NOVICE AND HABITUAL ENTREPRENEURS AND EXTERNAL BUSINESS SUPPORT EXPLOITATION

Habitual entrepreneurs have become an important group of entrepreneurs who make a large contribution to the process of wealth creation. Previous studies have indicated that habitual entrepreneurship is a widespread phenomenon, hence, policy makers and practitioners should target support tailored to the special needs of novice and habitual entrepreneurs. This article aims to present results of a study regarding the role of prior business experience in the inclination to use external business support and the choice of various forms of this support. Research was conducted on a sample of 373 Polish small innovative enterprises in the fourth quarter of 2017. Enterprises were surveyed by means of a questionnaire using the Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing technique. The scale of habitual entrepreneurs in the examined sample is 32,44 % and is comparable with research carried out in other countries. The findings suggest that habitual entrepreneurs use external business support to a greater extent than novice entrepreneurs but differences between various forms of support used by novice and habitual entrepreneurs are not significant. The presented research results are a starting point for further detailed analyses that should be undertaken to explore the characteristics of habitual entrepreneurs: whether and to what extent entrepreneurs learn from their own experience, what is the impact of success or failure in previous businesses on the current behaviour of entrepreneurs and their companies, and what implications this has for the development of the future SME support policy.