How Entrepreneurial Skills and Traits Drive Business Success

Introduction

How Entrepreneurial Skills and Traits Drive Business Success – Entrepreneurship is the ability and readiness to organise, develop, and run a business operation, despite any uncertainties, to make a profit. It involves the process of launching, developing, and managing a new enterprise, along with the capacity to take risks. The individuals who create or manage these types of firms are known as entrepreneurs (Ferreira, Fernandes, and Kraus, 2019). These individuals have the capability to identify and act on opportunities, transforming technologies and inventions into products and services.

A venture is defined as a new business project or activity that involves risk. It is also referred to as a form of adventure undertaken by individuals with the ability to take risks, with the primary aim of earning a profit. Ventures are often established by small business owners through the invention of new products and services, aiming to fulfil the needs and desires of customers, as well as contributing to social welfare.

Entrepreneurial Traits

Due to COVID-19, many entrepreneurs have found themselves in a more competitive environment against large business enterprises with significant financial and resource advantages. To thrive and remain resilient in the post-COVID-19 era, several skills and traits are essential for a successful venture. During this crisis, the demand for online grocery and food delivery has rapidly increased in all cities as people faced critical situations due to lockdowns. This is a time when entrepreneurs must make the right decisions to emerge as successful leaders. Therefore, they need to possess certain skills and traits to thrive in the post-pandemic situation.

A skill is defined as the ability to perform an action to achieve specific results with a given amount of energy and time. It often requires certain situations and environmental stimuli to attain a level of success (Morozova, Popkova, and Litvinova, 2019). There are many skills performed by individuals, such as technical, life, and labour skills.

Self-regulation is a vital skill that involves managing emotions to respond rationally rather than emotionally. This means individuals must think before they act. Optimism is another crucial skill needed in the post-pandemic era for becoming a successful entrepreneur. Optimistic individuals do not let failures deter them and always strive to succeed. Although maintaining optimism is challenging, it is critical for success (Ahsan, 2020).

Creativity is essential for effective communication, which can be advantageous in this situation. These skills and traits are often inherent in risk-taking individuals, giving them the ability to respond to questions posed by others. Drive is another important trait. For many entrepreneurs, starting a new enterprise is not just about making a profit but also about having the passion to find solutions to fill a gap where there is a need. They must remain strong even during the pandemic. To achieve their goals, entrepreneurs must be determined and passionate about their work.

Bravery is an incredible quality inherent in entrepreneurs. They have the strength to handle challenging situations and the courage to make the right decisions. Entrepreneurs must have the skills and traits to take risks when entering new markets or establishing their businesses, showing bravery in all situations. Courage is also essential for leaders to try new things, trust their employees, and have confidence in others, which helps solve difficult problems (Boudreaux, Nikolaev, and Klein, 2019).

Respect is crucial for managers and leaders. When managers and leaders are respected by their employees, it leads to increased motivation among employees, resulting in higher productivity. Managers who create a positive identity in the eyes of their employees can enhance their image within the company.

Entrepreneurial traits are defined as the abilities, characteristics, and thought patterns that help entrepreneurs become successful. While many individuals are born with these traits, others must develop them over time. Some traits associated with entrepreneurs include:

  • Discipline: Entrepreneurs who are disciplined set an example for their employees, ensuring that tasks are completed on time. Leaders and managers with strong work ethics inspire determination and hard work to achieve business goals.
  • Tenacity: Entrepreneurs possess the ability to remain tough in difficult situations. They do not give up easily when faced with challenges. They can accept rejections and are willing to learn from their mistakes. They can adapt and modify their plans to succeed in the future.

Jeff Bezos is an American internet industrialist, entrepreneur, investor, and the well-known founder and CEO of the multinational technology company Amazon. He started in his garage and transformed it into a recognised online shopping portal. His knowledge and skills have led him to great success, earning him the title of “King of the Internet” (Brush et al., 2019). Bezos is known for his risk-taking abilities and being a demanding boss who does not tolerate complacency.

Several skills and traits have helped Jeff Bezos thrive, especially during the pandemic:

  • Hardcore Realism: Bezos embodies crucial entrepreneurial traits and skills that should inspire other entrepreneurs. He realistically considers all possibilities and probabilities. During the pandemic, Amazon supported society by offering proper facilities, including sanitising their products and services.
  • Flexibility: Bezos has worked in a flexible environment to protect his employees through regular check-ups, ensuring their safety and helping the economy recover. Amazon staff members have supported people by delivering supplies directly to their doorsteps.
  • High Competitiveness: Bezos is highly competitive. He does not seek competition but eliminates it. During the pandemic, Amazon reduced prices to meet customers’ needs and desires.
  • Persuasion and Influence: Bezos is a transformational leader with a strong set of values, principles, and beliefs for his company. He motivates his employees to follow these rules (Chowdhury, Audretsch, and Belitski, 2019). Additionally, he influences his employees by strengthening and developing their skills to improve their performance.

It is clear from the above that Jeff Bezos has created sustained growth for his organisation through his innovative and visionary leadership style. In reflection of this, several entrepreneurship theories are relevant, as discussed below:

Schumpeter’s Theory of Creative Destruction

Creative destruction refers to the dismantling of long-standing practices to make way for innovation. This theory, developed by Joseph Schumpeter in 1942, defines creative destruction as a transformation in the manufacturing process that leads to increased productivity. It is a dynamic and organic process that results in economic development and creates opportunities for profit. Schumpeter argued that socialism, capitalism, and democracy lead to the entry of new markets and products through new innovations. This theory describes the process where innovation replaces existing products, making them obsolete over time (Guzman and Stern, 2020).

Jeff Bezos exemplifies this theory through his ability to create new products and services that can capture significant market segments. The theory emphasises the importance of dynamism in the economic system. According to Schumpeter, long-standing assumptions and arrangements must be dismantled to free resources and energy for new innovations. This process of industrial alteration continuously revolutionises the structure of the economy by destroying the old and creating the new.

The concept of creative destruction assumes that existing resources and arrangements must be eliminated to deploy innovation. The process results in winners and losers, with entrepreneurs and employees working on new technologies designing disequilibrium and creating new opportunities. Leaders or managers who cling to old technologies will be left behind. Thus, economic development is seen as a natural outcome of market factors that create opportunities for profitability.

Jeff Bezos has utilised this theory by leveraging new technology, such as lowering product prices to satisfy all types of customers, especially during the pandemic. The internet is a prime example of creative destruction, providing numerous opportunities for companies to enjoy productivity and profitability. The main point of this theory is that it is an evolutionary process that rewards improvements and innovations, leading to efficient resource organisation (Henrekson and Sanandaji, 2020).

Furthermore, the theory describes changes in the economy through the creation of new methods, the destruction of old machinery or services, and the introduction of new ones. By creating new products, this theory fosters capitalist economic development. It highlights the flexible nature of the modern economic system, leading to a positive evolutionary process. However, there is criticism of this theory, as the implementation of new units can lead to the engagement of new technologies and financial systems, which may disrupt existing structures.

Entrepreneurial Skills and Traits
Entrepreneurial Skills and Traits – Jeff Bezos

Kirzner’s Theory of Alertness

Kirzner’s theory of alertness was developed by British-American economist and professor at New York University, Israel Kirzner. According to Kirzner, entrepreneurs balance demand and supply by identifying and exploiting market inefficiencies. He argues that the profits earned by entrepreneurs are a reward for their tolerance of uncertainties, as they capitalize on opportunities created by the incompetence and ignorance of established firms.

Jeff Bezos exemplifies this theory by being alert to economic opportunities that competitors have not yet identified. Opportunities often arise when other managers overlook them (Martin-Rojas et al., 2019). This alertness increases Amazon’s productivity and profitability.

Entrepreneurs who embrace this theory believe in seizing opportunities for their businesses. Market research and customer engagement can help identify these opportunities. As CEO of Amazon, Bezos demonstrates the skill of acquiring resources and innovating new products and services to take economic action. Kirzner’s theory argues that the entrepreneurial innovation process is linked to a manager’s knowledge and experience. Alertness enables individuals to make valuable discoveries that satisfy human needs.

Entrepreneurs must cultivate alertness to exploit situations where they can buy low and sell high. This theory highlights the importance of exploitation, opportunity, and exploration. Kirzner examines entrepreneurial alertness at an individual level (Horst and Murschetz, 2019). Alertness to opportunity often involves subconscious learning, which, once realized, becomes a positive force for entrepreneurs to exploit profits. By being alert, entrepreneurs can explore opportunities using all available resources, including human and financial aspects.

One obstacle in this theory is that decision-makers might miss unnoticed profit opportunities, leading to ignorance of existing prices. However, the logic of entrepreneurial discovery is compatible with strategies of intentional search and the creation of new opportunities, despite the uncertainty involved.

Entrepreneurial Conclusion

From the above analysis, it is concluded that an entrepreneur is a person who undertakes a small business venture with the motive of earning profit and contributing to the welfare of society. Entrepreneurs are individuals with skills and traits that enhance the profitability and productivity of business operations.

Key skills that contribute to the success of ventures include the ability to manage and raise money, maintain productivity, and identify strengths and weaknesses when hiring people. Additionally, entrepreneurs possess traits that boost the productivity of their ventures, such as effective leadership, learning from experience, and developing approaches that enhance the goodwill of the firm.

References

Books and Journals

Ahsan, M., 2020. Entrepreneurship and ethics in the sharing economy: A critical perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 161(1), pp.19-33.

Boudreaux, C.J., Nikolaev, B.N. and Klein, P., 2019. Socio-cognitive traits and entrepreneurship: The moderating role of economic institutions. Journal of Business Venturing, 34(1), pp.178-196.

Brush, C. and et. al., 2019. A gendered look at entrepreneurship ecosystems. Small Business Economics, 53(2), pp.393-408.

Chowdhury, F., Audretsch, D.B. and Belitski, M., 2019. Institutions and entrepreneurship quality. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 43(1), pp.51-81.

Ferreira, J.J., Fernandes, C.I. and Kraus, S., 2019. Entrepreneurship research: Mapping intellectual structures and research trends. Review of Managerial Science, 13(1), pp.181-205.

Guzman, J. and Stern, S., 2020. The State of American Entrepreneurship: New Estimates of the Quantity and Quality of Entrepreneurship for 32 US States, 1988–2014. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 12(4), pp.212-243.

Henrekson, M. and Sanandaji, T., 2020. Measuring entrepreneurship: Do established metrics capture Schumpeterian entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 44(4), pp.733-760.

Horst, S.O. and Murschetz, P.C., 2019. Strategic media entrepreneurship: Theory development and problematization. Journal of Media Management and Entrepreneurship (JMME), 1(1), pp.1-26.

Martin-Rojas, R. and et. al., 2019. Technological antecedents of entrepreneurship and its consequences for organizational performance. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 147, pp.22-35.

Morozova, I.A., Popkova, E.G. and Litvinova, T.N., 2019. Sustainable development of global entrepreneurship: Infrastructure and perspectives. International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, 15(2), pp.589-597.

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

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.

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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.

Entrepreneurs Are Born and Not Nurtured

Entrepreneurs Are Born and Not Nurtured

In my point of view every debate has to sides, and “what born an entrepreneur” but according to the arguments from previous many decades neither side capable to finally prove their case. According to many people entrepreneur must possess personality traits like vision, drive and passion that are inborn and cannot be taught. Others discuss that skills of operating a business, motivating a people and evaluating opportunities are easily passed on to excited or eager students to be entrepreneurs. The fact is that both types of arguments are right and it is time for compromise, “entrepreneurs are born and can be trained”. Some people immediately start a business due to their inherent entrepreneur qualities, others will have trained and studied hard and long before doing so, and both enjoy success.

The need to comprehend entrepreneurship has been gained a great importance to get success in corporate business (Dess et.all,2003). Entrepreneurs pursue and identify solutions among problems, opportunities among challenges and possibilities among needs (Byers, Dorf, and Nelson, 2001). The entrepreneur is an imaginative, bold deviator from commenced business practices and methods who regularly tries the opportunity to introduce new technologies, products, arrangements and processes in the entire world. Successful entrepreneur must have the basic internal capabilities to cope with challenges that are aroused during a startup. The most vital personal characteristics of entrepreneurs are reasonable intelligence, optimistic disposition, good health, perseverance, lengthy attention span and love of people.

Entrepreneurship has critical importance with respect to change in entire aspects of society. It empowers individuals to attempt opportunities to resolve insurmountable problems and issues. From previous century, the role of entrepreneurs have been increased in the creation of enterprises that lead to improved productivity, job creation, higher quality of life and increased prosperity. Now it is contributing to solutions of society’s huge challenges like environment, energy, health, education and security. They use technology and innovation to foster activity and positive impact in entire facets of life. The capable and successful entrepreneur learns to select, identify, describe and communicate the essence of opportunity that has a great potential or role to become a successful venture. The entrepreneur is capable to explain the potential contributions of a venture and develop the business design that leads to sustainability and competitive advantage (Byers, Dorf, and Nelson, 2001).

Entrepreneurs born or made: The initial concept is that entrepreneurs are born and also they can be trained. Now I want to explain my views with the arguments of various researchers and scholars. Various researchers and scholars have various views about the current topic but all has emphasized the importance of entrepreneurship. According to author entrepreneurs are born and cannot be made or trained. They differentiated on the basis of insatiable desire for an inherent love and success of entire things entrepreneurial. They have built in qualities for developing long lasting business by dealing with various risks, challenges and hazardous issues. They have strong positive behavior toward initiation of new things or innovations (Ericksen, 2002). Ericksen had strong hard views regarding the current topic. In 2001, three authors gave contrast views regarding entrepreneurs. They said entrepreneurs can be trained. According to author attitude of entrepreneur impacts the initial success of venture and the same attitude require to show with employees of organization to continue the power of entrepreneur that develops competitive advantage. Authors say “you can hire attitude, and everything can be trained to get a success (Byers, Dorf, and Nelson, 2001).

Professor of psychology, Alan Jacobowitz did interview over 500 entrepreneurs and concluded that entrepreneurs are innate and cannot be trained. He tells the common personality traits of entrepreneurs like independence, restlessness, high self-confidence and tendency to be a loner. Professor was adopted static approach and many other researchers were also support the view of professor (McFadzean, O’Loughlin, and Shaw, 2005). Further authors said that tells the motivation, desires, ability to project their schemes or ideas into future, turn their ideas into reality and backing their judgments into persistence and action are some basis and unique qualities of entrepreneurs. They are also opportunity seekers. There is no any difficulty to find the entrepreneurs because two are not the same so it is easy to point out who is entrepreneur. Some entrepreneurs are introverts and some are extroverts, some have family background of entrepreneurship while other do not have, some start from wealth and other begins with poverty, some are old and some are young.

Entrepreneurs Are Born and Not Nurtured
Entrepreneurs Are Born and Not Nurtured

The question regarding “entrepreneurs are born no can be trained” is main point of focus for many researchers and academic scholars. Regarding this issue many scholars have divergent views. Frakes, author of instinct believe that entrepreneurs are born and DNA of entrepreneurs, their genetics and personality play a pivotal role in whether they become a good entrepreneur or not. To become a successful entrepreneurs five big personality traits are required that include emotional stability, extraversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness and openness to change. These traits cannot be created through training. But in the contrary, Professor Neal Thornberry said that entrepreneurs are not only born but can be trained to become successful through creating and learning the specific inherits characteristics. Thornberry also give the examples of Fred smith (founder of Fedral Express) and Herb Kelleher (southwest Airlines co-founder) and said both entrepreneurs got success after long term commitment and many years of diligent preparation (Thornberry, 2003).

Herb Kelleher replied in his interview taken by Thornberry on the issue of whether entrepreneurs are born or not. He said six inborn traits cannot be trained into entrepreneurs include good health, reasonable intelligence, lengthy attention, optimistic disposition, love of people and perseverance. These six traits further classified into three basic points of health, attitude and intelligence. Herb gave the more importance to attitude from all personal characteristics and it only the one that cannot be trained or made. He reflects the right attitude to be crucial and it cannot be trained. On the other hand, several teachable capabilities that can increase chances of success like ability to set goals and listening (Thornberry, 2003).

Herb tell that other than innate skills there are many skills that can be learnt and taught, that better contribute for entrepreneur’s success. These skills include broad education and knowledge, capability to play enthusiastic advocate, listening skills, capability to focus on goals and set priorities, capability to screen out the vital ideas and things from unimportant and pleasant skepticism. According to herb, lucid vision and ability to communicate it deliberately to others are most vital skills and capabilities required by successful entrepreneurs. Therefore, entrepreneurs are trained and born, and need a blend of these two to become successful. The entrepreneur’s natural born characteristics are foundations or building blocks on which they can build upon (Thornberry, 2003). Modern entrepreneurs require range of various skills like strong ability to communicate in complex and abstract situations effectively (Ericksen, 2002).

From previous two decades many efforts has been made to establish programs to teach ambitious and eager people to realize their entrepreneur potential and start their own business effectively. This is a good notion with a long term goal. But some proficiency like find funding sources or developing a business plan can be learned or taught while basic profile of entrepreneur is imbedded in the structure of personality. There are two fundamental needs that recognized the importance of entrepreneur, they are recognition and control. Most entrepreneurs starts their own businesses because cannot do business in others control. They like to run independent business where they can show their extra ordinary efforts and abilities to gain more and more profits and productivity. They are self-sufficient and self-confident people who have courage to take initiation and deal haphazard or hazardous issues effectively for the best interest of their enterprise (Laser, 2007).

It has been long standing discussed all over the world whether entrepreneurs are born or is it mandatory for them to study and work hard to become entrepreneurs. It has been found that some people became good entrepreneurs with a single amount so it was their luck to gain the potential position. There are some characteristic which is necessary for entrepreneurs to adopt them and become a good entrepreneurs (McCubbrey, 2009): The main characteristics of entrepreneurs are depicted below:

Vision: entrepreneur must able to communicate and create a lucid vision and easily comprehend able mission for the new venture in order to launch a novel business successfully. This can be accomplished through great and extra ordinary qualities of leadership. It is necessary to extra ordinary influence people to accomplish vision and mission of enterprise. Leadership qualities have great importance for entrepreneurs. Successful entrepreneurs are good leaders. Leadership is the ability to influence other to accomplish organizational goals (Robbins and Coulter, 2007). Leaders give the clear direction to their followers toward the goals. They give the motivation to their followers so that followers can ready to accomplish the extra and targeted tasks for the best completion of organizational goals and objectives. Further, vision tells the entrepreneurs what they want to become and mission tells that what is their business or what they want to accomplish in the larger business environment.

Creativity: It refers to the ability to inject uniqueness and imagination into a novel business venture. It also the ability of entrepreneur to create new products, ideas, processes, techniques to become a good and successful entrepreneur in the world. It enables the entrepreneur to offer new venture in the market with novel strategies to cope with stronger competition. Further, creativity leads to enhance the profitability of enterprise through offering and developing novel products or ideas. This profitability and productivity leads to get the competitive advantage in the market to maintain the position of sustainable market leadership. Leaders or entrepreneurs shape the culture of organization through their creative abilities. Therefore, creative mind entrepreneurs cannot get success for their enterprises.

Focus: It is the ability of entrepreneur to sustain the vision of enterprise with steadfast diligence and passion. So it is necessary for entrepreneurs to emphasis on their vision and mission to maintain the sustainable competitive advantage of their enterprises. It is easy for entrepreneurs to get diverted especially in case to accomplish their original vision. Paradoxically, many entrepreneurs get bored easily. Therefore, it is the need of current competitive era; entrepreneurs should emphasis on their goals and remain focus on them for long term basis instead the completion of single task. Passion: Desire to get success under their own initiation for business venture is also the quality of every entrepreneur. It is mandatory for leaders to maintain extra ordinary enthusiasm and passion to accomplish their goals and objectives. Leaders have the ability to create thrill and passion in their followers to accomplish the organizational goals with great zeal and enthusiasm. In this regard motivation has great role. Leaders give motivation to their followers which create the sense of accomplishment in followers toward their goals. Overall motivation has positive impact throughout organizational setting.

Drive: Entrepreneurs have an intrinsic energy to attain the goals of business even in the situation of adversity. They work through showing extra ordinary drive in the larger competitive environment to maintain the sustainability of their enterprises. Strong drive to get success enables the entrepreneurs to cope with unique problems and situations which ultimately support for organizational success. Perseverance: It is the ability of entrepreneurs to remain faced or keep going when faced with insurmountable obstacles. This tendency of entrepreneurs shows their great commitment and zeal toward organizational goals. Opportunistic nature: Ability to see the possibilities before their occurrence or existence. It enables the entrepreneurs to take the advantage of upcoming trends or combine unrelated processes to develop an innovative business venture. This quality can lead to get competitive advantage in the market with comparative innovations related to products, ideas, processes and methods. Today there is era of global competition so it is mandatory for entrepreneurs to create the competitive advantage for their enterprises in the market with their great nature to find the new opportunities. Ability to solve problems: Successful entrepreneurs have thrives on going on exact solutions to complex or abstract problems or issues. It is very necessary ability to cope with haphazard situations.

Frugality: Ability to know about how to stretch every single dollar so that expenditures keep as low as possible. Empathy: It is the capability to put you in front of others and so able to show understanding and sensitivity of what other are communicating or wants in the beginning environment. Social Responsibility: The today’s entrepreneur’s common characteristics are caring, ethics and humanitarianism. Spirituality: It has been found that all successful entrepreneurs devote their time to develop spirituality. Positive affirmations and meditation are two basic examples of spirituality. Good Timing: Ability to identify a better market opportunity and knowledge about the optimum time to introduce a novel venture or expand existing enterprise. This quality has great importance in today’s business environment. The last characteristic entrepreneurs are luck which has great contribution in their success. In the world, luck has vital role in every field of life. If there is no luck, there is no success.

Examples of EntrepreneursBill Gates, a founder of Microsoft is an innate or inborn entrepreneur of the world and also he is the richest person of the world. He became entrepreneurs in the age of 13 years by developing software. Bill Gates change world of computer. He is the most teen ager billionaire of the world.

Another example of inborn entrepreneur is Mark Zukurburg, a founder of Facebook. He also got the position of billionaire from the age of 20 as Bill Gates. Zukerburg change the world of internet and provide a platform for people through largest social media.

Owner of Chick N’ Friends Inc., Rhodney Lloyd, done MBS from U.C. Berkeley. It was initial step for him to become a trained entrepreneur. After education he started his advertising agency in Oakland, Calif. He got entrepreneurships after got training.

Entrepreneur’s challenges: The problems and needs of entire population are enormous. From organizational inadequacies to corruption, environmental sustainability to security, transportation to communication and overloaded information to disease, the opportunities for people to develop a positive differential impact are vast. But entrepreneurs are persons who pursue and identify tremendous possibilities among needs, viable solutions among problems, and creative opportunities among challenges (Byers, Dorf, and Nelson, 2001). It is the quality of entrepreneurs to better cope with potential challenges for the long term success of their enterprises.

In concussion, entrepreneurs struggle to show a difference in entire world and support to its wellbeing. They mobilize resources, identify opportunities, and relentlessly committed on their visions and missions. Further, it is concluded from above discussion that good and successful entrepreneurs have both composition, innate qualities of entrepreneurship that help them to drive the any process to success, also they can learned these qualities through experience and training. For this reason it is concluded that “entrepreneurs are born and can be trained”. Many entrepreneurs have God gifted qualities to become good entrepreneurs while others enhance their qualities and skills through various types of learning and training. To develop experimental knowledge in entrepreneurs has great importance as incremental process during the entire working life. It means that tries to stimulate “actual life” experience via various modes of training and education are have a strong impact or influence on the creation or development of entrepreneurs (Higgins and Elliott, 2011)

Further, to learn the qualities of successful entrepreneur it is necessary for them to have good leadership qualities. These qualities support the entrepreneurs to accomplish the various difficult tasks and mission of enterprise. It is a challenge for entrepreneur to respond various difficult tasks and remain committed to undertake the needed enterprise. Therefore, I strongly recommended that training and formal education for entrepreneurs create positive differential impact in the field of entrepreneurship.

References

Byers, T. H., Dorf, R. C., and Nelson, A. J. (2001), “Technology Ventures from Idea to Enterprise”, New   York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Dess, G. G., Ireland, R. D., Zahra, S. A., Floyd, S. W., Janney, J. J., and Lane, P. J. (2003), “Emerging issues in corporate entrepreneurship”, Journal of Management, 29(3), pp. 351-378.

Ericksen, G. K. (2002), “The Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award Insights from the Winners’ Circle”, the Earnest and Young,

Higgins, D., and Elliott, C. (2011), “Learning to make sense: what works in entrepreneurial education?”, Journal of European Industrial Training, 35(4), pp.345-367

Laser, S. A. (2007), “Are Entrepreneurs Made or Born?”, Stephen A. Laser Associates 200 South Wacker Drive,

McCubbrey, D. J. (2009), “Business Fundamentals”, Zurich, Switzerland: The Global Text,

McFadzean, E., O’Loughlin, A., and Shaw, E. (2005), “Corporate entrepreneurship and innovation part 1: the missing link”, European Journal of Innovation Management, 8(3), pp.350-372

Robbins, S., and Coulter, M. (2007), “Principles of Management”, 9th edition, Prentice Hall Inc,

Thornberry, N. E. (2003), “Corporate entrepreneurship: teaching managers to be entrepreneurs”, Journal of Management Development, 22(4), pp.329-344

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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.

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