Amway conducted its Global Entrepreneurship Survey for the sixth consecutive year and has published its results. This year the study was focused on the “reputation of entrepreneurship”.
This most recent survey was conducted between May-August 2015 and covered 50,000 women and men in 44 countries, representing target groups in those countries’ populations. 2015 sample was up 6,000 people from last year and also, six new countries were added. GfK Germany was in charge of this global survey.
Some of the key findings from the survey are:
* Entrepreneurs are perceived as avid learners who strive for success.
* Globally, only half of the respondents perceive their society as entrepreneurship-friendly.
* Entrepreneurship remains highly valued by three quarters of the respondents.
* Young respondents have the strongest desire to becoming self-employed and as age increases, the desire for entrepreneurship weakens.
* As the driver to start a business, respondents are motivated the most by independence and self-fulfillment.
* The fear of failure is a strong obstacle, mainly driven by the fear of financial consequences of it.
When we turn to individual countries, Denmark is perceived as the most entrepreneurship-friendly environment when politics, media coverage and the people around are considered. The ten most entrepreneur-friendly countries are below (here, global average is 50%).
In Denmark, respondents also has the most positive attitude towards the idea of their entrepreneurship with a score of 96%, followed by Norway (94%), China (91%), and Estonia (91%). As far as the portion of respondents who can imagine starting a business is concerned, Mexico ranks the first (81%).
70% of the respondents say fear to fail is an obstacle to starting a business. And according to 41%, “financial burdens up to bankruptcy” is the major obstacle.
2015 Report also introduces what is called “Amway Entrepreneurial Spirit Index” (AESI). AESI builds on respondents’ perception of three motivational factors: 
Desirability (whether respondents desire to start a business), Stability (whether respondents would let their social environment dissuade them from starting a business; and Feasibility (whether respondents feel prepared to start a business). It may range from 0 to 100 and is calculated as the mean of these three subdimensions.
The global AESI score this year is at 51: 55% the respondents have the desire, 49% would not let their social environment dissuade them from starting a business, and 47% think starting a business is feasible. India, China and Thailand have the highest AESI score with 79, and Japan has the lowest with 19.
For several years, Amway has been doing a great job by conducting this global study and just as importantly, by sharing the findings with the public. However, when it comes to drawing any conclusions, my question still remains: To what extent do the respondents visualize “direct selling” when faced with questions on “entrepreneurship”?
That said, there are a lot of takeaways especially in the area of marketing communications.
You can download the full report here.