Skills and Competencies of a 21st Century Entrepreneur

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.

Gerber argues that anyone can become an entrepreneur and create a successful company, a departure from the conventional wisdom on the question of whether entrepreneurs are born or made. Using a frame work he calls the "Dreaming Room," Gerber identifies four dimensions of the entrepreneurial personality and recommends a pathway to conceive of and develop a small business.with focused attention and the intention of actually achieving something and understanding the market, your core customers, securing capital, preparing financials—those kinds of elements? Every one of those

According to Reece and O’ Grady (1987), average person uses a small business to refer to an owner-managed business that only employs people not more than twenty or twenty five. The major reason for going into business for one’s self is the desire to be one’s own boss. Working capital, the money necessary to find he business regular operations. Also, the key element in defining an entrepreneur is that they take risks. Each year, a million or so people balance the rewards and the risks of

Entrepreneurship is the activity of creating a new business or enterprise. It is an essential and significant action in the growing job market (Bednarzik, 2000). Entrepreneurship has become important to all the countries whether they developed or developing ones. It is a basis of economic growth and employment creation (Thurik, Carree, Van Stel, Audretsch, 2008). It involves opportunity recognition or creation, collecting resources to track the opportunity, and managing actions that bring a new venture into existence. Some ventures are complete start-ups, while other ventures are pursued within an existing organization (Enz and Harrison, 2010). Entrepreneurs accept the personal financial risks that drive with having their own business. On the other hand, entrepreneurs benefit directly from the

. However avoiding failure and improving performance, can be achieved through adapting the entrepreneurs behaviour and characteristic, as long as the entrepreneurs is willing to learn. In microbusiness, organisational outcomes however are likely to be profoundly influenced by founders (Hannan et. al., 1996). The characteristic and attributes of individual entrepreneurs which can influence the organizational behaviour such as employment status and personality traits have been found to be relatively poor predictors of even survival and success, let alone of specific organizational behaviour such as innovativeness (Cooper and Gascon, 1992).

Entrepreneurship is related with the capability of recognition and evaluation of opportunities, allocation of resources and growth. Moreover, entrepreneurship has been taken as an organisational notion that contains three magnitudes: Modernisation, Bear risks and Practical alignment. It has been confirmed that the companies that were engaged in entrepreneurial activities are now most successful and efficient.

Through fresh innovative and creative ideas we have seen how these different concepts and ideas change the business environment. Entrepreneurship plays a role in the economy and can result in the growth and development of the economy in a country. This essay will be discussing the different aspects on what Entrepreneurship is, The Role it plays in the economy and the different type Entrepreneurial businesses involved in the growth and development of the economy of the country. Entrepreneurship will help the economy by providing more job opportunities, creating new wealth and can reduce unemployment . It is clear that there is positive relationship between Entrepreneurship and Economic growth; this link will be discussed in the essay.

According to Jensen & Luthans (2006), entrepreneurial leaders are capable of identifying opportunities and gaining advantage. They also successfully manage the change and gain advantage. I discovered this characteristic within me through a business challenge that was organised by university in which I was studying. The challenge included proposing a business idea and I managed to propose the business idea focused on niche market. I was awarded with the second price in the challenge that further strengthens my belief of identifying the opportunities and taking advantage from them, which is also one of the characteristic of entrepreneurial leader.

An entrepreneur is “a person who organizes and manages a business with considerable initiative and risk”. In other definitions an entrepreneur “identifies an opportunity or a gap in a market and evaluates the risk related to the establishment of the business and is prepared to take the associated risk to start the business in the quest for making profit; and has the ability to obtain the resources to establish and grow a business”. Entrepreneurship exceedingly relies on entrepreneurs to start-up, develop and produce companies across the use of their

Sheperds, M., Peters, D., & Hisrich, R. (2005). Identify and Evaluate the Opportunity. The entrepreneurial Process, Retri

Entrepreneurs are a very, or perhaps the most, important boost in our economy. They do not only take the risk for the sake of a business, but also they provide our economy with employment opportunities and culture. A society can only be prosperous only when it rewards and encourages entrepreneurial activity because in fact, it is the entrepreneurs and their activities that are the critical factor for success, prosperity, growth and opportunity in any given economy. Entrepreneurship is not easy and it comes with its own risks and up and downs. On the last decade, entrepreneurship has rose and expanded, with this change and constant expansion, it has changed the rules of entrepreneurship once again. But I certainly believe that

Entrepreneurs come from all over, of many different types, with many different talents and many different dreams. Not everyone, however, whom owns a small business, is an entrepreneur. We have a dream and we attempt to pursue it, yet end up finding ourselves working twice as hard attempting to make it work because we only trust ourselves. You go into business for yourself but spedn so much time working on the product and doing the chores that you lose sight on the business itself. In fact, according to Gerber, only a select few are true entrepreneurs and for the others it may have existed for a short period of time. From a newcomer’s perspective, one would think of course if they own their own business they are classified as an

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.

Researchers in the field of entrepreneurship distinguish between entrepreneurial competencies and managerial competencies (e.g. Mitchelmore & Rowley, 2013; Mitchelmore & Rowley, 2010; Nuthall, 2006; Orser & Riding, 2003; Baldwin et al., 1997; Chandler and Jansen, 1992). Some suggest that competencies to start a business are different form those that are necessary to manage the buisiness through growth. Although competence in entrepreneurship requires competncies in both areas, entrepreneurial competencies are needed to start a business while managerial skills are needed to grow the business (Man et al., 2002). Managerial competencies can be defined as “the ability to perform management functions effectively in a work related situation … are the skills in doing managerial things” (Jacobs & Pons, 1994; and Hines, 1995 as cited in Orser & Riding, 2003, p.7). Boyatzis (1982) defines managerial competencies as the characteristics differentiating superior from average and poor managerial performance (as cited in e.g., Sánchez, 2012; and Mitchelmore & Rowley, 2010).

There has been extensive research conducted on the characteristics that successful entrepreneurs possess. These attributes vary widely across literature, however there are common key traits that are required to achieve any form of success. Frederick et al (2013) suggest entrepreneurs are risk takers, optimistic, have sound judgement and an ability to manage. While a review of literature relating to the psychology of an entrepreneur reveals a large variety of characteristics in a successful entrepreneur, these can be consolidated to a a few into only a few traits that are essential for a successful entrepreneur. Whilst taking into