An enterprising tendency is defined as the tendency to start up and manage projects - highly enterprising people do this more often and are more innovative in their approach. Enterprise may be expressed by starting your own business, operating as an intrapreneur within an organisation or setting up community ventures. This self assessment test should take you about ten minutes to complete and will give you an idea of your enterprising potential. Your ability to express your enterprising potential may depend on the changing constraints and contexts in your life and career. Your enterprising tendency may also change in response to challenges you face at different key phases of your life and career development. There is much academic debate about the most important characteristics of enterprising people. This test suggests an emphasis on the following key characteristics:
The enterprising person is highly motivated, energetic, and has a capacity for hard work. They are busy, driven, dynamic and highly committed to getting things done. Their high motivation levels are characterised by a high need for achievement and for autonomy, manifesting as the desire to lead, shape and complete projects.
The enterprising person is restless with ideas, and has an imaginative approach to solving problems. They tend to see life in a different way to others, spotting opportunities around them. Their innovative tendency helps them to develop ideas to create new products, services and systems, new intellectual property and artistic outputs, and new businesses and ventures across sectors.
The enterprising person is opportunistic and identifies goals they wish to pursue. This will usually involve some risk to them– their time, finances and personal relationships. They may be willing to take risks in some or all of these areas. They seek information and expertise to assess if it is worth pursuing the opportunity, although the nature of calculated risk-taking means there is a risk and they may be proved wrong. They also need to convince their investors and supporters to take a calculated risk.
The enterprising person has an internal rather than external locus of control which means that they believe they have control over their own destiny and make their own ‘luck’. This means that they confidently seek to exert control over life, draw on inner resources and believe that it is down to them if they succeed through their own efforts and hard work.
Note that the test is not definitive and it should only be used as an educational aid for thinking about enterprise. You could discuss your responses with a supportive group of students, teacher or friends. Try getting involved with setting up and managing projects, then take the test again to see if your scores change. If you are not happy with your test scores, personal transformation is an open door! If you want to be enterprising then you are half-way there!
The description of the enterprising person is drawn from what is known about entrepreneurs; the idea being that the enterprising person shares entrepreneurial characteristics. Just as there are different types of entrepreneurs, distinguished by their growth orientation, motivation, type of business, involvement with new technology, association with business owner management, and so on, there are different enterprising people. An enterprising tendency is defined as the tendency to start up and manage projects.The most enterprising people set up projects more frequently; set up more innovative projects; and are more growth-oriented, which means that they have to be opportunistic and good at utilising resources, including human, technological, physical and organisational resources.
A person who is highly enterprising has the following qualities:
The enterprising person is highly motivated, energetic, and has a capacity for hard work. They are busy, driven, dynamic and highly committed to getting things done. Their high motivation levels are characterised by a high need for achievement, manifesting as the desire to lead, shape and complete projects.
A person with a high need for achievement has the following qualities:
The enterprising person is highly motivated, energetic, likes to lead, shape and do things their way. They are independent, driven, dynamic and may have to be number one or work solo.
A person with a high need for autonomy has the following qualities:
The enterprising person is restless with ideas, and has an imaginative approach to solving problems. They tend to see life in a different way to others, spotting opportunities around them. Their innovative tendency and need for achievement helps them to develop ideas to create new products, services and systems, new intellectual property and artistic outputs, and new businesses and ventures across sectors.
A person with a creative tendency has the following qualities:
Growth-oriented enterprises tend to be very innovative. If you have an enterprise and would like to assess how innovative it is, try the Open2-Innov8ion rating tool, also developed by the author.
The enterprising person is opportunistic and identifies goals they wish to pursue. This will usually involve some risk to them– their time, finances and personal relationships. They seek information and expertise to assess if it is worth pursuing the opportunity. They also need to convince their investors and supporters to take a calculated risk.
A calculated risk-taker has the following qualities:
The enterprising person has an internal rather than external locus of control which means that they believe you have control over own destiny and make their own ‘luck’. This means that they confidently seek to exert control over life, draw on inner resources and believe that it is down to them if they succeed through their own efforts and hard work.
A person who has an internal locus of control has the following qualities:
Understanding of the enterprising person is largely drawn from what is known about entrepreneurs; the idea being that the enterprising person shares entrepreneurial characteristics...
You might prefer to answer that you ‘sometimes’ or ‘slightly’ agree on occasion. You may dislike tests that require you to decide if you tend to agree or disagree with statements....
Although GET2 has proved useful as an aid to education and personal reflection about enterprising tendency, predictive validity has not been established. However, GET2 may help you ....
Perhaps you already have experience in business, or have undertaken projects at school, or within employment as an intrapreneur, or within your community....
Sorry that this result seems negative. Organisations and communities need more enterprising people, but it would not be ideal if everyone was enterprising....
These are all people with enterprising characteristics, but ones who operate in different contexts. The ‘Entrepreneur’ starts up and runs their....
GET2 works in a similar manner to psychometric tests, in that it asks a series of cross-referenced questions aimed at determining certain characteristics....
Thankyou for all the many comments we receive about the GET2 Test.
Here are just a selection of the responses, showing how the test is being used.
Since the General measure of Enterprising Tendency (GET) test was developed in 1988 at Durham University Business School, it has generated a lot of interest amongst academics, working internationally in the areas of entrepreneurship and innovation. In recent years it has generated interest amongst educationists and researchers working in higher educational institutions and universities, as well as development consultancies*, for its potential as both an educational and research tool. The map and list below identifies the key institutions around the world who have, over the years, requested to use the GET2 test for research, development and educational purposes. In addition this site hosts some 1,000 users a month who use the GET2 test online.
The description of the enterprising person is drawn from what is known about entrepreneurs; the idea being that the enterprising person shares entrepreneurial characteristics. GET2 assumes that enterprise is a wider concept that includes more than business owner-managers and entrepreneurs, recognising that there are different types of entrepreneurs, distinguished by their growth orientation, motivation, type of business, involvement with new technology, association with business owner management, and so on. The enterprising person may be an entrepreneur, or an intrapreneur, working within organisations, or the voluntrapreneur who sets up and leads voluntary projects in the community. An enterprising tendency is defined as the tendency to start up and manage projects.
The many institutions who have used GET2 are presented on the map above and are listed below:
* Please note this list may not be complete and does not imply these institutions endorse the GET2 test materials.
If your Institute is using GET2 but is not yet on this list, please contact us.
The General measure of Enterprising Tendency (GET) test was developed in 1987-1988 by Dr Sally Caird and Mr Cliff Johnson at Durham University Business School with funding from the University Grants Council whose functions have now been taken over by the Higher Education Funding Council for England. The research followed a literature review to identify key psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs which could be applicable to other enterprising people. Psychological tests were reviewed and a bank of entrepreneurial descriptive statements was assembled from the literature on entrepreneurs, the psychological tests of key entrepreneurial characteristics and pilot testing with entrepreneurs.
Construct validity and reliability was established by testing the measure on occupational groups finding that entrepreneurs were significantly more enterprising than teachers, nurses, civil servants and clerical workers and lecturers and trainers, using t-tests for statistical analysis (p0.005) (Caird, 1991 a&b). A more complex picture of the differences between occupational groups emerged when specific enterprising characteristics were examined. Entrepreneurs scored significantly higher than lecturers and trainers on the following enterprising characteristics: need for achievement and internal locus of control, but not on the characteristics: need for autonomy, creative tendency and calculated risk taking (p0.001). Entrepreneurs scored significantly higher than teachers, nurses, and civil servants on the following enterprising characteristics: need for achievement, need for autonomy, internal locus of control, calculated risk taking but not creative tendency (p0.001). Entrepreneurs scored significantly higher than clerical workers on all enterprising characteristics (p0.001).
As expected entrepreneurs do not have the monopoly on enterprising characteristics, but are generally more enterprising than the other occupational groups in the study.
The original GET test was developed as a paper-based research tool with little interpretation for application in classroom face-to-face assessment. The GET test was later adapted for use by Training Enterprise Companies (TEC) in the form of a knowledge-based system to contribute to training business owner-managers. Over the past 30 years there has been considerable worldwide interest in the General measure of Enterprising Tendency (GET test) which has applications in education, research, development and training in higher education, further education and training and school contexts. Due to this interest and the volume of requests for the test, I created this website which is freely available to people who wish to test their enterprising tendency, or for educational and research purposes. This is based on the original GET test with slight revisions to modernise some questions together with considerable development of the educational resources to provide detailed interpretation and feedback.
The basic premise of the test is that the enterprising person shares entrepreneurial characteristics. The psychological literature has different views on entrepreneurial characteristics and which ones are important. The approach we took involved the identification of the key characteristics of entrepreneurial people associated with entrepreneurial behaviour, and entrepreneurship itself. The key entrepreneurial characteristics identified were: strong motivation, characterised by a high need for achievement and for autonomy; creative tendency; calculated risk-taking; and an internal locus of control (belief you have control over own destiny and make your own ‘luck’). People set up an enterprise because they are highly motivated (to achieve something themselves) by a good idea and will manage risks, information and uncertainties because they believe they can set up the enterprise successfully.
The test provides an indicative not definitive measure of enterprising potential, however, and would benefit from further development and testing. It should primarily be used as an educational aid for stimulating personal reflection and discussion about enterprise. Longitudinal research could establish whether it has predictive validity.
The GET2 test is now being used by Oxford Innovation Ltd. in the ‘IgniteCornwall’ programme to support business start-ups and economic regeneration in the South West of England.
The following journal articles, reports and book chapters are the main references to the GET2 test, providing details of how it was developed and tested. If you have a paper published referencing GET2, do let us know.
Caird, S. (1989a) Enterprise Competencies. Scottish Enterprise Foundation, Occasional Paper Series No. 65189.
Caird, S. (1989b) An Initial Approach To Defining, Teaching And Assessing Enterprise Competencies. Scottish Enterprise Foundation, Working Paper Series No. 03/89.
Caird, S. (1992) Testing Enterprising Tendency In Occupational Groups. DUBS Occasional Paper, 9205, ISBN NO 1 85773 017 8 (Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, from the original publication in the British Journal Of Management, Volume 2, pp. 177-186.)
Caird, S. (2006) General measure of Enterprising Tendency Version 2 (GET2), Appendix in T. Mazzarol, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Australia: Tilde University Press. May.
Caird, Sally (1990a) What does it mean to be enterprising? British Journal of Management, 1(3), pp. 137–145. Available online
Caird, Sally (1990b) Enterprise competencies: an agenda for research. Journal of European Industrial Training, 14(7), pp. 3–8. Available online
Caird, S. (1991a) Self Assessments On Enterprise Training Courses, British Journal Of Education And Work,4(3), pp. 63-80.
Caird, Sally (1991b) Testing enterprising tendency in occupational groups. British Journal of Management, 2(4), pp. 177–186. Available online
Caird, Sally (1991c) The enterprising tendency of occupational groups. International Small Business Journal, 9(4), pp. 75–81. Available online
Caird, S. (1992) Problems with The Identification Of Enterprise Competency with the Implications For Assessment And Development, Management Education And Development, 23(1). Available online
Caird, Sally (1993) What do psychological tests suggest about entrepreneurs? Journal of Managerial Psychology, 8(6), pp. 11–20. Available online
Caird, Sally (1994a) How important is the innovator for the commercial success of innovative products in SMEs? Technovation, 14(2), pp. 71–83. Available online
Caird, Sally (1994b) How do award winners come up with innovative ideas? Creativity and Innovation Management, 3(1), pp. 3–10. Available online
Business Cornwall, ‘Ignite entrants GET ready’ article. Aug 1, 2013 (see here)
We would welcome constructive comment or feedback via our online user-satisfaction survey as to how you have used and found the GET2 test.
Dr S.Caird,
The School of Engineering and Innovation,
Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths,
The Open University,
Walton Hall,
Milton Keynes,
MK7 6AA, UK
GET2 test Web development: Dr S.Hallett
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