Reflection on Personal Entrepreneurial Profile
There are three perspectives of entrepreneurial development that includes the economic perspective, sociological perspective and the psychological perspective. The economic perspective solely focuses on the elements of profit making thereby putting forward the fact that the entrepreneurs engage in the business solely for the economic reasons. According to Johnson (2018), the economic perspective of entrepreneurship is divided in phases depending on the contributions it makes. The first phase refers to pioneering contributions where according to O’Connor (2013) entrepreneur is described as the risk taker who acquires the resources even when prices of product remain uncertain. According to him, entrepreneur is the person engaging in the exchange solely for profit thereby making business decisions even in face of the uncertainty. Hence, this phase solely focuses on the function instead of the entrepreneur’s personality across processes and occupations. The second phase refers to the phase of the disappearing entrepreneur based on two developments, classical political economy and the neo classical economics. According to Mosco (2014), in the classical political economy, there existed no separation of the entrepreneurial function from the labour and capital and hence there existed no consideration of the entrepreneurial services. However, the neo-classical theories put forward a static equilibrium model for the economy that measured the relationships through mathematical equations. They simply focused on the allocation of the resources in an optimum manner. The third phase refers to the return of the entrepreneurs in the context of the neo-Austrian and the evolutionary economics that helped in putting the entrepreneur into the mainstream. The ideas of the neo-Austrians however portrayed that entrepreneurs applies their knowledge for making profit. In revolutionary economics, the economic system change with time through addressing the process of selection, variation and retention with a role-play of the entrepreneurs. Thus, the role of the entrepreneurs is highly demanding depending on the experiences and the routines.
The sociological perspective focuses on exploration of the means through which entrepreneurial activity is influenced by society where it is taking place. According to Lepoutre et al. (2013), there exists a relationship between the societal factors and culture within the arena of operation of a person. Hence, culture holds an importance in determining the individual attitudes towards the entrepreneurial behaviour. Thus, entrepreneurial culture refers to the prevalence of positive attitude that supports and enables entrepreneurial behaviour. Culture however evolves and changes with time thereby resulting in the innovative behaviour that can shift and challenge traditional values. The key factor that leads to the sociological perspective in entrepreneurial behaviour includes influence of the family, formal education, religion and role model.
The psychological perspective focuses on the identification of the characteristics or personality traits of the entrepreneurs 5. These traits act as an important ingredient for higher performance through that has an association with the entrepreneurial activity. This perspective is identified via six traits that includes over optimism, propensity of risk taking, desire for the autonomy, locus of the control and creativity. Over optimism refers to the trait where the entrepreneur makes positive evaluations for future. The risk-taking propensity refers the trait of the entrepreneur where they act as huge risk takers. The desire for the autonomy refers to the trait of the entrepreneur where they value autonomy and remain resistant to the external forms of the control compared to the other occupational group. The locus of control refers to the perception of the entrepreneurs on whether the goals or outcome remains subjected to the external factors or under their control.
Amongst the three perspectives mentioned, the psychological perspective influenced me to become entrepreneurial since I possess the trait of a risk taker and believe in turning a challenge into an opportunity. Obstacles, setbacks and challenges are some of the common elements of the entrepreneurship to which most people react with pessimism but it does not hold true in my case. In addition, as Entrepreneur I must indulge in sufficient effort and attention in every aspect of the business, right from the product development to the marketing and sales.
Entrepreneurial mindset refers to the orientation of the human conduct towards the entrepreneurial outcome and activities. Individuals having entrepreneurial mindset remain drawn to innovation, value creation and opportunities (Pollard and Wilson 2013). My entrepreneurial mind set allows me to take action by understanding the concept instead of detailing on a strategy. My over ambitious nature often scares me to death since the persistent nervousness about the failure makes be hyperactive focused thereby inculcating the willingness to succeed. However, I try to drive my emotion of insecurity towards the achievement of the business goals. Moreover, I am also immensely fearless in the creating the business ventures since I believe that my investment of money and time will pay off. I also believe in welcoming change and listen to the clients that provide me with the idea of the acceptability of the products or services provided. Further, I am also creative and resourceful with what I possess rather than cribbing about not having enough resources.
I can further develop my entrepreneurial mind set by the following means:
Entrepreneurial ecosystem represents the economic and social environment influencing the regional or local entrepreneurship (Stangler and Bell-Masterson 2015). There are three ingredients that contributes to the entrepreneurial system that includes know how, capital and rebellion. Know how refers to the skills of developers, engineers, designers and salespeople that helps in launching and growing the innovative the business. Capital refers to amount of money required for making starting the new business while rebellion refers to the challenges faced.
However, I possess the combination of capital and knowhow that equals economic efficiency of my business. This particular combination helps new product development and efficiency in the operations often leading to the destruction of jobs and freeing of capital. This freed capital then get invested somewhere else thereby leading to the sustenance of the portion of economy seeking rent. This is how I can contribute to the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
Critical Review of the Process of Opportunity Recognition and Development of Entrepreneur
Mark Johansen, the owner of SkateHut, was interviewed on the process of opportunity recognition and development in setting of the business. Mark Johansen is entrepreneurial as he was not only able to identify a need it but also dream and make it come true. Moreover, he greatly values self-reliance and is clear about his intentions. At the same time, he is also optimistic and love challenges. As an entrepreneur, he also possesses a vision that enabled him to be on track. He is also one of the small business entrepreneurs who seeks to learn but also gets better with whatever they do. Moreover, he also possesses the inherent qualities of an entrepreneur that includes focus, confidence, determination, promotion, creativity, and independence and a relationship builder. Mark Johansen oversaw expansion and development of Skatehut that started as an online business during the year 2007 after he found a gap in the skate market of UK. The success of Skate hut lay in his business and personal decisions (skatehut.co.uk 2018).
Business opportunities are defined in the context of meeting the consumer needs. According to Hulbert, Brown and Adams (1997), business opportunity refers to the possibility in meeting the unsatisfied need in a profitable manner. On a similar note, Gaglio (2004) stressed on the delivery of the better value through creative combination of the resources for meeting the market interest, need or want. According to Drucker (2012), entrepreneurs’ searches for the changes in the customer needs, recognizes change and converts them into an opportunity for business innovation. Thus, opportunity recognition refers to the process of perceiving a business opportunity for the fulfilment of the unsatisfied customer needs and plan for it for the achievement of the commercial success through sell of services and products.
Thus, opportunity recognition can happen provided the final stage confirms that the business idea is converted into a commercials reality through the process that starts from the insight followed by the stages of the evaluation in finally developing a means for beginning the business with a commercial success. According to George et al. (2016), there are various steps for opportunity recognition. These include the creative process of incubation and penetration that leads to the insights of the business ideas and their elaboration and evaluation of the business opportunity and the decision for proceeding. Andersson and Evers (2015), put forward that exists three distinct steps for opportunity recognition that includes:
However, according to Shin and Lee (2013), the process of opportunity recognition begins with the process of external stimulation where the entrepreneurs are in search of the opportunities through massaging and filtering ideas and thereby elaborating them for starting business or an internal stimulation where the entrepreneurs discovers the problems of the customers that needs to be solved or fulfilled. A total creation of the concepts of the business involves the perception of the opportunity along with the actual actions of testing the opportunity in market place for confirming to the business model through an iterative process. Thus, according to Andersson and Evers (2015), opportunity recognition cannot lead to the creation of viable business without the development of opportunity. On a similar note, Ozgen and Baron (2007), puts forward that entrepreneurs leads to the creation of the business opportunities instead of discovering what already has an existence through the iterative processes where they re-change and change their final strategies for the creation of the business opportunities. According to Sardeshmukh and Corbett (2011), entrepreneurs shapes, craft, moulds and reconstruct opportunities in an iterative manner where they necessarily carries out the fit and balance amongst the opportunities, team and resources for getting odds in favour and consideration of the opportunity as the moving target. As per Cardon et al. (2009), the entrepreneurs engages in the exploration of the ideas and the evolution of the strategies through the guess work, actions and analysis. Hence, opportunity recognition refers to a constant process of action and analysis that takes place before the starting up and after coming into operation of the business.
The study here focuses on the entrepreneurs of the small businesses of United Kingdom and hence the discussion in the context holds importance. The constraints related to the availability of the capital, access to the newer technology, technical skills and marketing makes the western standard entrepreneurship ideal for the small businesses in UK. There is also an elaboration on the fact that entrepreneurship acts as a counter point in comparison to the ruling elites and is a way of gaining economic status for the socially and politically marginalized communities. Thus, entrepreneurship development in UK is based on the principles of management of a particular venture. The entrepreneurs of small business in UK try to set meaningful and clear targets through quantifying them that later become the business objectives. Research and calculation in the measurable terms will help in dictating the success of the business. The entrepreneurs also make projections for the future based on the review.
Mark Johansen started the small business in UK through the observation of trend that helped in creation of the opportunities of the entrepreneurs (Nambisan and Baron 2013). These trends include the economic forces, social forces, technological forces and political and regulatory change. It is however the advances in the technology that enabled the creation of the opportunities. He then tried solving a problem through observation of the trends and simpler means that includes serendipity, intuition and change. He then found a gap in the market of UK that finally led to viable opportunities in the form of Skatehut. However, the presence of cognitive factors acted as the personal characteristics of the entrepreneurs and played a vital role in the process of opportunity recognition. The entrepreneurs have six senses that allow them in opportunities recognition.
Mark Johansen then resorted to creativity that acted as the raw material in the process of the innovation. In other word, creativity refers to the process of generation of useful or novel idea.
Compare and Contrast Incubator and Accelerator Start-up Schemes
Incubator start up schemes refers to the collection of the techniques used for proving an idea, de risking ventures at the later stage of the investors and in development of a team (Gately and Cunningham 2014). Examples of social venture include ClearlySo Angels that is first network investor of UK specifically for undertaking the social ventures launched in London during 2012. The network helped in providing investment and mentoring related to the selected ventures.
Over past decade, there existed varied range of business support services, investment vehicles and incubator facilities that evolved for meeting the needs and backed by the policymakers, corporate and universities and the investors. According to Aernoudt (2004), the incubator start –up scheme became popular by providing financial and physical resources in support of the smaller ventures. However, the scheme faced criticism due to the lack of its exit policy and its reliability on the long term public funding.
The emergence of the incubator scheme brought in various newer innovative ventures in the sectors of microelectronics, biotechnology and the electrical equipment which were mostly capital intensive in nature. Since the time, the rise in digital economy and the advances in the technology changed landscapes for the operation of the start up leading to the rapid reduction in the time taken and the cost for introducing a service or product to the market. The Accelerator start up scheme was set specifically for assisting newer digital ventures that are early in the lifecycle through lean start up approach (Battistella, De Toni and Pessot 2017). This particular start up scheme differs from the incubator scheme that is specifically designed for the start ups that are capital intensive or the Internet Protocol (IP) based formal technology spin offs. The Accelerator schemes designed for providing official support services or physical resources have lesser focus on the venture capitalist as the further step of the finance. However, the accelerator scheme had closer connections to the small-scale individual investors and the business angels. Most of the accelerator schemes were modelled either the Y Combinator format or the Techstars format. The Y Combinator format ensured funding two-entrepreneur batch in a year and the schemes runs for a period of three months at a stretch. The Techstars format also runs for close to three months but more structured where the start up can move into the co working space of the accelerator during the course of the action. By the end of 2013, there were close to 213 accelerators that provided support to approximately 3800 newer ventures.
According to Miller and Bound (2011), the accelerator scheme has six characteristics that include:
Five components help in shaping the design and structure of the accelerator. This includes:
Based on the strategic focus there are three broad categories of accelerators that includes:
However, the recent burst of the support for the start up is epitomized by emergence of emergence of accelerator format that helps in building the legacy of the trends and fashion in the search for finding the most accurate mechanism of support. The accelerators are the most noticeable subset in terms of both in discussion amongst the entrepreneurs and the media interest. Incubators were accepted part of landscape defined for the business support in most of the regions across the developed world whose impact was quite voluminous. However, they came through serendipity and had an existence some 50 years ago. The first amongst them had an emergence in the year 1959 in Batavia in the Western New York where there was no availability of a single talent for an old 850,000 square foot machinery building based on agriculture. Thus, the building sold at a reduced price to Mancuso family. When Joseph Mancuso found inspiration in renting the portions of buildings to the smaller firms, he actually gave up the search for the single talent.
Given the better acceptance of the accelerator start up scheme, I would suggest it to be more suitable for launching their business once they finish university. Since, the programme helps in meeting the entrepreneurial need of personal development, solving particular business issues and challenge and professional development by providing them idea related to benefit and network support, better workspace and provides a better idea of accessing the finance.
References:
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Andersson, S. and Evers, N., 2015. International opportunity recognition in international new ventures—a dynamic managerial capabilities perspective. Journal of International Entrepreneurship, 13(3), pp.260-276.
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Battistella, C., De Toni, A.F. and Pessot, E., 2017. Open accelerators for start-ups success: a case study. European Journal of Innovation Management, 20(1), pp.80-111.
Cardon, M.S., Wincent, J., Singh, J. and Drnovsek, M., 2009. The nature and experience of entrepreneurial passion. Academy of management Review, 34(3), pp.511-532.
Drucker, P., 2012. The frontiers of management. Routledge.
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Pollard, V. and Wilson, E., 2013. The “entrepreneurial mindset” in creative and performing arts higher education in Australia. Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts, 3(1), pp.3-22.
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