Management aptitude of entrepreneurs in the self-storage industry

The basic problem investigated in this dissertation involved the researcher's speculation that many individuals who have what it takes to be an entrepreneur may simply not have what it takes to be an effective manager. In fact, some of the characteristics that are essential to the entrepreneurial drive may be detrimental to the development of solid management skills. This may be one reason that so many entrepreneurs fail in business--certain elements in their personality make-up may actually prevent them from being, or even becoming, good managers.;The overall objective of the study was to learn if there is a significant relationship between entrepreneurs and professional managers in terms of their basic aptitudes toward managing. The research was carried out by examining a number of the most important underpinning psychosocial aspects that have been demonstrated as valid predictors of management performance. Groups of both entrepreneurs and managers within the self-storage industry were administered the Management Readiness Profile-Form 2. Two hundred individuals from each group were chosen through a systematic selection based on a national zip-code ordered database of the entire research population. The net response rate was 50.9%, and respondents were equally distributed with 97 from each group.;The findings indicated there was no significant difference between professional managers and entrepreneurs in the self-storage industry in terms of their basic aptitudes toward management. Based on the primary and secondary research of this dissertation, entrepreneurs and managers seem to have some commonalities as business professionals. This is particularly the case if successful entrepreneurs are compared to successful managers. It appears that the best managers and the best entrepreneurs possess characteristics that are often thought to be unique to one group or another. These hybrid professionals could appropriately be termed "enterprising managers.".