Keywords

1 Introduction

Initiatives in entrepreneurship require qualities such as expertise and self-confidence, as well as a clear understanding of the risks to be assumed. Accordingly, entrepreneurs will encounter difficulties and conditioning factors in their path, requiring them to deploy competencies and strategies that will contribute to their projects’ success.

This research is part of an R&D project called Diseño de la carrera y gestión del talento emprendedor (Career design and talent management in entrepreneurship), with a nationwide scope, funded by Spain’s Ministry of the Economy and Competitiveness. Specifically, we are addressing its second objective, which focuses on the need to describe and define the situation of self-employed individuals in their career development, with this study providing partial results from the larger project, adopting a largely qualitative perspective. In sum, this study’s aim is to identify and further develop the definition of the barriers and needs in training and guidance facing self-employed individuals, from the perspective of guidance practitioners and career advisors in support services.

We have addressed this phenomenon by gathering information and data from the career practitioners (advisors and counsellors) who work at the services that provide support for entrepreneurship and through the application of a protocol involving a sample of services providing guidance and support for entrepreneurship within the Spanish context.

The results explore the practitioners’ perception on the needs expressed by individuals in any one of the stages of entrepreneurship, whether this involves a start-up, a new enterprise or a consolidated business activity; as we were interested in their opinions regarding a series of core dimensions of analysis. We specifically focus on presenting the results of two main dimensions: (a) needs in training and guidance; and (b) the barriers or conditioning factors involved in entrepreneurship. Understanding an entrepreneur’s career requires identifying the barriers that may appear in their path, as well as their perceived needs, which may give rise to best practices that prove to have a favourable impact on their success.

Leading international organisations acknowledge the need for entrepreneurship as one of the main drivers of economic growth. In fact, the past decade has witnessed an increase in the scientific literature on entrepreneurship, although few studies have focused on career guidance. Furthermore, economic growth should not be the main reason to support entrepreneurship, but rather the career development and fulfilment of individuals, also in search of a collective good. However, in many cases, people are forced to go into entrepreneurship in conditions that do not really fulfil their interests or career goals. In this field, there is still a paucity of studies designed to shed light on the factors that promote or curtail projects in entrepreneurship, or on an entrepreneur’s key qualities and their needs for professional development, through a holistic view of the individual, business contexts, people’s environments and training and guidance provision, from an interactive perspective.

When analysing entrepreneurs’ circumstances with a view to identifying the main barriers they face, as well as their needs in training and guidance, we should clearly delimit the nature of that reality. This study has therefore adopted a mixed approach to entrepreneurship (Baron & Shane, 2008), which considers both the entrepreneur’s traits and the environment and process in which their entrepreneurial projects are framed.

As regards the environment, Robayo-Vera (2011) indicates the following: “The environment has a crucial influence on entrepreneurs’ attitudes, activities and aspirations. Therefore, the three key players responsible for developing a favourable climate for entrepreneurship are the following: state, private business, and academia. Each one has a vital role to play, and should tackle their own challenges” (p. 17). Some studies indicate that lifelong training and the development of competencies are vital in higher education (Yaniz-Álvarez de Eulate, & Villardón-Gallego, 2006; Álvarez-Pérez, González-Afonso, & López-Aguilar, 2009; Molero López-Barajas & Reina-Estévez, 2012; Hernández-Fernaud, Ramos-Sapena, Negrín, Ruiz-de la Rosa, & Hernández, 2011).

The 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) Report (Pablo-López de, Santos-Urda, Angoitia-Grijalba, & Valdés-Lías, 2016) singles out Madrid as one of Spain’s best cities for business projects. Its most highly rated features include access and the availability of physical infrastructures. Nonetheless, as of 2016, the experts that have collaborated on this report have noted a downturn in conditions in the business environment compared to the previous year. The recommendations are therefore geared toward the improvement of, among other aspects, social and cultural standards, training and instruction in entrepreneurship at school and the furtherance of education in entrepreneurship.

This is the scenario for the gathering and analysis of the results in this study, seeking to use the information provided by the experts to identify the indicators of difficulties and barriers in the environment that new businesses have to negotiate, entrepreneurs’ needs and the key aspects for the provision of guidance services that respond to those difficulties, obstacles and shortcomings in their training.

2 Purpose

Considering the above, this study has the following goal:

To identify and define the barriers and needs involved in the provision of training and guidance for self-employed people, from the perspective of the guidance practitioners and career advisors involved in these services.

In order to respond accordingly, we have designed and applied the protocol described in the method section to gather and record data from the agencies and practitioners taking part. Prior to that, however, the theoretical framework that underpins this study is presented, focusing on the dimensions of interest and demarcating the state-of-the-art on the matter.

3 Theoretical Underpinnings

Prior to the theoretical review of the target dimensions, needs and barriers, we should first clarify that a potential entrepreneur is someone who needs to undergo a change, and is aware of this. Such a person is also motivated to develop a business activity within a specific market segment.

Several studies (2018 GEM Report; Díaz-de León & Cancino, 2014; Marulanda, Montoya, & Vélez, 2014) distinguish between the entrepreneurship driven mainly by necessity and the opportunism prompted precisely by identifying employment situations that require a response in the form of an entrepreneurial activity.

This differentiation seems to point to a relationship between entrepreneurship and growth, with both pivoting around the state of the labour market. This distinction has also been highlighted by the following authors, among others: Lévesque and Minniti (2006), Hechavarría and Reynolds (2009), Kirkwood (2009), Hatak, Harms, and Fink (2015). They all indicate that in most cases people tend to want to earn more and become more independent, while in others they are simply forced into self-employment because they cannot find any other way out of unemployment.

In other studies, this differentiation has been conceptualised as an opportunity or pull—a necessity—as noted by, among others, Verheul, Thurik, Hessels, and Van der Zwan (2010). The push-pull paradigm provides an analysis framework for interpreting the reasons for entrepreneurship and the forms it takes. In this vein, and when seeking to define entrepreneurs, it tends to be posited that those driven by opportunism are usually more tolerant of risk, and this is one of the reasons they are perceived as necessary in society (Block, Sandner, & Spiegel, 2015).

As regards the needs in some way linked to people’s characteristics and to circumstances in the environment, authors such as Thurik, Carree, Van Stel, and Audretsch (2008), Kautonen and Palmroos (2010) consider that unemployment is one of the main factors prompting people to start a business, with this individual initiative sometimes being seen as almost the only route to survival. Yet this impulse does not in itself guarantee the enterprise’s success, and in this sense, the characteristics of both the individual and the collective to which they belong, along with their employment situation, will give way to the expression of those needs.

One of the needs that has been clearly identified within the framework of this research involves the importance of the context in an entrepreneur’s education; specifically, the need to foster an enterprising spirit during their schooling, something that our informants claim is not the case. This view is also confirmed in the GEM Spain Report (2016), specifically by the indicator Educating for entrepreneurship at school. Spain stands in forty-sixth position out of 65 countries studied, and scores below the average (2.7/3.1). In the specific case of the Autonomous Community of Madrid (GEM 2016, Madrid), it is again stressed that education is precisely one of the factors that encourages entrepreneurship. According to this same report, the second block of measures recommended for this city considers an educational model that boosts creativity and a readiness to start a business.

Following this description of the main needs in education and guidance related to entrepreneurship, we now focus on the importance of the entrepreneur’s gender and their perception of their own worth.

As regards the needs that may stem from belonging to certain groups, this section highlights the possible differences perceived by professional guidance practitioners in business projects and processes undertaken by men and women.

An early report issued by Acs, Arenius, Hay, and Minniti (2004). Global entrepreneurship monitor. GEM 2004, dedicated to women and entrepreneurship states that factors with an apparent influence on starting a business have a similar impact on men and women (Langowitz, Minniti, & Arenius, 2005; Langowitz & Minniti, 2007; Wilson, Kickul, & Marlino, 2007); however, subsequent studies (Baughn, Cao, Le, Lim, & Neupert, 2006; Mueller & Dato-On, 2008) have found that men have more interest in entrepreneurship, apparently due to a higher opinion of their own self-efficacy. According to these authors, self-efficacy is a psychological state defined as self-confidence in the performance of a task.

The studies by Gupta, Turban, Wasti, and Sikdar (2009), and Alda-Varas, Villardón-Gallego, and Elexpuru-Albizuri (2012) has singled out the stereotypical features that tend to be attributed to men and women as one of the factors that could inform the decision to pursue a specific job or profession, depending on whether it is perceived as feminine or masculine.

The consideration of self-efficacy in women has also been described by Suárez Ortega (2008), who specifically refers to their low expectations of success, as perceived by the women themselves, as a limitation that prompts them to experience low self-esteem and little self-efficacy in terms of improving their employment situation.

The findings in a study by Mueller and Dato-On (2013) reveal certain changes regarding structural barriers and gender stereotypes in matters of entrepreneurship, as they seem to be rapidly disappearing, with the ensuing success of women in occupations that have traditionally been considered male domains, such as management and entrepreneurship.

Another study by Mueller and Dato-On (2013) contends that business self-efficacy can be increased or reduced through steps of an educational nature. They therefore highlight the importance of including business self-efficacy in training courses on entrepreneurship. If these programmes adopt a balanced approach to the type of competencies they aim to develop (those considered to have a masculine focus and those with a feminine focus), they will increase the success of business projects among men and women alike.

The 2016 GEM Report reveals changes in a series of data along these lines. On the one hand, and regarding the different stages of entrepreneurship, it notes a certain prevalence in businesses undertaken by men. The report has identified this tendency in all the stages, in both planning and consolidated states. Nevertheless, a change then appears to have come about in 2016, when women start to dominate the scene, both in the planning stage of entrepreneurship and in the start-up stage. Nonetheless, as time passes and in general terms, the report identifies a clear dynamic in men’s businesses, which once again outperform women’s enterprises. In the case of Europe, and compared to the rest of the world, women play a smaller role in the initial stages of a new business’ activity (6%). Likewise, Europe also records the lowest level of gender parity. In contrast to what happens with men, European women are half as likely to take part in self-employed activities.

Alvarez and Urbano (2011). Álvarez, Noguera, and Urbano (2012) have investigated possible factors in the environment that may inform female entrepreneurship in Spain. Their study distinguishes between informal factors (perception of the skills required, social networks and the family’s role), which have a significant impact on a women’s likelihood of starting a business, and formal factors (non-financial support activities and education, among others) which do not have significant effects; they attribute considerable importance to these informal factors, which should therefore be taken into account when catering for the needs of female entrepreneurs.

Certain studies in Spain (Mora & Martínez, 2018; Sánchez-Cañizares & Fuentes-García, 2013) have focused on the barriers and obstacles female entrepreneurs and their projects face, and the authors of these studies agree that 2008, the year when the recession began, saw a significant increase in new business projects.

One of the main barriers described in these studies is the fear that the business will fail. Diverse studies, Haro, Ceballos, and Salazar (2010); Michelacci, (2003); Minniti (2012), Chacón et al. GEM 2013, give it such importance because it is a barrier that, in turn, depends on myriad factors, which tend to be directly linked to the entrepreneur and their more immediate family environment, and stem from the individual’s wider context (community, policies etc.).

In the first case, we will refer to the direct consequences that business failure may have on the entrepreneur’s family, which may range from a loss of self-esteem through to an impairment of the entrepreneur’s professional reputation. As regards contextual factors, Romero-Martínez and Milone (2016) mainly point to the financial costs of the new business project, which range from the investment required for the start-up to the expense of winding up the company.

4 Method

This study has been conducted within the framework of Stage 1 in this research, specifically the qualitative analysis of entrepreneurs’ characteristics and profiles within a Spanish context.

The qualitative nature of this initial stage involves an analysis of the opinions expressed, in this case, by guidance practitioners and career advisors involved in support services and agencies for entrepreneurs, all in relation to the implications arising for the users’ career development. This study has therefore applied an ad hoc protocol as its data-gathering strategy. It is a semi-structured report that is open-ended in the recording of answers, while at the same time it is a constructive one, as it enables the guidance practitioners involved to include any information they deem convenient, attach any documents they consider to be of interest and deliver data to the extent and breadth they wish, according to the characteristics of the service in which they are employed and their reference context.

The data have been gathered from three main sources: (1) experts/managers of agencies supporting entrepreneurs; (2) these agencies’ websites; and (3) literature sources, as a way of helping to understand the situation. Thirty-three protocols have been administered nationwide in Spain, which have been completed by managers/coordinators and practitioners in agencies cooperating in the implementation of the R&D framework project to which this study belongs. These data are supplemented by social indicators and the analysis of documentary sources, which provide the platform for focusing a national entrepreneurship plan that has been drawn up by other members of the team (Suárez-Ortega et al., 2018).

The protocol for describing and recording the data on self-employed individuals and the resources and services provided for entrepreneurs (Suárez-Ortega, Padilla-Carmona, & Sánchez-García, 2015) is an instrument for registering the different findings and data obtained from the aforementioned sources. It is structured into four parts: (1) description and definition of the situation of self-employed individuals in the Autonomous Community; (2) identification of the barriers facing self-employed individuals (from a technical standpoint); (3) information on the agencies related to entrepreneurship (training and guidance services and resources); and (4) description and definition of self-employed individuals’ needs (technical perspective).

This document is organised into four sections, with two parts; the first involves Sects. 1 and 3: Description and definition of the situation of self-employed individuals; Information about the agency related to entrepreneurship (training and guidance services and resources). The second part comprises Sects. 2 and 4: Identification of the barriers facing self-employed individuals (from a technical standpoint); Description and definition of self-employed individuals’ needs (technical perspective), which is our focus here.

Once the information was gathered through the electronic delivery of the protocols to the various services and agencies, the next stage involved importing, coding and classifying the information. The qualitative analysis of the data conducted here has given rise to a series of categories in different dimensions related to entrepreneurship. Regarding the difficulties involved in starting up a business, both our own research and the GEM Reports (2016–2017) coincide in stating that one of the main barriers is a lack of business culture, as well as the excess burden of bureaucracy identified in our study. In the GEM reports, this is referred to as too much information and paperwork, which involves having to go from one office to another to complete all the official procedures.

Table 2.1 features the general categories mentioned by the guidance practitioners and career advisors, including their frequencies.

Table 2.1 General system of categories: Dimensions/Barriers/Needs
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Based on these category systems, an analysis has been conducted of the content the participants have provided, obtaining results that shed light on the issues addressed in the research. These results are presented in the next section, organised according to the core dimensions under study.

5 Results

The data have provided qualitative information on self-employed individuals according to their business project’s degree of consolidation, type of activity and context in which it is being undertaken, specifically highlighting the differences identified between rural and urban settings, as well as those informed by gender, while at the same time identifying the general opinions on entrepreneurs held by the guidance practitioners/career advisors in the services/agencies attending to them (Table 2.2).

Table 2.2 Factors with an influence on entrepreneurship as seen by guidance practitioners/career advisors
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6 Discussion of Results and Conclusions

Both the needs and the barriers entrepreneurs may encounter are largely determined by the new business’ actual context, which is why this study has adopted a mixed approach (Baron & Shane, 2008) to this phenomenon. In this same vein, and applying the premises propounded by Robayo Vera (2011), consideration has been given to the three factors deemed to be of relevance for fostering a favourable climate for start-ups, namely, employment policies, the business environment and education/training.

Based on these considerations, and as regards the needs detected in this research, it should be stressed that they vary depending on the distinction made by sundry authors (Kirkwood, 2009; Hatak, Harms, & Fink, 2015); that is, regarding the nature of the origin of entrepreneurship: through opportunism when the launch responds to a desire to make more money or respond to welfare demands in terms of employment, or through necessity when the prospective entrepreneur cannot find any other way of finding a job.

This research has noted the greater weight of intuitive entrepreneurs, whose appearance during the data-gathering period coincided with the final stages of the economic crisis in Spain. In this regard, the results of this research are wholly consistent with the findings reported by, for example, Kautonen & Palmroos (2010), who highlight the role these adverse circumstances play as a driver of entrepreneurship. Within this context, individuals caught up in prolonged periods of unemployment have been forced into self-employment; a situation that, in turn, prompts such needs as training in business management or marketing techniques.

Likewise, in a socio-labour context with these characteristics, where policies, measures and resources for labour guidance and life-long training are scarce or limited, the decision to undertake or not undertake a project of entrepreneurship, or the reorientation of trajectories, or professional entrepreneur projects, is committed.

This research has specifically outlined the importance that context has in an entrepreneur’s instruction, with this being an aspect that will subsequently impact upon the success and sustainability of new business projects. In this respect, the GEM Spain Report (2016) states that promoting a spirit of entrepreneurship at school is one of the areas for future improvement.

Some gender differences are glimpsed. However, this issue is the subject of another in-depth study also focused on the R&D Project, where this study is included.

7 Proposals for Guidance Schemes in Services in Support of Entrepreneurship

Best practices can be drawn from the services in support of entrepreneurship, considering the actions they undertake, the policies they seek to apply and the barriers and needs identified by the practitioners themselves.

The informants in this study also report the value of education as a driver of entrepreneurship, and the environment is very important in this aspect. Stress is placed on the need for schools to foster a spirit of entrepreneurship. In the informants’ view, entrepreneurship is above all a question of intrinsic motivation (especially when referring to opportunistic entrepreneurship).

We should not conclude our consideration of the needs detected in this study without referring to the impact that an entrepreneur’s membership of certain collectives may have. One of the most widely studied ones is gender, Allen, Elam, Langowitz, and Dean (2007). Specifically, in a study prior to this research, Suárez-Ortega (2008) highlighted female entrepreneurs’ low expectations of success, and they appear again here, both in the needs and the barriers that practitioners and advisors detect in this collective. The majority of women in this situation are negatively affected, above all in matters of self-efficacy and self-esteem, whereas male entrepreneurs appear to enjoy certain advantages in these areas.

Among these barriers that the practitioners in this research perceive, the lack of response to the needs detected in this study tends to constitute a series of barriers of a differing nature. Specifically, the lack of a training offer and the difficulties and hindrances involved in grants and subsidies are a major barrier to entrepreneurship, as well as the fear of failure, which may discourage the launch of other projects. These are obstacles that may appear and which need to be taken into consideration.

8 Proposals for Guidance Schemes in Services in Support of Entrepreneurship

It is therefore reasonable to understand that any scheme involved in training and guidance in the field of entrepreneurship should give, on the one hand, considerable weight to economic and financial instruction, not only in the initial business plan, and with all the components that it entails, but also as regards the business’ subsequent management (taxation, finances, marketing, ongoing identification of needs etc.) with a view to ensuring long-term success. Yet on the other hand, it is also vital, particularly during the initial stages, to conduct a detailed analysis of the entrepreneur’s contextual aspects, insofar as they may provide keys to be taken very much into account for overcoming the barriers and obstacles when launching a new business, as well as the connection with the entrepreneur’s own life project and professional career.