Starting up a business is not a smooth affair owing to the underlying risk factors and uncertainties attached to it. There is no surety that a business shall flourish, also it is not sure whether the business at all shall reap the desired amount of revenue. The fate of a business depends entirely upon the person who can maneuver through the risks and uncertainties and skilfully and stabilize the venture. To overcome the risks without evading it is precisely what entrepreneurship and the task of an entrepreneur is all about (Martin, McNally and Kay 2013). The topic of discussion to be taken up for this particular report is going to be an analysis of the concept of entrepreneurship and a critique of it. The following sections shall be discussion on the various concepts of entrepreneurship and their respective critical analyses. For better comprehension of the theoretical construct, an account of the details of an interview shall be provided with analysis and relation to the theoretical aspects.
Entrepreneurship has been agreed upon as the fourth factor of production, apart from land, labour and capital. Entrepreneurship is intangible and is essentially a capability and skill based aspect which seeks to make the best possible use of the limited availability of resources such as land, labour and capital for deriving the maximum output out of it (Estrin, Korosteleva and Mickiewicz 2013). The concept of entrepreneurship had emerged in the 1700s. During that point of time, right when the idea cane into being it simply pertained to an individual who took the initiative of starting a business (Onyemah, Pesquera and Ali 2013). Over the years with the drastic transformation of social and economic factors, and the shift of organizations from a standard of relative simplicity to a high degree of complexity, the definitional and conceptual construction of Entrepreneurship has also undergone changes.
In today’s post-modern world, an entrepreneur is not simply the one to start a business. The post requires that the occupier plays the role of being an innovator, and a visionary who shall exhibit the potentialities of meandering through newer avenues for seeking as well as producing newer opportunities (Carlsson et al. 2013). It is also necessary that the entrepreneur is also a smart and effective communicator who can use his or her communication skills effectively to hegemonies the employees, win over their process of thought and make them identify with the vision he or she as an entrepreneur nurtures, albeit persuasively. The task of communicating is very vital and since the entrepreneur has to achieve the target by the scarcely available resources, it becomes contingent on part of the person occupying the post to make the employees of an organization realize that the goal shall pose to be mutually beneficial to both the company and to the employees as well (Zahra, Newey and Li 2014). An entrepreneur is thus expected to have the most basic qualities of being a smart and charismatic communicator and the one to create hegemony among the employees. These qualities are essential for the entrepreneur to play the allied role of being the educator, the guide and the binding force behind keeping the team spirit of unity intact. The first quality of being a leader can be called to have a direct connection to German Sociologist, Max Weber’s categorization of authority, based on certain desired qualities and attributes in a bureaucratic organization (Foley and O’Connor 2013). The post of an entrepreneur is supposed to be identified with Weber’s conception of rational legal authority and that of a charismatic authority. The former category of authority is exercised by an entrepreneur by virtue of the office that the person holds which bestows the duty and the status of being at a level of hierarchy higher than the employees. Naturally, the entrepreneur deserves respect and obedience because of the post which he or she holds (Vanevenhoven 2013). The latter category of authority, that is of charismatic authority is supposed to be the prerogative of an entrepreneur as he or she is expected to have a charming personality which shall cast an overwhelming influence over the employees in taking them into confidence. This requires the necessary skills to be a good manipulator who shall skillfully use ideological means to make the employees act the way he or she as an occupier of the post of an entrepreneur imagines (Dorado and Ventresca 2013). This point of ideological grooming leads to Italian Marxist thinker, Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony through which he had explained how the state uses non-violent means to persuade people into obedience using channels of communication and socialization, apart from violent tactics (Hunt 2015). The entrepreneur despite occupying an authoritative post is not supposed to act in a blatantly autocratic manner. Rather, the entrepreneur is expected to appeal to the intellectual predispositions of an employee to think a particular way and relate that to the goal of the entrepreneur. The vitality and inevitability of persuasion lies in the fact that coercive tactics can render the psyche of the employees demotivated, disenchanted and alienated from the goal to be achieved (Sciascia, Mazzola and Chirico 2013). Thereby, the fulfillment of the desired goal shall suffer, and in turn the organization shall be experiencing a negative cascading effect of it in terms of incurring financial losses.
Having discussed about the definitional aspect and the qualities expected of an entrepreneur by placing it in theoretical rubric, now the critical analytical aspect shall be taken up. As it has already been mentioned that the job profile of an entrepreneur involves a tremendous amount of risk, and for any untoward consequence the entrepreneur has to bear the blame of the consequences, as much as he or she deserves praise and appreciation for accomplishing the goal successfully. An entrepreneur has to devote oneself to a relentless exercise of rising above the set standards and come up with innovative ideas perpetually. Stagnancy or mediocrity is not something which an entrepreneur can afford to be having, since the constant state of fluctuations and changes in the market scenario makes entrepreneur face newer challenges and competitions on a regular basis. An entrepreneur has to maintain a constant sense of alarm so that he or she does not miss out on any opportunity, nor can an entrepreneur afford to be oblivious of the changes that are going on around in the broader market scenario. The reward and the productive fulfillment of the initiative undertaken by an entrepreneur is the economic profit in form of an augmentation in the amount of revenue that fills the coffers of the organization, as Schumpeter opines (Gedajlovic et al. 2013). This factor of over commercialization of the role played by an entrepreneur has been criticized to be defeating the purpose of being innovative, since the entire process is not able to go beyond the realm of the capitalist structural framework of actions to be directed for achieving economic profits. An entrepreneur is conceived as a robot-like individual whose duty is to find out opportunities and channelize the prospects for economic gains as per Austrian economist Kirzner (Galloway, Kapasi and Sang 2015). Such thought processes should be criticized on the grounds that it downplays the human side of an entrepreneur which derives lessons from previous mistakes and aims at enhancing the level of performance in future. The role of an entrepreneur is predominantly that of discovering ways to generate more revenues for the business organization cannot be denied, but considering that as the only task which an entrepreneur undertakes is an understatement as that ignores the efforts generated by the entrepreneur (Schepers et al. 2014). Herein, the first part of the report comes to an end. In the next section, the second part of the report shall be discussed, which shall include a transcript of an interview conducted, and an analysis of it shall also be provided.
Interviewer: Sir, how did the idea of starting a business come about in your mind?
Interviewee: As you see, we are immigrants from Turkey. I had migrated to Australia in the early 2000s. I was quite young then, hardly 18. I had left Turkey to work here as a cook in one of my neighbour’s restaurant, who was already settled in Australia. Back then in my country, there was a lot of poverty and unemployment. I could not complete my studies, I had to come to Australia in search of work to support my family. I have opened my own restaurant in the year 2016. I have made use of the experiences that I have gathered while working in the restaurant of my neighbour. I had been to Turkey on the year 2015. There I had tried managing a restaurant for few months, and then once again I returned back to Australia with the confidence that I shall be able to run a small restaurant here in Australia as well after tasting success over there.
Interviewer: Would you like to share something about the experience of being a restaurant owner here in Australia? What motivated you?
Interviewee: In the initial days it was indeed a bit difficult. The only experience I had was that of a cook. I never had any responsibility wherein I had to manage any finance related task when I worked in the restaurant. I have learnt much of managing finances when I had returned back to Turkey. I had the elder family members of mine helping me out with managing finances. They taught me how to go about the job. Well, with regard to the motivation, I was motivated primarily by the fact that if I work hard, I shall be able to bring food to the table of my family members. My father was very ill when I had moved to Australia, now by the Grace of the God, he is well and fine now. I even help out the extended family members. All I want is to see them happy. My niece is studying at a good school in the city of Istanbul. That is all I want, their happiness, and that motivates me to keep working hard.
Interviewer: That is so emotional and selfless of you. What were the risks that you had to undertake in order to start your adventure?
Interviewee: Obviously, starting a business is in itself a risk. You need a lot of money for starting a business, a lot of money goes into investment. I had to invest almost all of my savings which comes to around 5000 Australian Dollar for this restaurant. I had to buy the equipments, get a place on rent. It is cost intensive a process. I faced a lot of problem arranging for a loan, since I am not an Australian citizen, and I had nothing to mortgage. I had to sell my share of property back there in Turkey and set up the business here. I have entered into an agreement that if the person wishes to resell the land to someone, he must give preference to me the first. Not much time have passed since I have started this business. I am not generating enough revenue to be able to save enough for buying the piece of land back.
Interviewee: Sometimes I do, I feel I should have taken up service instead of becoming a businessman. But then, I have invested a lot of money in this restaurant, I cannot let this go out of my hands. Not that I do not enjoy this work. Just that the risk factor is too much. I am under constant trouble that some day I might have to end up selling my restaurant and look for other alternatives. But that shall not happen since I try hard to retain my customers by giving them some perks and bonuses. Inter personal contact building is very important in the service industry. Customer is the king and we must cater to them with a smiling face. I am not thinking of expanding my business as of now. I want stability right now. Later on I can think of expanding.
The restaurant started by the individual of Turkish origin is a start-up business, into which he had invested a huge amount of fortune sourced from his previous earnings and by selling off some ancestral property. Going by the small size of the restaurant; the owner being the manager and the sole chef, two waiters as auxillary staff makes it very clear that it is a micro-business, catering only to a small number of guests mainly from the local area (Brown and Mason 2017). The owner of the restaurant is entrepreneur in the sense that he has the taken the initiative of starting a small business, which can be theoretically placed under the rubric of the early conception of entrepreneurship. He does not indulge in any innovative activity of looking for avenues of opportunities, all he desires for is a stable business and a steady income with no loss. However he is optimistic of the fact that someday he shall be able to expand. The interviewee is thus an entrepreneur as he has undertaken a risk and indulges in interpersonal contact with customers to keep the business floating by convincing them to return back to him often. On considering Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, it becomes clear that the owner of the restaurant is driven by the urge to fulfill the basic needs of sustenance and economic remuneration, and also by emotional needs which is stimulated by the spirit to serve the day to day needs of the family and also an attachment to the restaurant. He feels disenchanted sometimes, and he thinks of selling his restaurant off and go into service, but the emotional attachment to the restaurant, the memories of the hardships and the travails to set up the business makes him devote more attention to perform better. The emotional quotient perhaps weighs more than the economic aspect in his case (Nordqvist, Wennberg and Hellerstedt 2013). The image of an entrepreneur that conjures up in the imaginations is that of a well groomed individual in formal costumes, having a prestigious degree from some prestigious institution, working at a high end corporate organization. He does not fit into that image, but that does not make him less of an entrepreneur. For qualification he has his past experiences, and the ones which he is gathering in the process. He might not have the opportunity to exert his hegemonic capacities on a huge number of employees in an office, but he has a lot of customers to interact with and the few helping hands to hold on to for ensuring that the process goes smooth. He has taken the risk, hence he is being able to feed his relatives back in Turkey, and pay his employees (Light and Dana 2013).
Conclusion
In the concluding section it is to be said that real life situations might not be an exact replica of what theoretical constructions infer and convey. As long as some set up conforms to the basic characteristic features of any conceptual construction, it must be given the due recognition. Same is for the restaurant owner, he is no less of an entrepreneur than someone working at the same post and getting higher salary and having more socially perceived prestige. Hence, I argue that, theoretical constructions are not meant to be totally applicable to real life situations as they are an amalgamation of various aspects drawn from various sources.
References
Brown, R. and Mason, C., 2017. Looking inside the spiky bits: a critical review and conceptualisation of entrepreneurial ecosystems. Small Business Economics, 49(1), pp.11-30.
Carlsson, B., Braunerhjelm, P., McKelvey, M., Olofsson, C., Persson, L. and Ylinenpää, H., 2013. The evolving domain of entrepreneurship research. Small Business Economics, 41(4), pp.913-930.
Dorado, S. and Ventresca, M.J., 2013. Crescive entrepreneurship in complex social problems: Institutional conditions for entrepreneurial engagement. Journal of Business Venturing, 28(1), pp.69-82.
Estrin, S., Korosteleva, J. and Mickiewicz, T., 2013. Which institutions encourage entrepreneurial growth aspirations?. Journal of business venturing, 28(4), pp.564-580.
Foley, D. and O’Connor, A.J., 2013. Social capital and the networking practices of indigenous entrepreneurs. Journal of Small Business Management, 51(2), pp.276-296.
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Hunt, R.A., 2015. Contagion Entrepreneurship: Institutional Support, Strategic Incoherence, and the Social Costs of Over?Entry. Journal of Small Business Management, 53, pp.5-29.
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Martin, B.C., McNally, J.J. and Kay, M.J., 2013. Examining the formation of human capital in entrepreneurship: A meta-analysis of entrepreneurship education outcomes. Journal of Business Venturing, 28(2), pp.211-224.
Nordqvist, M., Wennberg, K. and Hellerstedt, K., 2013. An entrepreneurial process perspective on succession in family firms. Small Business Economics, 40(4), pp.1087-1122.
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