LDR 280
Introduction
Entrepreneurship is a term that has reentered the public vernacular over the last few years, many times in reference to what is wrong with America but what it means is rarely defined. Furthermore, it is generally agreed that more Entrepreneurship is a desirable trait but how to go about encouraging it is again a point of contention. This paper will address a specific facet of entrepreneurship and attempt to discover what are the key drivers to foster an entrepreneurial spirit from childhood. Definitions of entrepreneurship almost always involve the risk taking within the business world. Businessdictionary.com states “The capacity and willingness to develop, organize and manage a business venture along with any
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Universities have created an entire field of study predicated on the idea that they can teach entrepreneurism to anyone who wants to become their own boss. Most often the question is asked whether the entrepreneur is born with certain traits that will cause them to seek out the thrill of starting their own company, or do life experiences reveal the path of entrepreneurialism to their impressionable minds?
Freddie Dawson a contributor to Forbes Magazine attended a Barclays Bank debate in London where he made several observations on the topic. In his subsequent article, he quotes Jamal Edwards, founder of SB.TV as saying “that an entrepreneur was 5% born with innate abilities and 95% made by life experiences.” Another speaker at the debate, Doug Richards, founder of School for Start-ups and former investor on the TV show, Dragon’s Den is quoted as saying “I wholly reject the idea that entrepreneurs are born,” he said. “It would be one of the most limiting ideas and it would be a real shame if it was true.” A third speaker at the debate, Greg Davies is quoted as saying “It’s pretty obvious it isn’t 100% either way. You can teach someone to be better at anything,” Mr. Dawson concludes his article with the observation that “There are a number of studies that show entrepreneurs are surprisingly different from other people, he added. This is not just a willingness to take a gamble but also psychological characteristics including greater resilience
Definitions of entrepreneurship almost always involve the risk taking within the business world. Businessdictionary.com states “The capacity and willingness to develop, organize and manage a business venture along with any of its risks in order to make a profit.” Why we want individuals to create new companies or even to grow products and ideas within an existing company is beyond the scope of this paper be we are going to assume that over all the outcome of this behavior is good for the organization, community, or country. There is little dispute that the United States was known for this behavior over the last two hundred years and it may be something that we are starting to lose. At least it is a behavior that we want to continue to foster.
A person who starts a business is someone who assumes the financial risk of the initiation, the operation, and management of the business. ,“An entrepreneur is someone who organizes a business venture and assumes the risk for it”. (Define an Entrepreneur, Source: H) A person who has possession of a new enterprise, or “idea and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome” (Source: H) can be known as an entrepreneur. “The term is originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish economist Richard Cantillon.” (Define an Entrepreneur, Source: H) “Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to the type of personality who is willing to take upon her
Entrepreneurship is the willingness to take risks to create and operate a business. An entrepreneur is someone who sees a potentially
Dr. Peter Watt, a professor at York St. John University, says that “one reason entrepreneurs drop out is the basic narrative as a restatement of Alger’s ‘rags-to-riches’ paradigm, [which] can be conceptualized, in its most simple form, as a narrative of ‘overcoming’ ” (Watt 35). In other words, entrepreneurs feel motivated to succeed more when they get the feeling of overcoming some form of adversity, such as dropping out. Similarly, Professor William Nickels asserts that being a successful entrepreneur is based more off of “personality.” According to Nickels, “You [aspiring entrepreneur] can learn about managerial and leadership skills needed to run a firm. However, you may not have the personality to assume the risks… [S]uch personality traits are harder to learn or acquire than academic skills” (Nichols 154). Essentially, Nickels position is that “to be a successful entrepreneur one must have entrepreneurial personality, be self-directed, self-nurtured, be action-oriented, energetic, and tolerant of uncertainty.” (Nickels et. al 154). Ironically, Nickels is a college professor who is telling this to his students. Perhaps he holds these views because some of his previous students who excelled in the course work, were not successful entrepreneurs. If personality traits dictates entrepreneurial skills, then does this attitude explain why
secretary of education states that “high-quality education" that encourages "creativity, imagination, and ingenuity’”. It is true that thirty percentage of startup business failure reasons of “unbalanced Experience or Lack of Managerial Experience”, followed by “lack of Experiences in line of goods or services” is about eleven percentage. Interestingly, company competence occupied the highest rate of failure of 46% (Statistic Verification, Entrepreneur Weekly, Small Business Development Center, Bradley University, university of Tennessee Research). In addition, successful entrepreneur usually possess “highly motivated and willingness to take initiative to execute duties” and have appropriately responsible to their activities, decision, and company’s outcomes.
Entrepreneurship is difficult to define throughout its history research. Even nowadays, this concept is still a debatable point (Rajendra, et al., 2017). Based on four decades of research, Gartner (1988) concludes that entrepreneurs are founders of new firms. Shane and Venkataraman (2000) consider entrepreneurship as “a new venture’s risk-taking endeavor seeking an opportunity” and Fortunato (2014) adds innovative value into the concept of entrepreneurship. Thus, research on the definition of entrepreneurship continue. According to those diverse views, I will interpret six unique entrepreneurial characteristics and theoretically analyze each one. Risk taker, need for achievement and proactivity as my strengthens will be illustrated with my experience. Innovativeness, internal locus of control and tolerance for ambiguity are my weaknesses, thus I will describe relevant successful Entrepreneurs’ experiences.
This help leaders and managers to develop personal qualities such as creativity, risk taking and business skills ( Isaacs et al, 2007:616) . A lack of positive expectance always cause a problem in any business. (Albert & Poli, 2004:5), entrepreneurship education is an agent for the development and growth of orientated ventures.
The following essay will describe my personal interpretation of the Entrepreneurship Forum, conducted on October 16, 2015 at California State University, Monterey Bay. The forum focused on four specific speakers and their journey as entrepreneurs. The below paragraphs will describe the general emphasis of each speakers entrepreneurial story, including the challenges and rewards from their experiences. The paper will then conclude with the lessons I found most important, and whether or not the speaker’s stories have made me more inclined to be an entrepreneur.
Over the years, especially around the year 2000 till date, entrepreneurial education has taken different approaches in ensuring the effectiveness of the education system (Gibb & Price, 2014). These different approaches taken is to ensure the effectiveness and efficiencies of the outcome of entrepreneurial education in achieving its argued importance (Fayolle, 2007). Over time, continuous arguments had arisen among scholars pertaining to the contribution of entrepreneurial education towards influencing students to become entrepreneurs. For instance, the studies of Adelaja (2015), Lourenço, Jones, and Jayawarna (2015) and Elmuti, Khoury and Omran (2012) conclude positive influence of entrepreneurial education on intention to become entrepreneurs among students. While the conclusions from studies such as and St-Jean and Mathieu (2015), Bilić, et al. (2011) and Lorz (2011) conclude that entrepreneurial education has no significant relationship with the intention of students to become entrepreneurs.
Many people are curious in knowing how to become an entrepreneur or what it takes to be one. For one to do so it requires a multitude of skills, especially to run a business properly. Entrepreneurs need to be leaders, able to manage others properly, and contain a vision. They are innovators of new products, improvements, and help in supplying goods to society, as well advancements and new ideas. To start a business is a difficult process that requires a lot of hard work, something my father knows about, as he has owned his own restaurant for nearly 4 years, and understands what it takes to survive. His restaurant is called Dawali Mediterranean Kitchen located on the north side of Chicago, and I chose to interview him to gain knowledge and experience about the ins and outs of becoming an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs are some of the brightest minds our world has to offer, in order for one to start a business they need to be prepared to have a plan for their business and pursue a field their passionate about, lead well and put effort into their business, and ensure ethics and motivation even when things are not affirmative.
An entrepreneur is a businessperson who not only conceives and organizes ventures but also frequently takes risks in doing so. Not all independent business people are true entrepreneurs, and not all entrepreneurs are created equal. Different degrees or levels of entrepreneurial intensity and drive depend upon how much independence one exhibits, the level of leadership and innovation they demonstrate, how much responsibility they shoulder, and how creative they become in envisioning and executing their business plans. The Five Levels of Entrepreneurial Development Brad Sugars, a world-renowned business author and founder of his own
The definition of entrepreneurship given by Zimmerman (2007) (cited by Khan 2016 p. 68) is “the recognition or creation of an opportunity, coupled with action by an individual or group of individuals…”. This leads to sustainable business ventures (Ibid.). The six
Entrepreneurs are born. This statement by Professor James V. Koch from Old Dominion University, Virginia, USA reflects that entrepreneurs have entrepreneurship skills that are part of a person’s innate traits one must be born with (Kuratko 2014).
Although it is a given that many research findings demonstrate an overall agreement on entrepreneurial education and that entrepreneurship can be learned and taught to a certain extent, agreements around the entrepreneurship education curriculum such as teaching methods, appropriateness of concepts and educational course content, are not quite in unison amongst scholars (Robinson and Hayenes 1991; Kuratko 2005; Pittaway and Cope 2007; Liñán et al 2011). Therefore it can be assumed that entrepreneurial education can be a step forward in impacting young individuals to develop their entrepreneurial intentions and propensity, but the extent of such curriculum and its impact on nurturing effective entrepreneurs remains uncertain.
There are many factors in the modern economy which encourage entrepreneurial activity. Throughout this essay i am going to discuss what these factors are and how they influence the life world of entrepreneurs and the environment surrounding them. I am also going to use different theories and concepts to critically evaluate how they affect entrepreneurial practice in an organisational context.