Abstract

"Developing Entrepreneurs: Achievement Motivation Training, Race, and the Origins of Modern Entrepreneurship Education"

Jeremy Goodwin, Cornell University (jbg326@cornell.edu)

In the late 1950s, the Harvard psychologist David C. McClelland began publishing research that purported to show an empirical link between economic development and a psychological trait that he dubbed the “need for achievement.” Specifically, McClelland argued that the “need for achievement” was a marker of entrepreneurial potential; as such, underdeveloped countries and communities could spur growth by cultivating this psychological drive for success among their inhabitants. McClelland was certainly not the first to suggest that an entrepreneurial mindset was necessary for economic development. By arguing that entrepreneurship could be taught, however, he laid the groundwork for a new wave of programs that sought to use entrepreneurship education to solve entrenched social ills like urban poverty. In this paper, I begin by tracing the contours of McClelland’s thought and its implications for entrepreneurship education. I then examine the influence of McClelland’s theory in various efforts to revitalize economically devastated communities in the postwar US. I specifically highlight the role of consulting firms associated with McClelland—such as the Behavioral Sciences Center (BSC) and the Massachusetts Achievement Trainers (MAT)—in promoting his vision of entrepreneurial development to African American communities. In doing so, I demonstrate that social scientific discussions about the nature of entrepreneurship are an important, yet understudied, aspect of the “Black Capitalism” movement that emerged in the late 1960s. Furthermore, I argue that the postwar advent of “achievement motivation” provides a crucial historical grounding for understanding the subsequent turn toward entrepreneurship in business education in the 1970s and 1980s.