In the last few decades, primary agricultural production in the Netherlands has been significantly influenced by firm expansion, innovation and diversification. These developments suggest that, increasingly, farmers and growers require entrepreneurial competence to continuously recognize and pursue new business opportunities. Though entrepreneurial competence is seen as a potentially promising concept, current research efforts i) have paid little attention to firms already in existence (like in agriculture), ii) provide few methodological starting points for studying entrepreneurial competence on the individual level, iii) and have paid little attention to social and task-related influences on entrepreneurial competence development. The objective of this thesis is to analyse how entrepreneurial competence can be characterized and identified, how it develops and how it can be fostered in small agricultural firms. In order to do so, entrepreneurial competence was studied using a comprehensive approach to competence, which implies that a multi-method methodology was adopted. Quantitative and qualitative methods were used in four empirical studies which included a total of 500 participants. A first characterization was made by researching self-awareness and beliefs about improvability of general, but context-appropriate, descriptions of entrepreneurial competencies. The results show an almost consistent underestimation of entrepreneurial competencies and reveal that entrepreneurial competencies are seen as subject to at least some development. Conceptions of entrepreneurial competencies are not uniform within workplaces: elements of what is developed and can be developed further are partly idiosyncratic. Secondly, entrepreneurial competence was identified in more detail based on item-level descriptions which empirically define a competence domain. It was revealed that three domains constitute the heart of entrepreneurial competence, namely analysing, pursuing and networking. Thirdly, results obtained through ...