Envisioning the future : entrepreneurship through introversion : an exploratory paper

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Envisioning the Future

Entrepreneurship through Introversion

an exploratory paper Bachelor thesis April – July 2014 Researcher: Jelle P. Koning Supervisor: dr. C. Hsieh

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Abstract

The purpose of this research is to gain an insight in how introversion can benefit entrepreneurship. Although introversion has not been a popular trait during the 20th century, it has been in a positive light since a couple of years. Through an extensive literature review, I will look at the variables introversion, imagery/future episodic thinking, counterfactual thinking and entrepreneurship. Following this literature review, I will look at evidence from previous research for linkages between these variables, so a foundation can be build for further research. From a psychological and neurobiological point of view, evidence has been found that imagery/episodic future thinking, counterfactual thinking and entrepreneurship are positively linked.

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Introduction

Entrepreneurship involves innovation. To be successful as an entrepreneur, one has to continuously keep searching for improvements in processes, products, services and the positioning of the products or services (Bessant & Tidd, 2011). But to be innovative means that one has to use his/her imagination. For example: Drucker (2007) links imagination to some of the most well known innovators such as Walt Disney and Ray Kroc (McDonald’s).

You can use your imagination in many ways and I will present you two of these ways: imagery/episodic future thinking and counterfactual thinking.

Imagery/episodic future thinking is the skill in which you can imagine a future episodic event that can actually happen. This skill is of utter importance with vision creation. As taught in every business 101 class, mission and vision are what strategy is all about. Why, what and how are the most important strategic questions to focus your vision in entrepreneurial/strategic goals. Counterfactual thinking is the skill in which you think about past events and wonder how they could have changed if you would have done things differently. The insight in how things could have been different is valuable knowledge for entrepreneurs, this way they can anticipate for future events. It is a skill much used when thinking in scenarios, because you need past experiences to make an educated guess in how you should react in future scenarios.

I assume a link between introversion and entrepreneurship through the aforementioned skills, because introverts turn their libido (psychic energy) inwards (Hildebrand, 1958). This means that they can focus their attention and thoughts inward, which means that they tend to be better at aforementioned skills in contrast to extraverts.

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To top it all of, I also assume a relationship between these two skills, because they both spark the imagination. Therefore I assume they activate the same regions in the brain. A relationship between these two skills could mean that they enhance another, leading to a synergy.

A conceptual model will explain the linkages graphically.

In short, the assumption presented here is that introversion leads to a higher

propensity to engage in imagery/episodic future thinking and counterfactual thinking, which leads to more successful entrepreneurship.

A lot of research has been done on entrepreneurship with regard to extraversion, and it sure is important to note that extraversion is important for entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs need to be able to socialize a lot because networks are important to them, they need to be able to see things from a customer’s point of view and to make sales they need to be sensitive to customers’ feelings. All these skills are related to socialization and therefore to extraversion. Extraversion has been studied a lot with regard to entrepreneurship, but introversion still remains quite a mystery with regard to entrepreneurship. This thesis will therefore review the literature to provide a framework in which introversion can be linked with

entrepreneurship. Next to that, I assume that imagery/episodic future thinking and counterfactual thinking are important tools for entrepreneurs to have in their entrepreneurial toolbox.

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Entrepreneurship as a vision of the future

“Opportunity evaluation [entrepreneurship] is ultimately about envisioning the future” (Haynie, Shepherd & McMullen, 2009, p. 338). To establish what

entrepreneurship really is, it is essential to start by looking at the characteristics of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs.

Schumpeter is one of the big researchers of the 20th century who studied entrepreneurship. According to Dees, Schumpeter spoke about entrepreneurs in the following fashion: “the function of entrepreneurs is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production” (as cited in Dees, 1998, p.2). Although this is rather abstract, Schumpeter also put it in other words: “entrepreneurs exploit an invention or, more generally, an untried technological possibility for producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, by opening up a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by reorganizing an industry and so on” (as cited in Dees, 1998, p.2).

According to Dees, Drucker, another famous researcher on the topic, placed nuance on chasing the opportunity, while mentioning that entrepreneurs don’t necessarily need to be new business starters. Someone who opens a new store that is just like twelve others in the same city isn’t entrepreneurial, according to Drucker (as cited in Dees, 1998).

Haynie et al. (2009) state that “the goal of entrepreneurial discovery is to identify a valuable economic opportunity” (p. 338). They emphasize valuable because an idea has to be rare and valuable to generate above average profits (Haynie et al., 2009). Following this notion, they suggest “three important insights into the

opportunity evaluation decision-making process”. First of all, “evaluations of opportunity attractiveness – that is, the potential of the opportunity to generate

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competitive advantage and entrepreneurial returns to the firm”. Second they suggest “opportunity evaluation is future-focused, such that the entrepreneur evaluates the opportunity in terms of the firm’s gains if the opportunity were exploited”. Third, “Opportunity evaluation represents a first-person – rather than a third-person – assessment” (i.e. attractive to me instead of attractive to someone) (Haynie et al., 2009, p. 338). Following this notion and these insights, they state that “opportunity evaluation [entrepreneurship] is ultimately about envisioning the future” (Haynie et al., 2009, p. 338).

All of this comes together in innovation. Nothing is as closely linked to entrepreneurship as innovation. Bessant and Tidd (2011) define innovation as “the process of translating ideas into useful – and used – new products, processes or services” (p. 40). Drucker (2007) states the following about innovation:

Innovation is the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which, they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service. It is capable of being presented as a discipline, capable of being learned, capable of being practised (p. 17).

Bessant and Tidd (2011) propose an innovational process, which is applicable to all kinds of innovations, whether it is product innovation, process innovation, position innovation, paradigm innovation or radical innovation. It begins with

entrepreneurial goals and context, in which ideas flows to opportunity recognition (1), resource finding (2), venture development (3) and eventually end in value creation (4).

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Imagery/episodic future thinking as a skill useful for entrepreneurship

“Seeing with the mind’s eye” (Farah, 1989, p. 395), is a recurring definition of imagery. Imagery is a concept that has been on debate for a long time (Kosslyn, 1994). Kosslyn (1994) defines imagery at its most basic form as follows: “Imagery is a basic form of cognition, and plays a central role in many human activities - ranging from navigation to memory to creative problem solving” (p. 1).

Szpunar (2010) wrote an article about imagery and episodic future thinking, and although he sees a difference in both concepts, the dividing line between them is not clear. He suggests that both imagery and episodic future thinking come from the works of early imagination philosophers like Kant, Descartes, Berkeley, Locke and Hume. He defines imagination as a capability of the human to represent things mentally without the input of senses (Szpunar, 2010). The thing that distinguishes imagery and episodic future thinking is, according to Szpunar (2010), the possibility of the imagination actually happening. In these terms, the mental representation termed imagery would be considered not likely to happen, while the mental

representation termed episodic future thinking has a possibility to actually happen. Now, the implications for this research are not drastic. Assuming entrepreneurs have a vision, it does not matter whether it is likely to happen or not. These entrepreneurs will find a way in making their vision happen, or they will fail, but at least they will try. Because of this attempt in trying to make their vision happen, these mental representations can be coined with the term episodic future thought, because they believe it can happen. Confirmation for Szpunar’s assumption can be found in the research conducted by de Vito, Gamboz & Brandimonte (2012), who did an extensive empirical research to find out whether imagery and episodic future thinking are the same concept.

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Felin and Zenger (2009) conducted a research in which they proposed that imagery is in fact a way of filling the gap, or as they call it “the entrepreneurial black box”, between experiences, observations and perceptions on one side, and the wide array of possible actions as a source for beliefs and expectations. They find evidence for the existence of this gap by reaching back to past research in which it was

unexplainable why children have capability and expectations about their environment, which cannot be accounted for by their experience, observation and perceptions up till that point (Felin & Zenger, 2009). Therefore they propose entrepreneurial theorizing as a means to fill that gap. Felin and Zenger (2009) state that theorizing consists of three phases: how experiental and observational experiences can trigger individuals, imagination of possibilities and the reasoning and justification process. Graphically, entrepreneurial theorizing looks like this:

“Stylized representation of entrepreneurial theorizing and belief formation” (Felin & Zenger, 2009)

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For the current research, the second phase is of importance, because the Felin and Zenger (2009) refer to imagination as seeing with the mind’s eye, which

corresponds with imagery/episodic future thinking. With this construct, Felin and Zenger (2009) link imagery/episodic future thinking to entrepreneurial activity, through entrepreneurial theorizing.

Szpunar (2010) found evidence that episodic future thinking can positively affect a human being in three ways: coping, goal achievement and implementation intentions. Although all three are beneficiary to a human being, the last two are specifically interesting when you consider entrepreneurs. First, goal achievement, in his research, Szpunar (2010) divided test subjects into three groups, subjects

imagining outcome simulations (imaginations about the desired outcome), subjects imagining process simulations (imaginations about activities needed to be done to

achieve the desired outcome) and a third control group. He found that subjects who

imagined the process were the most likely to achieve desired outcomes. Second, implementation intention, Szpunar (2010) describes implementation as when, where and how to achieve a goal. This seems to have a common ground with the process simulation of goal achievement. Szpunar (2010) recognizes this in his conclusion, and therefore these concepts will be treated as the same.

Following Szpunar’s research (2010), episodic future thinking has, in both goal achievement and implementation intention, a positive influence on outcomes. Translated to entrepreneurial activity, it could be that, when entrepreneurs are

considering a new idea, if they have the right knowledge and consider future episodic thoughts, they can be more certain that their idea can come to fruition. In this sense, the episodic future thought and the goal achievement simulations can be used as entrepreneurial tools.

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Counterfactual thinking as a skill useful for entrepreneurship

Counterfactual thinking is “The ability to imagine alternative, or

counterfactual, versions of actual events” and “appears to be a pervasive, perhaps

even an essential, feature of human consciousness” (Roese, 1994, p. 805). According to Roese (1994), counterfactual thinking is the process of thinking in hindsight about what might have been and it may serve two functions. One is affective, feeling better about past events, and another is preparative, working on future improvement. Next to that, counterfactual thoughts can have differing directions: upward or downward.

In 2008, Epstude & Roese wrote a paper in which they claim that

counterfactual thinking is important in the evaluation and reflection process. The entrepreneurial gains from both of Roese’s papers (Roese, 1994; Epstude & Roese, 2008) are not hard to find. First of all, preparative counterfactual thinking can help the entrepreneur anticipate on future events and situations. Secondly, the evaluation and reflection process is important for the entrepreneur, because this process is an input in the preparative counterfactual thought.

Medvec, Madey & Gilovich (1995) researched counterfactual thinking with finishing first, second and third in the Olympic Games, thus providing us with a good example of how upward and downward counterfactual thinking works. They recorded and analysed the reactions of the Olympic winners immediately after finishing and in interviews conducted later. They found proof that silver medallists were under the influence of upward counterfactual thinking, i.e. “I almost was first”, while bronze medallists were under the influence of downward counterfactual thinking, i.e. “At least I’m not fourth” (Medvec et al., 1995). This evidence suggests that bronze medallists are more content with their achievement than silver medallists, while

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rationally, both medallists should engage in upward preparative counterfactual thinking, i.e. “How can I make sure I win next time” (Medvec et al., 1995).

Baron (1998) also researched counterfactual thinking with regard to

entrepreneurship, however he only talks about counterfactual thinking in the negative way, researching upward counterfactual thinking (What if…?), while only focussing on regret, a possible product of the upward counterfactual thought.

In contrast to Baron (1998), Felin and Zenger assume in their 2009 research, that counterfactual thinking is a source for beliefs and expectations in

entrepreneurship. According to Felin and Zenger, beliefs and expectations are “the upstream antecedents of organizational decision-making (Cyert & March, 1963), resource acquisition (Barney, 1986) action, and behaviour and, thus, competitive advantage” (p. 128). Felin and Zenger (2009) wrote the following about

counterfactual thinking with regard to entrepreneurship:

Organizations may also engage in retrospective counterfactual reasoning (what if we had done x, for example in the case of errors), which promotes learning and changes in belief (Morris & Moore, 2000). More generally, the ‘experiental lessons of history’ and associated past observations (Levitt & March, 1988, p. 320), in effect, provide organizations with data and facts which result in beliefs about what actions an organization might take in the future (2009).

As Haynie et al. (2009) noted, “opportunity evaluation [entrepreneurship] is ultimately about envisioning the future”. In a paper written by Arora, Haynie and Laurence (2013), the authors grab back to that notion and add that several scholars

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have suggested that future thinking is often rooted in counterfactual thinking, in which the counterfactual thought is the fundament. By this, they do not only connect counterfactual thinking to entrepreneurship, they also connect it to imagery. They define future thinking as following: “conceptualizations of future events, outcomes, and consequences”, which comes close to our definition of imagery (Arora et al., 2013, p. 359).

In the same paper, Arora et al. (2013) did research into how counterfactual thinking can affect entrepreneurship. For entrepreneurship, they used the variable entrepreneurial self-efficacy, which is the belief in oneself and this person’s abilities to see what kind of action one has to take, and to properly execute these actions, needed to manage prospective situations. Their findings suggest, in contrast to their expectations, that with regard to positive affect, negative affect and self-esteem, there is a positive link between counterfactual thinking and entrepreneurial self-efficacy (Arora et al., 2013).

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Introversion as a trait that can support entrepreneurship

Henjum (1982) warns us about the many different definitions of introversion. He defines introversion as follows: introverts move away from objects they encounter and engage in thinking about the feelings and thoughts produced by this encounter. According to Hildebrand (1958), who bases his assumptions on Jung, one of the founders of the introversion-extraversion notion, introverts tend to express a turn inward of the libido (psychic energy), making them turn away from the object and to the subject (as cited in Hildebrand, 1958). This means that they see the subject as the first priority, while the object receives second priority. He states that extraversion is a state in which the libido turns outward to the object, as if a dependency upon the object. In a state of extraversion, the person in question acts toward the object. These are states in which a person can find himself in, an introverted type or extraverted type is a person who adopts the state in a habitual sense (Hildebrand, 1958).

Hildebrand (1958) further states some assumptions made by Jung. First, although it may be tempting to classify a person at first glance, it is never that simple. A correct classification can only be determined by careful observation, and even then it does not absolutely apply to a person. Second, Jung states that introversion and extraversion lie on a continuum, with extremes on both sides (as cited in Hildebrand, 1958). Hills and Argyle (2001) also go back to Jung to define introversion and extraversion. They state that introverts and extraverts have different orientations on the primary level.

Extraverts seek company and look forward to this company, while introverts are keen for autonomy and independence towards other people.

All this proves that introversion-extraversion is not a simple and easy definable concept. In this research, the assumption made by Hills and Argyle (2001) will be used, because it is a simple definition, which defines the basic personality

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traits and the behaviour of the introvert. Also, this assumption has a lot of things in common, due to its simplicity, with the definitions of other authors. This research also adopts part of the assumption made by Hildebrand. What Hildebrand (1958)

describes, and what Jung also makes clear, is that introversion and extraversion are not labels per se, but are more like personality states. Only if a person adopts the state in a habitual sense can the person be labelled as an introvert or extravert, but with caution (as cited in Hildebrand, 1958).

So how can introversion be linked to entrepreneurship? As mentioned before, the link will be made via the skills imagery/episodic future thinking and

counterfactual thinking. The aforementioned skills are already discussed in previous paragraphs and the fundament for linkages with entrepreneurship have been laid down. All that rests are the links between introversion and the two skills. Introverts turn their psychic energy inward and are therefore better able to focus on skills, which require inward thinking. This research proposes that skills like imagery/episodic future thinking and counterfactual thinking, when actively engaged in, are skills that require concentration and inward thoughts.

To be able to think about the past during the evaluation and reflection process and to convert these experiences into preparative counterfactual thinking (and in effect think out series of scenarios for the future), is when engaged in in an orderly and conditioned way, indeed a concentration intensive skill. Unfortunately, no research is found linking introversion directly to counterfactual thinking. Because there is no supporting evidence, the claim made in this research has no academic ground, but is a direction for future research.

Just like counterfactual thinking, this research also proposes imagery/episodic future thinking to be a psychic energy intensive skill when engaged in deliberately.

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First of all, the scenario building process following the preparative counterfactual thinking skill is a process in which a person uses its imagery/episodic future thinking skill, because the person thinks about possible future events. Next to that, Szpunar’s (2010) goal achievement process is psychic energy intensive, because a person has to deliberately and consistently think about the process needed to achieve his/her goal. Third of all, ‘seeing with the mind’s eye’, without the input of the senses, is a process, which obviously demands inward thoughts, because no external input is given in this process. Evidence supports the claim that introverts are better at the imagery/episodic future thinking skill. Huckabee already assumed in 1974 that

introversion-extraversion is linked with the level of imagery. It seems, backed up by Huckabee’s empirical findings, that introverts indeed have higher imagery scores. Next to

Huckabee (1974), Strelow & Davidson (2002) conducted research into the differences in the vividness of mental imagery between introverts and extraverts. They found that introverts engage in more vivid mental imagery than extraverts.

By combining the theory and supporting evidence, some claims can be made. First, introversion is a state a person finds himself in. In this state, the libido of this person is turned inward, which means that the psychic energy of this person focuses internally. A side effect of this is that socialization in an introvert state can be experienced as exhaustive, making people in an introvert state favour alone-time. Second, counterfactual thinking is argued to be psychic energy intensive, and therefore a skill that is better performed by introverts. Third, for the same reason as for counterfactual thinking, imagery/episodic future thinking is argued to be psychic energy intensive and therefore a skill that is better performed by introverts. Evidence supporting that introverts are better at imagery/episodic future thinking confirms this assumption.

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Other evidence supporting the conceptual model

To find out if there is a connection between introversion, counterfactual thinking and imagery, it is helpful to look at the brain, in particular in which areas of the brain are activated during these processes.

Kosslyn et al. (1999) found, among other areas, that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortices, which are part of the prefrontal cortex, on both the right and left side are activated during imagery.

In their research, Van Hoeck et al. (2013) used past events to reconstruct the basis for the counterfactuals. Next to that, they also used possible future positive events that were likely to happen, to control for imaginational and possible positive valence. This definition of ‘episodic future thinking’ has a lot of congruency with the definition used in this research for imagery.

Van Hoeck et al. (2013) made the following conclusions about the connectivity between episodic past, episodic future and counterfactual thinking:

Episodic past, future and counterfactual thinking activate common regions typically related to memory processes (hippocampus, posterior midline structures, parietal lobule and temporal lobe), to mentalizing about intentions and goals of oneself or others (temporoparietal junction, and medial prefrontal cortex), and to adaptive control (prefrontal cortex) (p. 562).

On imagery and counterfactual thinking, Van Hoeck et al. (2013) and Kosslyn et al. (1999) found evidence that by activating these skills, the prefrontal cortex, amongst others, is activated. These findings lead to the belief that, somewhere in the

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prefrontal cortex, the skills imagery/episodic future thinking and counterfactual thinking, are neurobiologically connected.

Eysenck assumed that introverts and extraverts could be distinguished by the level of cortical arousal (as cited in Tran et al. 2001). Tran et al. found evidence for Eysenck’s theory; the introversion-extraversion continuum influences the alpha activity in the 8-13 Hz frequency, which in turn influences cortical arousal in the posterior areas (Tran et al., 2001). In turn, Robbins & Arnsten (2009) concluded that our cognitive abilities are altered by arousal in the prefrontal cortex. This makes us believe that the introversion-extraversion continuum has influence over cognitive abilities in the prefrontal cortex, which creates a neurobiological link between introversion-extraversion, imagery/episodic future thinking and counterfactual thinking. These neurobiological assumptions have to be confirmed by specialized researchers to be valid, but they do act as a good second line of evidence to support the claims in this research.

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Conclusion

The aim and purpose of this research is to establish whether there exists a positive link between introversion and entrepreneurship. For this, introversion and entrepreneurship have been defined. To link introversion to entrepreneurship, two other variables were defined: imagery/episodic future thinking and counterfactual thinking. For imagery, evidence has been found that introverts tend to engage in more vivid states of imagery, and that they score higher on imagery scoreboards. For counterfactual thinking, no direct link was found between introversion and

counterfactual thinking, because no sources were found to confirm or reject this link. Research by Arora et al. (2013) indicated a relationship between

imagery/episodic future thinking and counterfactual thinking. This is an important assumption, because if it can be proven that these skills are linked, a synergy between these two can exist, what means that they enhance each other. Neurobiological

research has shown that with both skills, the same region of the brain was activated. This is an important finding, as it reinforces the assumption made by Arora et al. (2013).

Next to that, as shown by Tran et al. (2001), introverts and extraverts differ in their alpha activity in the brain, influencing the level of cortical arousal. This is an important finding, because Eysenck assumed that introverts and extraverts could be distinguished by their level of cortical arousal prior to the research done by Tran et al. (as cited in Tran et al., 2001). It is important to know where introverts differ from extraverts in the brain, because then can neurobiological researchers further research how introverts and extraverts influence the skills imagery/episodic future thinking and counterfactual thinking from a neurobiological point of view.

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Finally, both skills have been theorized by multiple researchers to have a positive link with entrepreneurship.

Following, the conceptual model is shown in which the arrows are coloured, showing what kind of linkages have been found throughout this research.

The conceptual model shows an almost complete psychological link between all variables as expected. The only link missing is the one that links introversion with counterfactual thinking.

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Discussion

Future research

The main goal of this research is to open up the topic of how introversion can influence entrepreneurship in a positive way. Introversion is not a trait that has been popular in the last century, but in recent years it has gained some popularity. With that popularity, interest in positive effects of introversion also rose. Even though the rising in popularity, lack of previous research on introversion was a major drawback. Next to that, the research found on some of the variables was not extensive enough. Therefore, this research should be mainly considered as an exploratory research. As already stated throughout the research, the effect of introversion on counterfactual thinking is interesting for future research, because none exists as of today. Also, the research that was found on the linkages was not exhaustive, therefore more research on the individual relationships should be conducted. The path taken with

neurobiological research is an interesting one, but specialized researchers in the field do need to take a look at the found relationships and have to confirm them to be sure of them. Neurobiological, it is interesting to try to find a link between introversion and the two aforementioned skills. Next to that, it would be interesting to conduct an empirical research in which current entrepreneurs are to be classified (for example via the MBTI test) as introverts/extraverts and where interviews are conducted in how they go through the process of envisioning new ideas and how they reflect on past experiences. Finally, it is interesting to find out on what entrepreneurial traits these skills have influence. Some ideas on this are idea generation, creativity and the learning curve of entrepreneurs.

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Managerial implications

Managerial, this research opens up some options. First of all, I would like to mention the skills imagery/episodic future thinking and counterfactual thinking as skills that can be incorporated in the entrepreneurial toolbox. If entrepreneurs know how to deliberately activate these skills, they open up a world of possibilities. With counterfactual thinking, entrepreneurs can reflect on the past, evaluate their decisions and prepare for the future through scenarios. These scenarios are actually a form of imagery/episodic future thinking, because these scenarios are possible future events. Further on, entrepreneurs can have insights by thinking about personal experiences and think about how things can be done better through innovation. In this situation, counterfactual thinking and imagery/episodic future thinking are again connected. The counterfactual thought is the input in the process and the imagined solution is the outcome. As mentioned before, innovation goes beyond a new product. It could be for example an improvement in a manufacturing process, a new positioning for the firm, or a new culture in the firm (Bessant & Tidd, 2011). It is essential to recognize that entrepreneurship can happen outside of a firm (e.g. via a start-up), but also inside a firm (corporate entrepreneurship; diversification of the firm, new projects) (Sharma & Chrisman, 2007).

Because entrepreneurship is also possible inside an existing firm, it is useful for managers to know how they can use the findings in their firms. Every person can be in a state of introversion or extraversion, although some people tend to be

introverted more often and others tend be extraverted more often. Managers need to know how and when to encourage employees to be in the right state. Introversion for example comes in useful when corporations need to be innovative, by turning the psychic energy inward, the employees can focus their attention better through the

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skills mentioned in this paper, think of innovative ways to improve. It is, however, less useful when brainstorming with a group of people for new ideas (Huitt, 1992). In the case of brainstorming, extraversion is a more preferred trait (Huitt, 1992).

Extraversion is an important trait in networking and other activities that need socialization, so in these cases, managers need to encourage employees to be in an extravert state. The evidence for the assumption that extraverts are better at social networking is found by Pollet, Roberts, and Dunbar (2011), who found that extraverts tend to have larger networks at all network layers (support, sympathy and outer layer). To teach employees how to feel more comfortable in both states, these employees need to experience the other state. This means that people who tend to be introverted, need to engage in extraverted group activities, for example role playing games (not like the videogames), in which they are all dependent of each other. This way, they learn how to interact better, but they also experience how it is to be dependent of others. In contrast, people who tend to be more extraverted need to feel more comfortable by being introverted. An example is by giving them assignments that they need to complete without help of others, this way they need to trust on their own capabilities and they have to turn their psychic energy inward to come up with

solutions. When employees feel more comfortable in both states of mind, they are more valuable to the company, and therefore can expect higher compensation. It is not to say that these persons have to change their personality, they can still be who they are, they just need to feel comfortable with activities that require introversion and activities that require extraversion. In this way, switching between an introvert state to an extravert state and vice versa is a skill. These suggestions are based on Jungian theory, that introversion and extraversion are states in which a person can find himself in, and that introversion and extraversion lie on a continuum (as cited in Hildebrand,

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1958). This leads me to assume that the introversion-extraversion continuum is a dynamic one, on which a person can move itself on. This assumption is reinforced by Jung’s assumption that introversion or extraversion is only a label that can be put on a person if this person adopts it in a habitual sense, and even then it is not an absolute label (as cited in Hildebrand, 1958).

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Envisioning the future : entrepreneurship through introversion : an exploratory paper