Entrepreneur: Tom Bostock- ‘The Travelling Fishmonger’

1. Introduction

The definition of an entrepreneur taken straight from the oxford dictionary is ‘a person who sets up a business or businesses, whilst taking on financial risks in the hope of profit’ (Whitelock, 2011). A definition this simple is near impossible to find in any scientific journal. Schumpter (1934) was one of the first researchers to claim that an entrepreneur was an actual state of being that was different from a business owner or manager, and since that faitful article many researchers and scholars have attempted to define the term, entrepreneur. They have found this to be a very difficult task indeed as many ‘scholars have concurred that a common definition of the entrepreneur remains elusive’ (Gartner, 1988).

Many studies focus in on the characteristics of an entrepreneur, suggesting that certain characteristics such as ‘need for achievement, intelligence, creativity, energy level, and desire for money’ (Aboud, 1971) are common throughout entrepreneurs. Gartner, accepting these claims, goes onto suggest that if you base the definition of an entrepreneur on characteristics then ‘an entrepreneur is a personality type’ and therefore ‘a state of being that doesn’t go away’ (Gartner, 1988). A more specific definition, by Hornaday and Aboud (1971), of a ‘successful entrepreneur’ is ‘a man or woman who started a business where there was none before, who had at least 8 employees and who had been established for at least five years’.

2. Background of the Entrepreneur

Tom Bostock was born in 1965 in the town of Whitby, North Yorkshire which is ‘a coastal fishing town’ (Bostock, 2011) situated in Northeast England. It was here where Mr. Bostock developed a knowledge of the industry in which he later would set up his business. He was the second child born into the family and had an