1042-2587

C 2016 SAGE Publications Inc.

V

Underdog
Entrepreneurs:
A Model of
Challenge-Based
Entrepreneurship
Danny Miller
Isabelle Le Breton-Miller

Although there has been abundant research on the positive personality and environmental
qualities that stimulate entrepreneurship, we argue that negative personal circumstances
of an economic, sociocultural, cognitive, and physical/ emotional nature may have an
equally powerful role to play in getting people to become effective entrepreneurs. These
challenges create conditions and experiences that motivate particular adaptive require-
ments which in turn foster outcomes such as work discipline, risk tolerance, social and
network skills, and creativity.

A great deal has been written about the backgrounds and personal qualities that
help to shape entrepreneurs. Much of this work emphasizes personality characteristics,
mostly positive—a few negative—that induce people to become entrepreneurs and to suc-
ceed at the job (Korunka, Frank, Lueger, & Mugler, 2003; Miller, 1983). Abundant work
also investigates the favorable economic and sociocultural environments that foster entre-
preneurship (Acs & Armington, 2006; Scott, 2006; Stephan & Uhlaner, 2010). Less
explored, however, are the trying, sometimes traumatic experiences of individuals that
lead them to become entrepreneurs—often devoted, persistent, and creative ones.
Recent empirical literature suggests, surprisingly, that some critical drivers of entre-
preneurship come in the form of serious life challenges rather than personal advantages
and strengths, or favorable contexts. Survey evidence finds entrepreneurs—those who
start and run their own businesses—to be over-represented among people who cannot find
jobs, e.g., among necessity entrepreneurs (Block & Wagner, 2015), among immigrant
populations (Hart & Acs, 2011), among those with dyslexia and attention deficit-
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) (Dimic & Orlov, 2014; Logan, 2009), among the physi-
cally handicapped (Pagan, 2009),1 in groups of veterans having undergone the crises of

Please send correspondence to: Danny Miller at danny.miller@hec.ca

1. For example, Pagan (2009) found that for 13 European countries, people with disabilities were more like-
ly to be self-employed, to have greater flexibility to adjust to working life, and to be more satisfied at work
than other workers (see also Jones & Latreille, 2011).

January, 2017 7
DOI: 10.1111/etap.12253
war (Hope & Mackin, 2011), and even among those who are emotionally “disinhibited”
(Lerner, 2016). The nature of the predominant challenges faced by these different groups
are, respectively, economic and educational poverty for necessity entrepreneurs, socio-
cultural and linguistic challenges for immigrant entrepreneurs, cognitive challenges for
those with dyslexia and ADHD, and physical and emotional challenges in the last groups.
To compound the difficulties of these populations, there is often a bias against them that
makes traditional career paths, and even entrepreneurship, a most challenging endeavor.
In combination, the above findings of over-representation suggest that entrepreneur-
ship is often born of enduring life hardships. We shall develop a model of just how this
may happen and provide some examples along the way. The model suggests that chal-
lenges can force particular kinds of adaptation that may both compel and enable entrepre-
neurial initiatives. These initiatives are often, but not always, of a modest variety, but
they represent important cumulative contributions to national economies (e.g., Bergmann
& Sternberg, 2007; Jones & Latreille, 2011; Pagan, 2009), and more critically, serve as
facilitators of a better life for those truly in need of one (e.g., Hartmann, 2002; Kendall,
Buys, Charker, & MacMillan, 2006; Shaheen & Myhill, 2009).
Just as ecological selection forces drive certain structural forms in organizational
populations (Hannan & Freeman, 1977), and adaptation to environmental challenges and
opportunities represents the dominant force of contingency theory (Burns & Stalker,
1961; Thompson, 1967), so do challenges in one’s personal environment evoke experien-
ces that shape perceptions, attitudes, and sets of skills. We shall argue that like blind peo-
ple who compensate with their other senses, immigrants may, for example, compensate
for cultural unfamiliarity with hard work and ethnic networking, dyslexics may develop
unusual opportunity recognition skills, and those with ADHD may use their surplus energy
for multi-tasking and proactive initiatives. In many cases, these kinds of responses and adap-
tations favor entrepreneurial endeavors. So does an environment that rules out or makes less
palatable more conventional forms of employment. Indeed, today’s labor market can be
especially demanding with the growth of forces such as outsourcing (Contractor, Kumar,
Kundu, & Pedersen, et al., 2010), globalization (Sassen, 1999), and a declining manufactur-
ing base (Dickens & Lang, 1988; Pilat, Cimper, Olsen, & Webb, 2006).
The challenges we have listed above represent conditions entirely or very largely
beyond the control of an individual—thus they constitute circumstances that almost inevi-
tably will shape a person. These challenges will couple with various factors of personality
(McClelland, 1965; Miller, 1983) and context (Arora, Fosfuri, & Gambardella, 2004) that
have been the more common foci of scholars to influence behavioral outcomes relating to
entrepreneurship. However, the challenges are important drivers in their own right, and
primary reasons for why we find such over-representation of entrepreneurs among those
within the challenged groups to which we have referred.
Our model is structured as follows: first we propose two conditions and two experiences
that accompany our categories of challenges; then we suggest how these pose three very
common adaptive requirements; and finally, we suggest how the latter requirements may
produce several common behaviors and abilities that encourage entrepreneurial effort and
entrepreneurial success. We also postulate specific personal and environmental factors that
may condition these positive outcomes. Figure 1 presents an overview of our model.

Conditions and Experiences That Accompany Challenge

Several conditions and experiences often accompany economic, sociocultural, cogni-

tive, and physical challenge. The conditions are incapacity and a lack of conventional job

8 ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY and PRACTICE

Figure 1

A Model of Challenge-Based Entrepreneurship

alternatives, and the experiences are a sense of being different in a disadvantaged way
and a need to confront loss and uncertainty.
The condition of incapacity is difficult or impossible to overcome completely.
Physical handicaps, such as paraplegia, gait disorders, tics, and sense disorders pre-
sent fixed incapacities that lie in the way of normal employment and normal living
conditions. Those with cognitive challenges such as dyslexia or ADHD have neuro-
logical anomalies that are very likely to stay with them for the rest of their lives
(Snowling, 2000). These conditions render schoolwork and sometimes school conduct
less than optimal, and the dropout rate can be high among affected individuals (Bark-
ley, 1997). Moreover, certain skills in reading, writing, and focusing on particular
tasks are more difficult for them, and this makes much conventional work unappeal-
ing, and often out of reach.
The sociocultural and economic hardships confronted by many immigrants who have
inferior linguistic skills, cultural adaptation, and educational backgrounds also constitute
major hurdles to socioeconomic integration with the native population (Min & Bozorg-
mehr, 2000; Rath & Kloosterman, 2000). Again, these are real conditions of hardship
that, although perhaps surmountable over longer periods of time, are very challenging
when an immigrant arrives and must seek out ways to make a living.
A second condition is an absence of common career alternatives. This applies to all
of the above challenge categories. Immigrants may lack the language skills and education
to find acceptable employment; people with cognitive disabilities may lack the mental
capacity needed for many jobs; and those with physical handicaps may be barred from
many positions due to their inability to adapt to conditions in the workplace or the physi-
cal demands of the job. In adulthood, given the need to seek economic support or gainful
employment, a challenged population may have to resort to unusual types of work, with
self-employment in one’s own business establishment becoming an important option.

January, 2017 9
This is true of people with disabilities (Pagan, 2009), immigrants (Light, Bhachu, & Kara-
georgis, 1993), those hobbled by lack of skill or economic opportunities (Block & Wag-
ner, 2015) as well as those with ADHD (Dimic & Orlov, 2014) and dyslexia (Logan,
2009).
Something that is “part and parcel” of the challenges we have referred to is the subjec-
tive experience of “being different” and being marginalized by society—a state that can
erode both one’s sense of identity and social integration (Bourdieu, 1977). There can be a
feeling of having to struggle to access less than what many achieve with minimal or far
less effort. This feature is a fairly obvious one. Those with cognitive problems confront
failure and ridicule in the classroom (Snowling, 2000); immigrants may find themselves
ostracized from or out of place in many kinds of social gatherings (Rath & Kloosterman,
2000); those with physical disabilities may be objects of curiosity or unwelcome pity as
they grapple with everyday life (Jones & Latreille, 2011). These hardships draw upon an
unusual amount of emotional, mental, and physical effort just in order to cope. They
make struggle, often from the earliest years, seem a normal part of everyday life.
A final experience is that of confronting uncertainty and loss. Whether the chal-
lenge comes about as a result of an injury, trauma, or move to a different country, the con-
junction of having incapacities most people do not share, and the reality of living in a
world populated with normal or better endowed individuals, can evoke a sense of loss—
of knowing what it is like to be at a disadvantage and to live under conditions of hardship
(Joseph & Linley, 2005). Moreover, the experience of being handicapped and having to
“compete” with others who do not share that handicap creates conditions of uncertainty:
how will the person be able to adapt, to live a more normal life, to get a job or marriage
partner, to be accepted socially, to earn a living (Pagan, 2009)? The people who grow up,
do battle with, and manage to cope under these conditions of loss and uncertainty may be
rendered unusually well prepared to put into proper perspective and to endure many of
the challenges of life that would be daunting to others (Haynie & Shepherd, 2011; Joseph
& Linley).

Adaptive Requirements Arising From the Conditions

The conditions and experiences we discussed above represent very typical features of
the challenges facing our underdog entrepreneurs. They also give rise to certain require-
ments that frequently occasion particular responses. These requirements are: to strive to
work harder than average, to ask for help from others, and to arrange to do some things
quite differently from the way most other people do them.
Incapacities and limitations can to some degree be counterbalanced by working
harder to develop special skills and strengths to compensate or overcome. For immi-
grants, being persistent and learning language skills can help them adjust to their new cul-
tures (Rath & Kloosterman, 2000), ceaseless practice and special effort can aid some of
those with physical disabilities (Jones & Latreille, 2011), and diligence in school projects
can help those with cognitive difficulties (Snowling, 2000). This recurrent need to strug-
gle, and most importantly, the small, encouraging successes that come from such struggle,
may breed confidence in one’s ability to meet challenges, and optimism about the merits
of effort.
Another product of challenging conditions is the need to ask for help and to have
ample experience doing that. For those with cognitive impairments, this may mean get-
ting assistance with homework, special classes, and tutoring (Snowling, 2000). Those
with dyslexia may be used to asking others to help them parse reading materials (Logan

10 ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY and PRACTICE

& Martin, 2012). For people with physical impairments, getting help with life’s tasks
such as household activities, travelling, and other activities is normal, and often the initia-
tive to do that has to come from the handicapped person him- or herself (Pagan, 2009).
Veterans with emotional problems may need to reach out for grief and psychological
counseling (Haynie & Shepherd, 2011; Shaheen & Myhill, 2009). And immigrants may
be required to appeal to countrymen who have arrived before them to the new land to get
economic or vocational aid and social support.
Finally, there is the need to do things differently from other people. The challenged
cannot accomplish key tasks in the same way as others. This may force them to figure out
how to do things by using different methods, or by altering the nature of the tasks. Cogni-
tively challenged people with dyslexia may have to absorb information in untraditional
ways, often by developing skills of skimming and pattern recognition (Snowling, 2000).
According to Logan (2009), being a slow reader forces one to extract vital information,
such that one gets quickly to the core of underlying message. Individuals with physical
disabilities may tailor their environments in ingenious ways to accommodate their handi-
caps (De Clercq & Honig, 2011; Kendall et al., 2006). Immigrants often incorporate cus-
toms, friends, and practices associated with their ethnic backgrounds to help them in their
business.

Responses, Outcomes, and Entrepreneurial Benefits

The final stage of our model links the adaptations of the preceding stage to some com-
mon outcomes that may be useful in launching and succeeding at entrepreneurial initia-
tives. As we shall argue later, the extent to which these outcomes will be realized will
depend to a degree on many of the personality and environmental moderators that have
been more prominently discussed in the entrepreneurship literature.

Work Discipline, Persistence, Risk Tolerance

Experience in struggling to overcome obstacles in everyday life may translate into
work discipline: that is, positive attitudes toward putting in the effort and long hours
required in entrepreneurial initiatives such as founding and nurturing a small business
during the early years. Struggle and failure are common experiences within many nascent
entrepreneurial ventures, and people who have confronted significant life challenges often
will be well-accustomed to coping with such challenges and are in some sense
“inoculated against failures” (Haynie & Shepherd, 2011; Joseph & Linley, 2005; Sitkin,
1992). These may even seem to them an inevitable part of life. By contrast, those who
have rarely had to battle to succeed or confront failure may be more hurt by the experi-
ence, and be discouraged from moving forward.
Moreover, experience with failure in life will often make it a less feared or traumatic
experience, and therefore facilitate recovery and persistence in the face of early setbacks.
According to Logan and Martin (2012), the coping skills dyslexics learn in their formative
years can become best practices for an entrepreneur. For example, a child who chronically
fails standardized tests must become enured to setbacks. Indeed, those who get through
early years of struggle successfully and survive intact also may develop a tolerance for
risk and more optimism and self-confidence in their ability to overcome challenges—
after all, they have already done so on numerous occasions (Kendall et al., 2006). Haynie
and Shepherd (2011, p. 516) quote an entrepreneur veteran of the Middle East conflict as

January, 2017 11
follows: “You could tell me that my office burned down . . . and I’m not going to get an
insurance reimbursement, and I’m in the hole $50,000, and I could still say on that worst
day that it’s never any worse than it was back there.”
Work discipline and persistence can come not only from past triumphs over challeng-
ing experiences, but also because failing is a terrible option. With the lack of alternative
career possibilities affecting the majority of our challenged groups, individuals work hard
to make their ventures successful. Given the liabilities of newness associated with launch-
ing entrepreneurial ventures, such persistence and willingness to struggle may be not only
beneficial, but essential.

Social Skills, Contacts, and Network Building

The adaptive requirements of our model can make for useful social skills and an abili-
ty to enlist other individuals onto one’s projects. This is crucial in the early years of a ven-
ture when entrepreneurs have few resources, require a good deal of aid from others, and
are in a poor position to engage in balanced exchange relationships to acquire services
(Light et al., 1993). People with physical handicaps often have had to rely on others to get
through some aspects of everyday life. Thus they may be more adept at approaching
potential partners in their attempts to establish a team to help run a business. Some dys-
lexics have been forced to work with and rely on other people to accomplish things—use-
ful experience for anyone trying to build a business. Social skills developed by the
physically and cognitively challenged may also be useful as a venture evolves to build
and bridge networks of relationships that allow a business to grow. Sometimes, these net-
works are created among those with similar challenges, for example immigrant entrepre-
neurs whose businesses complement one another as clients and suppliers (Rath &
Kloosterman, 2000). Indeed, immigrants frequently form networks of their countrymen at
home and abroad to develop their businesses (Light et al., 1993). The handicapped and
veterans too may unite with others who share a similar condition, perhaps those whom
they have met at assemblies of their counterparts (Shaheen & Myhill, 2009).

Original, Creative Approaches

To be forced to do things differently during an important part of one’s life may
encourage regular attempts to invent new ways, be creative, and discover unfamiliar
niches. Conventional approaches are frequently out of reach of a challenged population,
who as a result develop different ways of doing things and also different skills. Indeed,
constraints have been found to be an important source of entrepreneurial ingenuity
(Lampel, Honig, & Drori, 2014; Walker, Schlosser, & Deephouse, 2014). Dyslexia is
often accompanied by certain useful personal attributes, some caused by the condition,
and others by adaptation to it. For example, many dyslexics develop unusual right-brain
capabilities having to do with creativity, superior interpretive capability, and intuition
(Snowling, 2000). They develop original ways of questioning and redefining situations,
and can see opportunities other fail to ever imagine (Logan & Martin, 2012). The found-
ers of Kinko’s, Virgin, and Charles Schwab, all firms with highly original business mod-
els, are dyslexic.
Similarly, in describing those with ADHD, Archer (2014) states: “it’s worth noting
that some of [ADHD’s] most common characteristics — creativity, multi-tasking, risk
taking, high energy, and even resilience — are, in fact, strengths when leveraged in the
right way and in the right career . . . [those with ADHD] are at their best in crisis mode,

12 ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY and PRACTICE

Table 1

Types and Outcomes of Challenge-Based Entrepreneurship

Positive outcomes

Disciplined,
persistent Socially
(current and skilled, Original,
past need to networked creative (have
overcome Risk-tolerant (have had to been forced to
Types of unusual (used to facing solicit help use the road
Challenge entrepreneurs challenge) bigger risks) from others) less travelled)

Economic Necessity Need to support Starting a business Experience Resource

entrepreneurs family, few job less risky than approaching restrictions
alternatives, so unemployment others for propel
highly motivated resources creative
solutions
Sociocultural Immigrant Without social or Relative risk Ethnic networks, Different cultures
entrepreneurs linguistic skills of starting foreign contacts yield different
for most jobs business is support new business ideas
acceptable ventures
Cognitive Entrepreneurs with Disadvantageous to Have already Used to getting help Creative due
ADHD/dyslexia follow usual career endured many from others and to acute
paths; own busi- failures delegating tasks pattern
ness is best recognition
alternative skills
Physical and Entrepreneurs Few job alternatives, Have faced Used to asking for Unique insights
emotional with physical used to struggle to more serious help from others into their
handicaps; overcome traumas and cohort’s needs;
disabled veterans limitations uncertainties ability to employ
and those with than from novel methods
PTSD venture setbacks

multi-tasking and free-associating to intuitively reach a solution.” Once again, these are
useful characteristics for entrepreneurs.
Ingenuity and originality may also occur among necessity entrepreneurs who are
forced to seek out underserved niches of the market (Block , Kohn, Miller, & Ullrich,
2015), or who must build their venture in the absence of significant financial and material
resources (Baker & Nelson, 2005). This is also true of immigrant entrepreneurs whose lin-
guistic and cultural foreign-ness propels them toward businesses with a more internation-
al bent or to servicing a neglected ethnic market that falls outside the scope or attention of
businesses run by natives (Hart & Acs, 2011; Min & Bozorgmehr, 2000).
The desire for independence and autonomy is a common reaction of those having
endured emotional trauma and who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (Haynie &
Shepherd, 2011). This is often a stimulus for these individuals to start their own business
and have others work for them rather than having to work for others (Shaheen & Myhill,
2009).
Finally, in tailoring their jobs to accommodate their conditions, some physically dis-
abled entrepreneurs come across new markets such as similarly disabled people and new

January, 2017 13
ways of doing business, for example, telecommuting, internet services, and different
forms of dis-intermediation (De Clerq & Honig, 2011).
Table 1 summarizes some entrepreneurial outcomes relating to economic, socio-
cultural, cognitive, and physical and emotional challenges.

Facilitating Factors

Certainly, the adaptive process we have described is by no means inevitable. There

are many people with the challenges we have mentioned who fail to overcome them or to
find successful ways of coping. And no doubt the majority of the populations with these
challenges do not become entrepreneurs, much less highly successful ones. Nonetheless
previous research in numerous domains has indicated that these challenged groups are
significantly over-represented in self-employment initiatives and business foundings.
The difference between those who do versus those who do not become entrepreneurs
is a function of a variety of factors. Some of these have to do with attributes such as per-
sonal goals, personality factors, and general talents. The entrepreneurship literature has
identified some of these as locus of control, need for achievement, flexibility, extraver-
sion, and other characteristics (Korunka et al., 2003; Miller, 1983). It is important to re-
emphasize these drivers.
There are also elements of context that are likely to be critical. Factors of economic
geography, government policies, environmental resources, and other contextual elements
may be key influences in launching and supporting entrepreneurial initiatives (Arora
et al., 2004). Even the presence of especially supportive people in one’s life may be a crit-
ical factor. Nonetheless, the co-presence of these influences does not negate the impor-
tance of the challenges we have discussed as potentially relevant drivers of
entrepreneurship that warrant further study.

Conclusions

We have attempted to highlight an important and socially significant source of entre-

preneurship, and to develop a model of why entrepreneurship is quite common in groups
of seriously disadvantaged individuals. It has been argued by some, that people and
organizations that are amply endowed with resources often squander these through com-
placency or excess (Le Breton-Miller & Miller, 2015; Miller, 1990). The more optimistic
side of the coin is that those who are confronted with life challenges frequently are forced
to develop the motivational, cognitive, and social resources to overcome them, and, these
can constitute a significant impetus for entrepreneurial endeavors. We have surfaced
some conditions, experiences, and outcomes that describe how that happens. It remains
for others to explore more fully the relationships proposed by our model. Researchers
may wish to tackle a specific category of challenge and to determine which of the stages
and aspects of our model are best supported; or they may want to focus on certain stages
and compare categories to determine commonalities and differences. Should our model
or parts of it be confirmed, it can help to further not only our understanding of the drivers
of entrepreneurship, but also paths to more productive careers for the people most in need
of them.

14 ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY and PRACTICE

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Danny Miller is research professor at HEC Montreal.

Isabelle Le Breton-Miller is chair of succession and family enterprise at HEC Montreal.

January, 2017 17