The Relevance of Soft Skills for Entrepreneurs

Abstract

This study explores the relevance of different soft skills for entrepreneurs, focusing on entrepreneurs from Portugal and Serbia. The study identifies a total of 38 soft skills from the European Entrepreneurship Skills Framework (EntreComp) and employs a quantitative methodology in the analysis of data collected from a questionnaire completed by entrepreneurs from these two countries. The findings reveal that soft skills competencies play a key role in the entrepreneur's activity, highlighting emotional intelligence, resilience, and persistence as fundamental attributes that an entrepreneur should possess. Furthermore, the respondents' answers have revealed notable differences in their perception of the importance of a majority of soft skills (27 out of 38 skills), which indicates that an entrepreneur's geographic area is a relevant factor in the perception of the relative importance of soft skills.