Definition of Entrepreneurship
The investigations around such critical element of entrepreneurial theory like entrepreneurship have been taking place for a long period of time due to inability to give one agreed definition and introduce it to a wide range of people. Basically, entrepreneurship may be defined as a powerful catalyst of economic development and growth.
Its ability to promote success in different spheres of life by means of competitions, innovations, and commercialisation makes the concept of entrepreneurship an important issue for consideration. Therefore, some experts admit that entrepreneurship may be discovered as a combination of innovation, growth, and strategic focus.
Hisrich (2013) writes that entrepreneurship is “developing something new with value by dedicating the required time, commitment, and perseverance, undertaking the associated risks and rewards with the objective of achieving prosperity and wealth” (p. 7). Carland (2010) introduces entrepreneurship as “the backbone of the economy and the economic engine which is necessary to restore economic success to a nation suffering from spiralling costs and job losses” (p. 40).
Considering such interpretations, entrepreneurship may be emerged as a potential growth of activities supported by innovation, strategic endeavours, and focus on what should be invented and commercialised at the same time.
Myths about Entrepreneurs and Their Roles
Talking about entrepreneurship, the role of the main participants of the process, entrepreneurs, cannot be omitted. An entrepreneur is a manager, who has to undertake many activities like considering innovation, making decisions, focusing an object, using different resources, promoting economic change, etc. to prove the importance of the chosen business.
A good entrepreneur should have a number of qualities in order to become a true professional in the chosen sphere of business. The research tells us that people get used to think about entrepreneurs not as correct as it should really be. It is time to focus on the myths, which take place around the concept of entrepreneurship.
One of the most common myths is the level of entrepreneur’s education. People say that entrepreneurs are usually the smartest and most high achieving among the rest. However, it is not actually true. As a rule, the majority of entrepreneurs have their Bachelor degrees (Malerba 2010).
They do not find it necessary to spend much time on education but try to focus on the development of the chosen affair and rely on personal experience instead of theoretical basis. Another myth is about the way of how entrepreneurs work. It is said that entrepreneurs are born not made. Again, it is not true. It is hard to find families of entrepreneurs.
As a rule, a good entrepreneur makes him/herself independently using personal interests and ideas. However, it is necessary not to confuse an individual approach for work and individualism at work. The point is that all entrepreneurs like to work in teams to achieve better results. They do not rely on their charisma. Entrepreneurship has also nothing in common with risks.
Though some entrepreneurs admit that they like to put everything on risk, still, they can hardly do this because they prefer to weight all pros and cons of the chosen affair and then take a step that minimise the level of risk to zero (Burns 2011). Finally, good entrepreneurs should never be treated as undisciplined gamblers. Some people like to think that mess and rules’ breaking are the main theme in entrepreneurship. Still, there are not many entrepreneurs, who neglect discipline. In fact, discipline is one of the key factors of successful entrepreneurship.
Psychological Traits and Behaviours of Entrepreneurs
As it has been said before, entrepreneurs are not born. They are made. In fact, they are usually made of professionalism and a number of personal traits, which help to understand what should be done and how something should be analysed.
Those, who believe that famous entrepreneurs like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs start working in order to become rich, will never become good entrepreneurs. The research shows that all their actions and ideas are based on their passion. It is passion that motivates ordinary managers to create something bigger; it is passion that helps to realise the most important entrepreneurial goals; it is passion that creates a fundamental basis for a future work (Hisrich 2013).
Still, it is never enough to be passionate about something. The already succeeded entrepreneurs admit that self-belief plays also an important role in becoming a successful entrepreneur. Self-belief is the trait that helps entrepreneurs to understand that their ideas are right. They do not believe, they just know. Is it selfish? Yes, it is. However, it is necessary. Of course, a bit of luck is an additional factor that should go alongside with self-confidence and passion.
Risk-taking attitude should be considered (Wickham 2006). It is all about the trait that is called tolerance of ambiguity. People know that a certain portion of risk exists. People understand that some challenges have to be overcome.
Therefore, entrepreneurs realise that their attitude to risk should be adequate – no panic, despair, nor doubts. Only belief in self, passion, and tolerance should guide to the successful final of the chosen affair. At the same time, future entrepreneurs believe in opportunities, which are available for them. If it is impossible to spot an opportunity, a good entrepreneur should realise how it is possible to create an opportunity.
Money should not be regarded as a final stop in the development of an affair. Money should be also regarded as a measure, an opportunity to achieve something bigger. It is never necessary to stop using resources around – people, occasions, telephone calls, and even the mistakes of other people.
Properly identified opportunities become good motivating factors for entrepreneurs. “Successful entrepreneurs, whatever their individual motivation – to it money, power, curiosity, or the desire for fame and recognition – try to create value and to make a contribution” (Drucker 2007, p. 31).
They define a chance to get involved into entrepreneurship as an opportunity to gain control over own destiny, enjoy this life, make a difference, etc. Entrepreneurs aim at introducing innovations to people, therefore, the role of innovation in entrepreneurship has to be evaluated as well.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Innovation performs one of the key roles in entrepreneurship. Drucker (2007) introduces innovation as “the specific tool of entrepreneurs, the means by which they exploit change as an opportunity for a different business or a different service” (p.17). Still, it is a big mistake to believe that innovation is equal to invention. Innovation does have connection to invention; but it is not enough to be an invention in order to become an innovation.
Something more is needed in order to make an invention more important, more available to ordinary people, and more interesting to possible shareholders. In other words, invention should make a value for a world, and this process is called commercialisation. Therefore, innovation is a combination of invention and commercialisation. Entrepreneurship requires an idea, an invention.
Still, an idea independently is cheap, this is why it needs some value, and the process of commercialisation can make an idea a profitable innovation that provides entrepreneurship with success. It is impossible to promote an idea neglecting a commercial opportunity, this is why the role of creativity in entrepreneurship turns out to be a doubtful issue. The connection between an innovation and creativity is specific indeed. Innovation as well as creativity is defined as something new for an organisation.
Still, innovation may be borrowed, stole, taken, or developed. Ziegler (2011) admits that innovation is something new but not original. Creativity, in its turn, is an idea that is generated under the circumstances required for an organisation. It is a completely new idea of doing something rather than searching for an incremental change (Burns 2011).
Creativity seems to be harder than innovation and more important within one particular organisation. Entrepreneurship taken more global positions and requires more confident steps even if they are small, they have to be innovating and supported by a commercial opportunity.
Governmental Support of Entrepreneurial Start-Ups and High Growth Venture
Governments play an important role in assisting entrepreneurs, facilitating and encouraging start-up development. At the start-up stage, government may help to set up networks, choose the most appropriate contacts, and facilitate the process of funding itself. At the high growth stage, governments have all chances to assist companies with funding their own expansions.
At this stage, companies are able to demonstrate their potential, opportunities, and innovations, it is high time for the government to provide a chance to earn revenues and promote further development. Governments should understand that potentially successful entrepreneurs do not find it necessary to replace or change something.
As a rule, such entrepreneurs prefer to build from scratch and turn innovation into something valuable for society. Governments find it necessary to support social entrepreneurship the most as they find this type of activity crucial in discussing social problems.
Social Entrepreneurship
Ziegler (2011) introduces social entrepreneurship as a source of hope (p. 1) that provides people with a new chance to analyse social problems and press them within a short period of time. Promotion of social entrepreneurship requires the presence of a number of behavioural traits like confidence, the desire to make a difference, the necessity to improve something, and even the desire to gain control over something that is important for society. All these traits have been discussed in the paper.
Reference List
Burns, P 2011, Entrepreneurship and small business: Start-up, growth and maturity, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hampshire.
Carland, JW 2010, ‘Entrepreneurship education: Building for the future’, Journal of Business and Entrepreneurship, vol. 22, no. 2, pp. 40-59.
Drucker, P 2007, Innovation and entrepreneurship, Harper Collins, New York.
Hisrich, RD 2013, Managing innovation and entrepreneurship, SAGE Publications, London.
Malerba, F 2010, Knowledge intensive entrepreneurship and innovation systems: Evidence from Europe, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon.
Wickham, PA 2006, Strategic entrepreneurship, Prentice Hall, London.
Ziegler, R 2011, An introduction to social entrepreneurship, Edward Elgar Publishing, Cheltenham, Glos.