Entrepreneurs – Much The Same Yet Much Different

The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of how individuals interpret having an entrepreneurial orientation (EO). We employed a qualitative interview study to investigate how the five EO dimensions (i.e., autonomy, proactiveness, innovativeness, competitiveness, and risk-taking) manifest in committed single venture entrepreneurs (n=17) and habitual entrepreneurs (n=15). Our inquiry identified that each EO dimension involved multiple distinct sub-dimensions that change over time, magnitude, and goal orientation. Moreover, we found that participants' perceptions of actual and perceived dimension intensity diverged. This study contributes to the EO conversation by presenting rare insights into individual entrepreneurs, the entrepreneurial process, and the EO construct.