the manager. A manager is an individual who oversees the efficiency of on-going processes, entrepreneurs on the other hand locates new ideas and puts them into effect. He leads and inspires. He is interested in improving by changing and coming up with new innovations. (Baumol, 1968). Schumpeter (1934) views entrepreneurship as an innovation process. An entrepreneur emerges through the creation of a new innovation. The innovation can be an introduction of a new good, a new quality of good and a new method of production. In the phase of creating a new venture, an entrepreneur should have some experiences and knowledge in the field in which the company operates. Some empirical research showed that the education background of entrepreneur does not affect the success of venture creation, but in another way it can be seen that an entrepreneur who has a specific knowledge about certain field has higher likelihood of success. From economic theory we derived the following propositions:
Preposition 3 A Schumpeterian entrepreneur conduct the business by innovation
Proposition 4 Possession of industry specific knowledge helps entrepreneur to establish the company
Insights from Sociology Sociology is important when looking at the career of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are not an independent being. Individuals are constantly influenced by outside forces that have made them what they are. All entrepreneurs are embedded in one social institution, the family. Family ties can trigger venture creation and play a key role in the resource mobilization process. Often founding teams of ventures include family members (Aldrich & Cliff). The success of creating a new firm, it is not merely determined by the family ties, strong ties from another network are also absolutely needed. According to the Stanford Project of Emerging Companies (SPEC) there are some organizational models and blueprints that entrepreneurs brought to bear in launching their new ventures. (Baron, 2002). The blueprints types of the founder are: Star, Commitment, bureaucracy, engineering and autocracy. From these sociological theories we derived the following propositions:
Preposition 5 The degree of social embeddedness determines the success of creation a new firm
Proposition 6 ‘Commitment’ firms attach the employees to the firm, they are selected on their love for the work, and whether or not they fit within the culture of the firm, these employees create a competitive advantage.
Insights from Geography Economic geography, studies the relationship between various economic dimensions; the activities of firms, and the subsequent spatial dimensions; location of firms and the subsequent regional characteristics. The latter includes the external conditions that influence the subsequent development of the new firm (De Smidt 1975). Therefore it is a good approach to look at entrepreneurship from a geographical perspective. Dahl & Sorensen (2007) argue that nascent entrepreneurs and ventures in start-up processes are constraint by social capital with regard to location choice of an entrepreneur when starting a new company, due to lack of connections in areas he or she does not come from. Therefore, entrepreneurs tend to open ventures in their home regions where they have built up a network of connections and relations with other actors, their social capital. This social capital is crucial in gaining resources, funding (finance) and identifying opportunities among other benefits. (Dahl & Sorenson, 2007). Whilst adjusting to the new location, companies sometimes face difficulties. Therefore there are some strategies to deal with a mismatch: Immunization, relocation, manipulation and adaptation. Every strategy has its own characteristic and depends on the industry and the size of the company. From these theories we have derived the following propositions:
Preposition 7 Entrepreneurs are limited in their choice of location to their home region
Proposition 8 Big companies have a bigger ability to use the manipulation strategy to deal with an environmental mismatch.
Results and Discussion
For each scientific field we will now discuss our findings. We will subsequently argue if our propositions are confirmed or rejected.
Psychological results During childhood, adolescent age and the founding of Playboy, the personality traits of Hugh Hefner have been clearly demonstrated. Hugh Heffner’s personality traits were mostly influenced by his childhood era when he grew up with a puritanical mother and workaholic father. During childhood and adolescence Hugh Hefner immersed himself in a fantasy world that he created from available elements in his young life. As Victorian tradition vied with modern social science in Hefner’s household, he encountered vestiges of restraint while enjoying a general atmosphere of indulgence and encouragement. Authority appeared distant, abstract and vaguely defined. When strictures were imposed by parents, school, or church, they seemed all the more severe because of their infrequency. A family atmosphere of emotional repression created longings for emotional connection to little Hugh. Hugh always saw himself as an ‘iconoclastic rebellion’ that was unintentionally formed by his parents. This personal struggle not only provided the seedbed for his later career, but also framed larger issues in modern America that explained the enormous appeal of Playboy. Hugh Hefner can be classified as a person with a low score of Neuroticism.
This is proven by his confidence and calm and relaxed personality in order to face a high uncertainty condition, family conflict with his parents thought and his ex-wife and some problems before founding Playboy like difficulties to raise fund and the sue from Stag magazine about the name usage of Stag Party (Watts, 2008 page 64). In 1949, Hefner landed a position at Esquire writing promotional copy at $60 a week. In Hefner's mind, this was very disappointing. After Esquire closed down its Chicago operation and planned to move to New York, Hefner was offered an increase of salary, but according to his personal consideration he decided to quit. He wanted to decide his own future no matter how undefined it was. This moment clearly shows the level of agreeableness of Hugh Hefner is low. Maybe if he decided to move to New York and worked for Esquire his career will have never been as successful as now. Hugh Hefner is an energetic man, enthusiastic to pursue his dreams and very ambitious. From that evidences, it can be concluded that he has low level on conscientiousness and high level on extraversion. When he decided to join army it can be seen that he is a person with high level of openness to experience. Based on the explanations above, we declare proposition 1 and 2 clearly
confirmed.
Economical results Hefner's intuition told him that there was an opportunity to be had, in publishing a magazine for men that focused on sex. His plan was to publish pictures of nude women - a move which had not been widely attempted for fear of being prosecuted for the distribution of obscene material through the U.S. mail. This kind of thinking is the way of Schumpeterian entrepreneur. Hugh Hefner has made an innovation in the publishing world by the remarkable social innovation to publish Playboy magazine. Initially Hugh Hefner tried to fulfil his passion for writing being employed in the publishing world. He found a job as copywriter at the Carson Pirie Scott department store, after that he worked for Esquire magazine and after he quit he created Playboy. From his previous work he got his industry specific knowledge to start a new magazine in publishing world. These two events demonstrate that propositions 3 and 4 are confirmed.
Sociological results Even though Playboy magazine is not a family business, the process of founding Playboy involved much effort from the family and friends. " Much effort went into raising money with family and friends. A wealthy girlfriend of Seller's invested $2.000 and Hefner Borrowed $200 from a local bank and hocked his furniture with a loan company for $600 more. Zollo (Hefner's friend) invested $300, while Keith Hefner contributed $1000 to his brother's venture. Grace Hefner invested $1000" (Watts, 2008 page 63). It showed the strong embeddedness of Hugh Hefner with his social ties, the family and his friends that contributed a lot in the start-up of Playboy. Analysing the organizational models and the founder blueprint of Playboy, it can be easily seen that Hugh Hefner put Playboy in commitment model that makes everyone that have work in Playboy will do their job with passion and fully committed to their job. Hugh Hefner's ethic of self-fulfilment has influenced the entire company to do the same things. This proves both propositions 5 and 6 are confirmed.
Geographical results Hugh Hefner started Playboy magazine in his Hyde Park kitchen on Chicago's South side in 1953, He chose Chicago because Chicago is the place that located most of his social capital and social network. Whilst starting up Playboy, He was supported by all of his families and friends, this was proven by the financial aid from his networks. Beside that Chicago become a region that he understand-well about the readers and publication world. Another side of the geographical perspective can be seen from the decision of spreading Playboy all over the world. During the expansion Playboy wanted to enter a new region, Playboy uses manipulation strategy because Playboy has "big name" and bigger power to influence their environment. Also with regard to geography both propositions (7 and 8) are confirmed.
Analysis result of Robert Keus.
When we look at Robert Keus and his motivation to become an entrepreneur from a psychological perspective, we see that his father forms a real role model. He has looked up to him ever since he was born, and he saw being an entrepreneur gave his father a lot of freedom and wealth. His entrepreneurial activity as a young boy also added to this belief. We believe this made Robert strive to become independent as well. In the early years of business in ICT, he got asked if he could develop a website for a company. Although having never developed a website before, he replied “off course I can!” We believe this is a sign of a strong optimism bias which probably contributed in starting up the firm. When we asked Robert how he sees his company in 5 to 10 years, he replied he wanted it to have grown. Important aspects in the growing process would be that the company would stay informal and profit wasn’t the main driver. When we look at the entrepreneurial activity of Robert Keus from an economic perspective, we would like to argue that he is a Schumpeterian entrepreneur. He creates opportunities through innovation and really thinks up ways to earn money. He didn’t possess any industry specific knowledge in any of the opportunities he pursued. He didn’t even acquire any knowledge from an undergraduate degree. When we look at the market in which he operates we see that it is a market with very low entry barriers and large “gales of creative destruction” since new generations off technologies make the old versions completely obsolete. The sociological aspects of Brothers Media, is that they used a lot of bricolage and bootstrapping. They invested a lot of time and very little capital, but more importantly the market is controlled my market rebels which act out of cool movements. We could even argue that Brothers Media is part of the cool movement because they use a relative low budget and contribute to the emergence of the app industry. When we analyse the decision making process at Brothers Media with regard to geographical location, we can see different stages in the lifecycle of the firm. During the early years when they first put an ad in the newspaper, they relied heavily on their social network to get the first customers. These customers partly granted brothers media assignments because of social ties. They were very embedded in the community and wouldn’t have survived without these ties. In a later stage they decided Utrecht was the location for them, they didn’t rely on the social network anymore, the only recourse they really needed was a computer with an internet connection. Utrecht was ideal with regard to travel distances to various areas in Holland (most central) in the case they had to visit customers. Now that their company is growing even larger, they are considering relocating to Rotterdam. They feel Rotterdam can offer them more knowledge, the city promotes entrepreneurship more and they don’t rely on customers in Holland any more since apps are worldwide.
Conclusion
When try to look back on this exercise, it turned out that some critical events in the biography of Hugh Hefner were somewhat subjectively described. Even there were many negative sides on his life, the author putted it on more positive light. As an entrepreneur, Hugh Hefner always live with his dream, it can be proven from his turning point in his life when decided to quit from Esquire to start his own magazine Playboy. He did not merely want to make money, He wanted to make dreams come true. That is the key of his success, living the dream with passion and Playboy brand will never lost it luster. Robert Keus is one example of nascent entrepreneur that has ability to read the opportunity and use that opportunity with innovation to create success. He is also become the evidence of the sentence " entrepreneur is the most easiest job in the world" by showing us an ability to start a company without certain degree and status and without abundant of resources.
List of references
Aldrich, H.E. & Martinez, (2001), ‘Many are called, but few are chosen: an evolutionary perspective for the study of entrepreneurship’, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice 26: 41-56.
APA, (2006) in Psychology class Slide 1 by Andreas Rauch
Baron, James N. & Hannan, Michael T. (2002), Organizational Blueprints for Success in High-Tech Start-Ups: Lessons from the Stanford Project on Emerging Companies, California Management Review; Spring, Vol. 44 (3): 8-36.
Baumol, W. J. (1968). Entrepreneurship in economic theory. The American Economic Review 58(2): 64-71.
Caprana, G.V., & Cervone, D. (2000). Personality: Determinants, dynamics, and potentials. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Odessa, FL: PAR. In: Zhao, H. S., & Seibert, S. E. (2006). The big five personality dimensions and entrepreneurial status: A meta-analytical review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(2), 259-271.
Dahl, M.S. & Sorenson, O. (2007). Home sweet home? Social capital and location choice. Druid Working Paper.
Smidt, de (1975) In Geography 2 Class Slide by Annet W.
Watts, Steven. (2008) Mr. Playboy Hugh Hefner and the American Dream. John Wiley & Sons Inc. New Jersey
Zhao, H. S., & Seibert, S. E. (2006). The big five personality dimensions and entrepreneurial status: A metaanalytical review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(2), 259-271.