Assignment on Task 2 Introduction of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is getting common in our society as modern educational institutes are promoting creativity and innovative behavior in students. Although, another supporting factor for the promotion of entrepreneurship is government interest in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship brings stability in the economic condition of an economy by reducing unemployment and increasing business transactions in a country. Considering this, the government takes an interest in entrepreneurship to make the economy strong and stable. Considering this importance of entrepreneurship, present work is consists of information regarding successful entrepreneurs. In the present work, traits, skills, and resources of successful entrepreneurs are identified. Moreover, present work also covers risk-taking attitude, aggressiveness, as well as the impact of background and experiences on entrepreneurs. 

Distinctive Traits, Skills, and Resources of Successful Entrepreneurs

An entrepreneur is a person who runs and operates the business activities of an enterprise. While on the other hand, the manager is not the owner of an enterprise like an entrepreneur. A manager is a person who works in an organization to manage resources (including human resources and production resources). The characteristics and qualities of successful entrepreneurs and managers are almost the same. For instance, accountability, effective decision making, and leadership are the key qualities of both entrepreneurs and managers. However, some traits, skills, and resources associated with entrepreneurs and managers vary and differentiate each other. Key differences between entrepreneurs and managers are presented below in the table.

Additionally, research conducted on entrepreneurs studied the personality traits of leaders (managers) and entrepreneurs. The following figure represents their personality traits by venture role. According to this figure, entrepreneurs have more agreeableness, innovativeness, need for achievement, extraversion, openness, and internal LOC as compared to managerial staff of an organization.

Apart from this, entrepreneurs are also required to be resilient and stress-tolerant to take a risky decision for future benefits.

Moreover, self-confidence and effective decision makings skills of entrepreneurs make them successful in the market. Entrepreneurs are also required to have expertise in some particular skills regarding business operations to be a successful entrepreneur. For instance, Mark Zuckerberg is the youngest successful entrepreneur who utilized his technical skills in software and IT to start-up his own business. Creative skills are also required for successful entrepreneurs as creativity encouraged them to represent an innovative and novel business idea. Creativity ever benefits an entrepreneur but it never ends. According to Maya Angelou:

“You cannot use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have”.

Moreover, passion is also required to make an entrepreneur a successful entrepreneur. An example of a successful entrepreneur is Steve Jobs, who was the founder of Apple Inc. According to him, an entrepreneur can change the world with passion; therefore, passion is a must for entrepreneurs. Regarding, successful entrepreneurship, he said (Patel, 2017):

“I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

            Moreover, entrepreneurs are born leaders. According to a book written on entrepreneurs by professor Scott Shane, genes of a person influence his future earning patterns and styles. Genes determine how a person will make money in the future by starting a business or working on a job under someone’s supervision. Following the outcomes of this study, entrepreneurs are leaders by birth; they lead the life of leaders by leading and managing others and thinking out of the box while they prefer to lead rather than following the instructions of a supervisor or instructors.

Risk-taking Attitude of Entrepreneurs of Entrepreneurship

According to a book written on entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs are different from other people and managerial staff of an organization. Entrepreneurs can meet with uncertain conditions by taking risks and tolerating ambiguities. Entrepreneurs take the risk when they come in a  market with the innovative product even when they know consumers are already buying an alternative product or consumers are not demanding their product already. Standing against competitive forces also increases the risk factor for entrepreneurs as strong competitors can influence business outcomes with market monopoly. Thus, starting up a business of an innovative product is it-self taking a risk because of the uncertainty of consumer demand regarding offered products and services. Excluding all these, entrepreneurs also take business risks regarding financial outcomes.

According to a research article, risk-taking the attitude of entrepreneurs is presented below in a line graph.

Following this line chart, the entrepreneur has a more risk-taking attitude as compared to other employees, leaders, and managerial staff of an organization. Based on survey findings, the entrepreneur's relative risk premium is for financial risk is around 0.41, and it almost double to 0.24 of leaders. However, for general risk calculated relative risk premium is around 0.22 and 0.13 for entrepreneurs and leaders (organizational management), respectively. Somehow, following the research findings of this research, entrepreneurs enjoy general and financial risk more than managers because of their internal confidence and need for achievement (Kerr, Kerr, & Dalton, 2019).

Aggressiveness of Entrepreneurs

            Aggressiveness is the most valuable and highly influencing characteristic of an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur takes decisions aggressively without paying too much attention to uncertain conditions and risk factors. Aggressive behavior works as a driver of motivation for an entrepreneur. Without aggression and passion, one cannot be a successful entrepreneur. According to the research findings, entrepreneurs get motivation from their extreme behavior to work on something new and challenging. Entrepreneurs deal with uncertainties to win against these risk factors and satisfy their internal aggressive behavior. Researchers identified that a majority of successful entrepreneurs had the intrinsic motivation that encouraged them to take the risk and start up their own business rather than starting their career with a job after the completion of their studies. There are many advantages and disadvantages to this aggressive behavior for entrepreneurs. For instance, a key advantage of aggressiveness for the entrepreneur is that it allows an entrepreneur to continuously replenished motivation. However, entrepreneurs sometimes take a highly risky decision because of their aggressive behavior that works as a disadvantage. The highly aggressive personality of entrepreneurs can cause to enhance risk factors regarding financial profit and the overall career of entrepreneurs.

Background and Experience of Entrepreneurship

Human being learns from his society and personal experiences. How a person perceives something or how a person takes decisions all depends upon the personal experiences and family background. A research study conducted on the family backgrounds and entrepreneur concluded that individual decisions regarding a job or entrepreneurship get influence from family backgrounds and the influence of society in which a person lives. In this research study, researchers studied the behavior of 700000 siblings. Researchers found that male individuals whose brothers or siblings were already working as entrepreneurs prefer to initiate their own business rather than looking for a job to start their career. However, parental entrepreneurship also influences the mind-set of individuals regarding entrepreneurship and personal businesses (Lindquist, Sol, Praag, & Vladasel, 2016).

Critical evaluation of background and experience as an independent variable for entrepreneurs conclude that in various industries (including food and hospitality industries), personal interest and previous experiences matter for entrepreneurship as well as the success of entrepreneurs. Furthermore, in information technology and communication industries, background and personal experiences are highly influencing factors for entrepreneurship as these industries require specific knowledge and skills in the relevant field to work as a successful entrepreneur. Take the example of two successful entrepreneurs Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg. These entrepreneurs had an educational background and experiences in this relevant industry that supported them to become market leaders easily. Background and experiences influence entrepreneurs negatively as well as positively. These factors can influence negatively sometimes, but an intelligent entrepreneur can handle these factors if he/she is committed and passionate regarding that selected product or business idea. For instance, because of limited background knowledge and experiences regarding bulbs and telephones, successful entrepreneurs of history, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Alva Edison faced challenging situations. However, they handled these challenges and became successful entrepreneurs because of their passion and creativity.

Conclusion of Entrepreneurship

The whole discussion concludes that the entrepreneur is the individual who owns an enterprise and manages all business operations of this enterprise. Key characteristics, traits, and skills of entrepreneurs are different from managers as both have to work on different work responsibilities. The entrepreneur gets motivation from achievements; thus, they mainly focus on achievements while taking general and financial risk.