Innovation Entrepreneurial Development

How far do you agree with the statement: “It is not absolutely vital for an Entrepreneur to actually own resources when starting their businesses”

Innovation and entrepreneurial development today has become very significant attribute that is an important element for acquisition of economic and industrial development that includes regional growth and employment generation that relies on entrepreneurial growth. Entrepreneurs are thus seeds of industrial development that ultimately leads to increased employment opportunities, increased standard of living, and income of per capita and enhance profitability of government in terms of sales tax, income, import, export duties and balanced regional growth (Bacanak, 2013). The word entrepreneur is acquired from French verb enterprendre that means to carry out and it reflects about who carry out the risk of novel corporation and process of develop entrepreneurship.

In an organizational term entrepreneurship is the process that includes range of actions of an entrepreneur who is always seeking for something novel and bring in new ideas into profitable opportunities by accepting the risk and uncertain conditions in an organization. By becoming an entrepreneur several challenges need to be managed as there are certain qualities that are crucial if any individual wants to become stressful in business ventures and some of these attributes are being formed in different parts to acquire better personality and enhance this over the time (Singh and Hess, 2017). There are range of risks associated while initiating and running own business, as certain crucial of them are; under capitalization, poor management, lack of planning and marketing misjudgement.

However, I am in favour of this term that for an entrepreneur it is not vital to own resources when starting a business, the important thing that matters is the skills and creativity of an entrepreneur that helps in attaining success in business. Resources for any business can be arranged but having suitable talent is important, as an entrepreneur’s mind revolves around opportunities and new ideas (Lamine, Mian and Fayolle, 2014). There is a continuous effort required to seek for niche and undertake the risks in them, entrepreneurship includes assessment of existing business workflows and devise ways to carry them out efficiently.

Owning a resource is not so important than to optimally utilize the resources to create efficient processes and it is an outcome of undertaking new ideas that gives innovative goods or services. Apart from this an entrepreneur need to have patience to assess the result of any new idea and the risk involved in new system. So, a detailed evaluation and observation of entrepreneurial process reflects that creative thinking is a must have skills for creation of new ideas as it facilitates an individual to develop interesting process and attain entrepreneur can have a competitive edge. Moreover, would like to state that imagination and creativity is vital traits of an entrepreneur i.e. outside the box thinking that helps in coming up with something new, interesting and attain success for future (Holland and Garrett, 2015). Hence, this is apparent from evaluation that entrepreneurs need to look towards new aspects of traditional business than owning a resources and it could be in the form of transforming method to manufacture any product or deliver service to user that mainly helps in creating niche and has great potential for business.

Is innovation manageable – or just a random process? What factors are critical to success?

Innovation means different things to various people but usually it includes application of new ideas, products or process for some reasons. There has been significant change occurring in the way process of innovation is being understood and in this context development is being made in the manageability of areas of business activity in recent time period. In current extremely competitive business environment where innovation is must, there is a need to put better perspective and efficiency in innovation is must, due the present technological advancement in society needs of customers and expectations have been consistently changing so business organizations must innovate.

In this context it is evident to state that merely having good ideas is not enough and it takes lot of time and resources as the idea must bring something new. As stated by Parmentier and Mangematin, (2014) innovation needs to be organic and it has to mesh with core of company and stay focused on prioritizing smaller deliverables to keep the feedback loop tight and come up with new ideas. It is apparent that innovation is manageable but the actual work begins with fact that it should be managed in any other corporate function and it is similar as any other business activity. Indeed it is true that innovation is the work to know rather than doing and the prime motive today is to enhance and manage innovation with appropriate techniques and main strategy should be to build the innovation in corporation is attaining insight and work in creative manner to achieve framed objectives.

Innovation is like a sky with its horizons defined and it can only be widening with consistent hard work (Bessant, 2013). One of the way through which innovation can be managed is to have creative people in team who can produce ideas that are worthwhile and novel and must be consistently updated to foster innovation, assess the gaps and get adequate resources to manage. By motivating people towards innovation maximum of benefits can be acquired as main problem today persist within many corporation in terms that people with ideas need to possess strong sense of association and responsibility once the ideas are formed and it also help in finding out the details and implement ideas. Hence, it is vital to endorse employees not just bring new ideas but to also enforce them and attain maximum of benefit.

The other strategy that could be used to inspire innovation and share information by arranging people and have an creative management that can be applied in business, it is apparent that people develop new structure that are needed to redesign to carry out on daily basis and bring something new (Bacanak, 2013).  Innovation is all about overcoming risk and encourages innovation as corporation are performing well and there is a need to attain leading position to foster innovation. When any new product or services is introduced it might be acceptable in the market but not until risk of failure is taken and success is achieved. For attaining novel heights in business it is crucial to encourage the product innovation in several fields but one of the misconceptions prevails in terms of creating the new product and this where organizations need to focus a lot on research and development. As, it is easy for other business units to copy any new product or services so it is vital to encourage innovation in several field and maintain confidentiality to an extent possible.

One of the prime challenges in managing innovation exists in terms of meeting the change that innovation brings with it and growth of it within corporation helps in managing business risk that needs to be managed with ingenuity and focus on several aspects of innovation. As Chiaroni and et.al., (2016) have stated that one need to be prepared for execution of novel plan and must be willing to do research test as it has to be something that would consistently help in educating one self and learn, above all to manage the manage innovation it is crucial to give attention on below mentioned aspects;

  • First get the culture ready for innovation
  • Make sure that people know about innovating
  • Manage competency
  • Develop long term strategy
  • Seek out for good ideas
  • Show leadership

Knowledge workers and creative professional are largely autonomous and it helps in negotiating inter-dependencies among all professionals contributions. In order to manage innovation efficiently it is vital to give attention on design thinking process as it is an effective collaborative approach to assess and resolve issues. This is apparent that this competitive environment one need to undertake complexity and uncertainty that enhances everyday and the only way to sustain is by regular innovation through creative ideas.

Innovation can be managed through capturing and fully utilizing firm’s collective expertise as it constitutes the raw material for innovation that gives competitive edge to sustain in volatile business environment. In this current era innovation is the final way that helps in landing in success and achieve long term growth that can only be acquired through optimum utilization (Chesbrough, Vanhaverbeke and West, 2014). Hence, I would like to state that innovation can be managed and it is not just a random process. I am in favour that innovation system needs to be managed efficiently and it is not a process but a strategy that needs regular monitoring and adequate plan so that the expected results from it can be acquired. In an organization to innovate and manage it successfully it is crucial to promote and work with people as this will facilitate in acquisition of framed business objectives and inspire people to take risks and understand whatever they are doing is not the best and it helps in building an innovative organization.

Innovation Entrepreneurial Development
Innovation Entrepreneurial Development

You are the business owner of a small technology start-up firm. You have your initial business plan is place but realise that you need to take measures to protect your ideas and concepts

An intellectual property right (IPR) is thus a legal right that is based on relevant national law which includes particular type of intellectual right and it comes into existence only when the needs of relevant IP law is being accomplished following the prescribed procedure. The small technological firm that I am undertaking gives attention on managing intellectual property right which is a valuable asset in current business environment and for this my corporation gives attention on maintaining patents, trademarks, trade secrets and copyright of our services (Stiglitz, 2014). This is mainly done to safeguard organizational ideas, technology and product that enables in making investment in technology, the prime areas of IPR management are;

  • Patents – Implementing patents in the organization helps to provide security to disclose the technology to business partners without losing control of technological services. A unique and proprietary patent helps in increasing valuation of company and it is one of the key elements to exit strategy that acts as collateral for financing of business. Being functional in Europe technological start ups have to face certain difficulties in obtaining patent but have acquired the same.
  • Copyright – This IP law helps the company to precisely get associated with safety of artistic works and it also covers software coding, layout of website, database and many other works. It mainly protects the expression of idea rather than the idea itself and the right simply come in the work when it is created.
  • Registered right for design – This right helps the new technological firm to attain an opportunity to register a 3D design and is probably best thought of as filling the gap among copyright and patent protection. Unlikely copyright there is a test of designs merit that should be overcome and must represent individual character and these rights gives owner long term exclusivity in terms of design (Dosi and Stiglitz, 2014).
  • Maintaining trade secrets – This aspect is challenging however it requires no filling or registration that could therefore be very inexpensive means to secure intellectual property. It helps in maintaining secrecy by software coding and exploitation through licensing is not as common as patent licensing as it need to be conveyed to others for value.
  • Creating trademark – Although the business operations is right now small but have adequate company logo and name that act as a source identifies and is easily being protected by registration and trademark. This mainly helps in creating transferable rights that brings additional value in business and it is dependent in customer recognition for maintaining quality level.

For tech start-ups in particular, it is also worth noting that software and process patents are difficult to how can you monitor and protect your business from copycats?

One of the most important parts in dealing in any rival business is to understand the competition and accordingly develop strategy to safeguard business unit from competitors and most importantly copycats, in this regard the small technology gives precise attention on below mentioned aspects;

  • Business uses confidentiality agreement – While discussing any potential trade secrets or disclosing any kind of valuable intellectual property the written confidentiality agreement needs to be managed (May, 2013). These would clearly help to outline the ownership and usage rights to manage intellectual property being disclosed or provided to utilize.
  • Mark all property with adequate notices – In the technological firm while making any written material confidentiality is being maintained or proprietary would not completely deter someone that is determined to steal it, as it would help to discourage theft. All the services of company have intellectual property right with adequate notices and designations such as copyright and trademark symbols notices.
  • Copyrights are registered wherever possible – Most of the content of website are actually safeguarded to some extent under the copyright laws, but registering intellectual rights brings additional layer of security that offers some kind of legal recourse and it helps in saving the property from being stolen (Hagedoorn and Zobel, 2015). Copyright protection is swift and relatively inexpensive that makes it suitable for small business units with registered patent aspect.
  • Be careful on social media – Workforce in the corporation uses social media many of the time unknowingly or even knowingly release proprietary business information and intellectual property on some kind of open source forums this leads to increase fraud cases. There are chances that competitors might hack information from social networking sites and many of the times breach occurring from these sites provides a back door access to proprietary databases and other confidential information of company (Williams, 2013). So, the technological firm pays much attention on management of confidential information in suitable manner and safeguard business from competitors.

From the above accomplished discussion it is apparent that intellectual property rights provide numerous benefits as well as in acquisition of monetary gains. Such property provides financial incentives and helps in managing economic conditions of world that has become better and more emphasis is being given on managing intellectual property rights in better manner. Especially in developed country like UK IP rights play an important role in overall development of economy and undertake as large as two thirds to evaluate total assets of nation that can be traced back to bring some more than intangible assets for business.

It is evident from several secondary research also that business corporations that possess intellectual property as their assets have more earned more revenue than companies that do not have any intellectual property (Bently and Sherman, 2014). Some renowned economists also stated that by strengthening intellectual property rights maximum of benefits can be acquired to strengthen economic situations and these rights are precisely suitable to manage products and services that can be utilize to implies that even though an individual might claim that have an IPL right on any product that will also hinder any person from using such products.

Intellectual property right helps the small technological firm to assess efforts of an individual and accordingly strategy is being formulated for specific condition that has got IPR in business and any of the services can be easily used.  Moreover, it should also be kept in consideration that copyrights and patents in business does not create monopoly but it simply towards reward management for people who have assessed that new things helps in attaining monetary rewards for long term and make remuneration for their efforts and way intellectual property rights create monopolies.

Innovation – Explain to a skeptical entrepreneur the benefits of creating a business plan

Developing business plan help in identifying potential issues and opportunities your business might face, avoid penalty, fines and other legal issues that adapt to changes in the market place and helps in expanding business operations. For entrepreneurs prior to invest in any business it is crucial to develop a business plan that will provide those answers and it will also facilitate in organizing potential plans that includes aspects of legal, marketing, legal, human resources and financial resources which is need to carry out a business process. Some of the prime benefits of creating plans are as mentioned below;

  • Business always stays on the designed strategy – It is very much challenging for any business plan to stick to the strategy throughout the daily routine and interruptions. So by using developing business plan it would be convenient to summarize major aspects of business and keep it as a reminder that states about in and outs of business (Finch, 2016).
  • Business objectives will be clear – By using the plan it would be easy to define and manage precise measurable business objectives that states about web visitors, sales, margins or bring new product that helps in acquisition of success for long terms.
  • Educated guesses will be prominent – BY using plan one can refine the educated guesses about things like what would be the potential market, overall sales, cost of sales, drivers of sales, business and leads processing (Sugathapala and et.al., 2015).
  • Priorities will make more sense – Apart from this strategy adequate strategy also helps in making priority for important factor that involves growth of business, financial conditions and management. By using this plan one can frame foundation for attributes and enhance business strategies.
  • It helps in understanding interdependencies – By using business plan one can keep an eye on the needs that took place in order to manage conditions, as one should have time for product release to match with the testing need testing schedule so that business plan could be valuable in terms of organizing the work on track.
  • All the milestones can be tracked – Designing business plan will help entrepreneur to keep an eye of all the dates and deadline and it is crucial for valuable strategies even for an individual to manage everything easily (Serraand Kunc, 2015).
  • Entrepreneur will be delegating – An adequate business plan helps to develop who is responsible for what and every important task has to be manage by an individual who is in charged to keep the plan on track.
  • Managing team members and tracking outcomes will be easy – So many individual understand the need of having regular team members review and plan could be a great format for getting things done in written manner and follow up the difference between anticipations and outcomes with course corrections.
  • Cash flow can be managed better – None of the business can afford to mismanagement of cash and simple profitability is rarely the same as cash. An adequate cash flow plan is great way to associate together educated guesses on sales, cost, assets, expenses and debts to pay.
  • Course corrections will help in business from flopping – By developing business plans adequate way is formed to be proactive for business activity and not reactive. With this one does not have to wait for things to happen but only follow up is needed to track the results and make corrections in courses (Bently and Sherman, 2014). However, it is a myth that business plan is supposed to be predicted in future instead it helps in setting up of expectations and frame assumptions to manage contingency business conditions.
  • Helps in identifying problems – A detailed business plan helps in addressing several areas to initiate business process and carry out the research to include in business plan and learn suppositions for marketing budgets, cost of materials, licensing, labour costs and other crucial aspect of business to incorrect. Entrepreneurs by analyzing this prior to inception of business to make adjustments and committed funds, business plan includes adequate budget that helps in managing cash flow.
  • Provides exit strategy – In addition to this offering benchmark for success helps in developing business that frames realistic criteria to shut down business and prevent money from bad conditions. A business failure could be very emotional and owners need to mostly switch objective in terms of reality and appropriate numbers tell that business is untenable to make decision and fails to safeguard from losing more money from investors than it is actually needed.
  • Minimizing legal issues – One might need state local or federal licensing that helps in operating business efficiently and one need to pay taxes adequately for this using suitable forms and undertake business in proper format (Kuratko, 2016). An entrepreneur might need to attain a federal employer identification number as various internal revenue service’s helps in making classification and operate under different rules as business plan helps in addressing financial and legal issues that is included in operating a company to avoid any kind of penalty or loss of business.

Above all it can be concluded from this discussion that developing a precise business plan helps entrepreneur to evaluate the future opportunities and accordingly undertake precise course of action. By committing the plan all other options are efficiently managed and organization is aligned to give attention on different activities. This plan would help in assigning milestones to precise individuals and monitor the progress and it can be easily disseminated with readers assisting to ensure a more collaborative plan is produced. However, despite of several benefits there are certain deficiencies as well in business plan as once it is being submitted it becomes a static document. In this regard super dynamic nature of start up this plan become serious misfit and market conditions and strategies leads to financial projections and it keeps on changing that is quick.

References

Bacanak, A., 2013. Teachers’ Views about Science and Technology Lesson Effects on the Development of Students’ Entrepreneurship Skills. Educational Sciences: Theory and Practice13(1), pp.622-629.

Bently, L. and Sherman, B., 2014. Intellectual property law. Oxford University Press, USA.

Bessant, J., 2013. Innovation in the twenty-first century. Responsible innovation. Managing the responsible emergence of science and innovation in society, pp.1-26.

Chesbrough, H., Vanhaverbeke, W. and West, J. eds., 2014. New frontiers in open innovation. OUP Oxford.

Chiaroni, D., and et.al., 2016, June. How incumbents manage waves of disruptive innovation: an empirical analysis. In ISPIM Innovation Symposium (p. 1). The International Society for Professional Innovation Management (ISPIM).

Dosi, G. and Stiglitz, J.E., 2014. The role of intellectual property rights in the development process, with some lessons from developed countries: an introduction. Intellectual property rights: Legal and economic challenges for development1.

Finch, B., 2016. How to write a business plan. Kogan Page Publishers.

Hagedoorn, J. and Zobel, A.K., 2015. The role of contracts and intellectual property rights in open innovation. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management27(9), pp.1050-1067.

Holland, D.V. and Garrett, R.P., 2015. Entrepreneur start-up versus persistence decisions: A critical evaluation of expectancy and value. International Small Business Journal33(2), pp.194-215.

Kuratko, D.F., 2016. Entrepreneurship: Theory, process, and practice. Cengage Learning.

Lamine, W., Mian, S. and Fayolle, A., 2014. How do social skills enable nascent entrepreneurs to enact perseverance strategies in the face of challenges? A comparative case study of success and failure. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research20(6), pp.517-541.

May, C., 2013. The global political economy of intellectual property rights: The new enclosures? (Vol. 3). Routledge.

Parmentier, G. and Mangematin, V., 2014. Orchestrating innovation with user communities in the creative industries. Technological Forecasting and Social Change83, pp.40-53.

Serra, C.E.M. and Kunc, M., 2015. Benefits Realisation Management and its influence on project success and on the execution of business strategies. International Journal of Project Management33(1), pp.53-66.

Singh, A. and Hess, T., 2017. How Chief Digital Officers Promote the Digital Transformation of their Companies. MIS Quarterly Executive16(1).

Stiglitz, J.E., 2014. Intellectual property rights, the pool of knowledge, and innovation (No. w20014). National Bureau of Economic Research.

Sugathapala, I., and et.al., 2015. Quantifying benefits in a business portfolio for multi-operator spectrum sharing. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications14(12), pp.6635-6649..

Williams, H.L., 2013. Intellectual property rights and innovation: Evidence from the human genome. Journal of Political Economy121(1), pp.1-27.

Other Relevant Blog Posts

Entrepreneurs Are Born and Not Nurtured

Entrepreneur Characteristics

Entrepreneurship Dissertations

Did you find any useful knowledge relating to innovation and entrepreneurial development in this post? What are the key facts that grabbed your attention? Let us know in the comments. Thank you.

Entrepreneur Characteristics

Entrepreneurial Challenge and New Venture Creation

The views in the past on the entrepreneur’s characteristics were formed upon a general agreement with regard to its economic importance society. The term entrepreneurship has received solid attention from economists, scientists and policy making body. Though entrepreneurship has several aspects, these aspects can be discovered in the literature and theories when trying to explore the views of the classical researchers to entrepreneurship aspects and also discussion upon the relevant formal and informal attributes that are mandatory for an individual to succeed as an entrepreneur in the real world, this add more desire to the entrepreneurial challenge and venture creation.

The intended goal of stimulating entrepreneurship in people is to figure whether what type of formal and informal attributes needs to be existent in a person to gauge whether he would likely to succeed after starting a businesses venture.

Accomplished entrepreneurs are not restricted to one personality profile but rather arrive in varied ages, differing incomes, any gender, and particular race. They might even have different educational background and experience. However according to our classical researchers majority of the entrepreneurs who succeed in life tend to have similar personal attributes. These attributes may consist of innovation, creativity, determination, versatile, initiators and leadership traits.

Theoretical Review On The Entrepreneur Traits And Attributes

The opportunity to become independent and being you own boss along with making wealth and has motivated many young or middle aged individuals to try to become an entrepreneur. Evidence shows that this has been majorly reflected the research on the emergence of small and medium enterprises (SME) and more significantly, the direct and indirect attributes that are linked with the entrepreneurs who have successfully been able to make their company grow and prosper led.

The overall study aspects discussed in the literature are likely to revolve around’ leadership skills of an entrepreneur, their orientation process, the level of management skills, personality indicators or traits and their circle or the network they belong to. (McClelland 1961) Emphasized that attributes which contributes the most towards becoming a successful entrepreneur is the need for achievement.

Where on the other hand (Begley and Boyd 1987) discovered that entrepreneurs or initiators may score relatively higher than managers of a small business who are non-initiators in need for achievement, taking risk, and have a low tolerance regarding ambiguity. Another researcher (Brockhaus, 1982) analysed a large number of characteristics related to psychology and concluded that the main indicators of entrepreneurship attributes are linked to the high achievement needs, high centre of control and a high risk taking.

While on the other hand, Brockhaus and Horwitz’s (1986) theories presented that entrepreneurs who inherit high centre of control strive for high achievements as well. It has also been suggested that the essential factor in differentiation between entrepreneurs from a manager is risk taking factor (Mill 1984).

It could also be established that entrepreneurs may execute higher tolerance to risk especially in departments or areas where they have full control or even realization of the potential of making a profit in that area. Many studies have included risk taking as a primary entrepreneurial characteristic.

It was confirmed at a later stage that entrepreneurs readily undertake the uncertainty and unknowing situations; therefore the individuals who are more inclined towards becoming an entrepreneur are expected to depict comparatively greater tolerance of ambiguity (Mitton 1989). It has also been suggested that innovation is the most prominent factor that is essential for the characteristic of an entrepreneur.

Existing literature on entrepreneurship indeed give a picture of entrepreneurs being relevantly more innovative than individuals who lack the potential to become an entrepreneur (Koh and Ho, 1992); personality traits of entrepreneurs have been defined to have a significant effect on organizational growth (Sexton and Robinson 1994).

The Entrepreneur
The Entrepreneur

Researches also discovered that personality attributes such as internal point of control and tolerance to ambiguity influences the success of business directly and the processes of the business in an indirect manner (Vazquez and Farnendez 2000). It was complimented with later variables related to demographics to study and investigate the entrepreneur’s traits that could have a direct impact on the success or failures of entrepreneurs residing in Africa.

Even though researches on an entrepreneur’s traits have executed a crucial role in the contribution of the success of entrepreneurs all over the world, these traits have been constructively criticized grounds of theory and empirical outcomes in the studies of entrepreneur’s attributes Gartner (1988).

One of the researchers in his article, clearly addresses to who is an entrepreneur and hence suggest that asking Who is the wrong sort of question when establishing characteristics of a successful the success of a business venture is mediating phenomena and cannot be related to entrepreneurs personality traits only Gartner 1988). There was a study conducted on a segment of employees done by two researchers which helped to reveal that those individuals who are initiators at work place tend to do better than others (Frese and Fay’s 2001).

Researches on self-initialisation focuses on the nature of entrepreneurs being self-starters and not waiting for others to instruct them: hence they manage to success due to their proactive nature, hence they know exactly how to seize and utilize an opportunity with their proactive attitude, they are the solution finders rather than hurdle makers(Tag and Fresse1997).

Great initiative taking entrepreneurs are successful at staying ahead of their competing colleagues members, and therefore are considered as role models for their subordinates. Self initiators directed upon the achievement of their goal and oriented towards action (Frese et al., 1997) and therefore are in close alignment to their consistent strategy. There are similar drawn traits relating to the entrepreneurial challenge and venture creation.

It is one of the contingent variables behind which helps to predict whether an individual has the potential to become a successful entrepreneur. The majority proportion of studies executed on personal self initiation is in direct relation to performance of the employee and hence significantly limited number of studies has been published on personal and self initiation with respect to success as an entrepreneur.

Because of reduced functioning competencies of the initiators, they are generally replaced by experienced managers who possess the competency that are necessarily required to handle the company’s affairs when the situation begins to transform from a start up phase of business life cycle to a growth stage organization.

Some of the researcher was unsuccessful in finding any evidence regarding professional managers performing relatively better than initiators in companies with high than the original starters of the company. They were intending on observing that many company founders were good at managing growth in an effective manner.

There for rejecting the assumption that an only professional managers need to be employed in order to manage high growth companies (Willard, Krueger, and Freeser, 1992). This research was able to challenge the traditional views upon wisdom is it was able to reveal the process through which accomplished entrepreneurs progress through and turn themselves into competent professional managers.

Accordingly some of the researchers found that founder members of the company are also eligible to have the same competency for performing as professional managers have, there are very limited studies on the similarity between a manager and a founder of a company who are required to perform when working in a growth focused company.

Some of the researchers also discovered that most of failure in business was contributed towards the lack of appropriate managing skills (O’Neill & Duker, 1986). It has been reviewed through the literature used for this report that there are approximately 10 failing high-tech companies and were able to conclude that there were three main contributors for this failure which were financial issues, problems with either the product or market and managerial issues.

Get Test For Testing Entrepreneurship

The explanation or predictors of a person good at enterprising could be established from the background that could be uncovered about the entrepreneur. The concept being that the person eligible for enterprising would likely to share similar entrepreneur’s traits. GET2 test helps to discover the different aspect of becoming an entrepreneur an entrepreneur is not some who just starts up a completely new venture, but some of the examples arise from within the organizations as well. Such people are referred to as entrepreneurs.

Then there are also volunteers who are eager to participate in new projects and introduce new ideas within the project voluntary in the community such volunteers could be referred to as volunpreneurs. However, the tendency to enterprise could be defined as the ability to initiating a new business and then managing that business successfully.

As the complimentary assessment of a tendency to enterprise the GET test was introduced at Business School of Durham University 1988 in order to help employers gauge the entrepreneurial tendency of the candidates, who apply at their firm for a position as well as to guide the individuals willing to become an entrepreneur about their probability of having entrepreneurial characteristics, and whether they would succeed if would take such a chance.

It hence was able to generate a lot of curiosity and interest amongst academic institutions, and other venture capitalists who work globally in the field of innovative projects that are started by aspiring entrepreneurs.

Get2 test could be used for research, hiring and sponsoring of a new project. Even though this test has been implemented in many organizations to gauge effectiveness of an entrepreneur it is still not free of criticism as it has been debated that the attributes that are investigated in this test may not ensure that an individual has the eagerness to become responsible for a completely new project, and may lack the determination to complete projects on time and also the other factors like financial issues, external environmental factors and other managerial skills may not be effectively be gauged by this tool of testing the tendency to become an entrepreneur and take up new ventures.

The research on the effectiveness of GET test as a tool for measuring tendencies was mostly emerged by work of McClleland and Atkinson’s in the early 1960 suggest contrary findings which opposes the traditional view of all entrepreneurs having the same skill sets.

Strengths and Weakness of the Test

The benefits of this test are that actually provides an edge or guidance to an individual looking to become an entrepreneur on what areas he may lack in order to succeed as an entrepreneur. Another strong point of this test is that it is a relatively inexpensive method for venture capitalists and employers to analyze their candidate’s tendency to enterprise. It is also very time efficient as it immediately informs on the person capability on becoming an entrepreneur.

However, there are some drawbacks of the test as the entire test consists dichotomous option for giving a response responses. Hence this is an issue as a person cannot be more expressive towards his response and might not be able to justify the reason for not following a certain practise mentioned in the analysis.

Also, some of the personality traits associated to entrepreneurs might not be an accurate reflection of all owners of a business or entrepreneurs. Some of the characteristics that are discovered through this analysis could also be gender biased, and some of the questions may even be leading.
Conclusion Evaluation of the Get Test

The Get Test is a lengthy questionnaire with 54 closed ended questions with answers being limited to tendency to agreeing or disagreeing. The questions that I attempted in this test were quiet significant to what one would need to know in order to gauge whether he is fit to be an entrepreneur or not.

The focus of the test is to assess whether you are of a person to work as an individual or are a team person. Also, the questions seemed to correctly focus on a potential candidate’s willingness to try new things. Considering the relevant personality traits that have been defined in the literature used for this report some of the most prominent trait of an entrepreneur are innovative, risk taking and initiator or leadership traits.

The questions that I answered have all the elements that would be relevant to gauging whether an individual has these traits or not. For e.g. the test assessed me to have a high need for autonomy or independence which I would completely agree with as I would rather get all the work done in a group than rely on others to finish their task before moving onto the next agenda.

The test was also successful at gauging thee innovative or risk taking nature of a person as some of the questions related to the test like if a person would buy a lottery ticket or enter a contest both options are risky in nature but if the person would rather enter a competition he would considered being open to risk taking as well as being open to challenges and innovation, whereas a lottery buyer would be open to risk but probably not a challenge.

However, the test cannot be said to be 100% effective in gauging the entrepreneurial skills of a person as the two options of agreeing on or disagreeing on can be ambiguous in nature a lot of candidates would prefer a third option where he could be neutral in the particular question.

Summary Of The Test Result

The test gave me a score of 70% which predicts that I am likely to have succeeded in possessing some of the enterprising characteristics. My need for achievement is high however I would prefer to enterprise with ideas that would fit in with my lifestyle. My need for autonomy is extremely high, and I have high leadership skills but lack in people management skill.

My score on being innovative is medium which means I would rather start projects I am familiarized with than a completely out of the box idea. I am relatively a less risky person hence I would not take a risk alone but rather involve someone with me to share that risk. My locus of control is more than medium but not that high either which means I need to work on myself confidence in order to make a success of a venture that I would be willing to start.

References

Begley, T. M., & Boyd, D. B. (1987). Psychological characteristics associated with performance in entrepreneurial firms and small businesses. Journal of Business Venturing, 2, 79-93.

Brockhaus, R. H. Sr., & Horwitz, P. S. (1986). The psychology of the entrepreneur. In Sexton, D. L., and Smilor, R. W. (Eds.), The Art and Science of Entrepreneurship. Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 25-48.

Frese, M., Fay, D., Hilburger, T., Leng, K., & Tag, A. (1997). The concept of personal initiative: Operationalization, reliability and validity in two German samples. Journal of Organizational and Occupational Psychology, 70, 139-161.

Gartner, W. B. (1988). Who is an entrepreneur? Is the wrong question. American Journal of Small Business, 12 (4), 11-32.

Krueger, N. (1993). The impact of prior entrepreneurial exposure on perceptions of new venture feasibility and desirability. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 18 (1), 5-21

McClelland, D. C. (1987). Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs*. The journal of creative behavior, 21(3), 219-233.

 Mitton, D. G. (1989). The complete entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, 13, 9-19.

O’Neill, H.M., & J. Duker (1986).  Survival and Failure in Small Business. Journal of Small Business Management, 24 (1), 30.

Relevant Entrepreneur Characteristics Blog Posts

Effective Managers Born or Made

Human Capital Management

Click Here To View Entrepreneurship Dissertation Titles

If you enjoyed reading this post on entrepreneur characteristics, I would be very grateful if you could help spread this knowledge by emailing this post to a friend, or sharing it on Twitter or Facebook. Thank you.