The entrepreneurial role appears to call for decision-making under uncertainty. - David McClelland

Practically all theorists agree that entrepreneurship involves, by definition, taking risks of some kind.

The outstanding people realised that the job involved more than just writing a good strategic plan. It was also important that top management should understand the plan and be prepared to adopt it. Consequently, the best strategists made sure that executives were involved in decisions at an early stage. The less outstanding people didn’t see this, and it had been overlooked by the experts. But, as soon as we showed them our findings, they could see that it made sense.

Psychologically speaking, what such findings seem to mean is that an achievement is not only more frequently present in stories from more rapidly developing countries but when it is present, it is more apt to be “means” oriented rather than goal oriented. The achievement sequence more often dwells on obstacles to success and specific means of overcoming them, rather than on the goal itself, the desire for it, and the emotions surrounding attaining or failing to attain it. The adaptive quality of such a concern with means is obvious: a people who think in terms of ways of overcoming obstacles would seem more likely to find ways of overcoming them in fact.