International Business For Entrepreneurship Theory And Practice

Entrepreneurship and its Characteristics

Discuss about the International Business for Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice.

Entrepreneurship is nothing but the process of launching, designing and running a new business, normally a small business. The people who created this type of business are called the entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur is the persons who take the initiative to start the business rather than working as an employee, and he is awarded all the returns and is liable for all the risk of the business. Entrepreneurs are commonly the innovator, a source of new ideas, good, service and business.  The entrepreneurs have certain personality and characteristics which are shown by their behaviour and workings. As all the entrepreneurs have different thinking and thought process but still the traits are found to be common in all the entrepreneurs (Busenitz, 2014). These traits show the confidence, innovations and a positive attitude towards the work. They not only support the business innovation but also try to contribute their initiative towards the society and community they are living in.

There are some traits of the entrepreneur which make them different from the others. These traits include that entrepreneur are the critical and creative thinkers, as they think different and unique from other ideas and thoughts.  An entrepreneur has seen many problems and now trying to find out the more creative, simpler or more effective way to go about doing something. These are the person who takes the action to convert the dreams into reality (Arend, Sarooghi and Burkemper, 2015). Firstly they listen and then analyse the needs, problems and requirements of the market and finding the best solution for the same problems. Those people who have the entrepreneurial mindset think about the bigger frame and things to achieve in their lives. They learn from their experiences and problems faced when introducing some new and big ideas into the reality. They do not get demoralized from the failure but tries to take the learning from every success as well as failures in life. Having this mind-set is not by born in the entrepreneurs; it is an attitude which is developed by the individual (Zott, Amit and Massa, 2011). 

Entrepreneurship is an economic activity as it involves the creation and operation of an enterprise with a view to creating value or wealth by taking into consideration that the utilization of the resources can be done optimally. Optimum utilization resources can be done while achieving the highest profits, entrepreneurs take the initiators in the market and are taking the high risk of imp0lementing it. So they are rewarded with the huge profits of the firm. Without getting the profit in the business, the efforts of the entrepreneur would remain only an abstract and a theoretical leisure activity. Entrepreneurs are also liable for taking the risk associated with the business. Business will get success or failure will all be for the entrepreneurs (Coviello, McDougall and Oviatt, 2011).

Environmental Factors Impacting Entrepreneurial Growth

The environmental factors are responsible for the development of the entrepreneurs. If the environment is favourable in nature then entrepreneurs have more chances to grow in the market. There are some environmental factors which are affecting the growth prospects of the entrepreneur. These factors include the economic, political, legal, socio-cultural and other factors. The economic factor includes the economic policy prevailing in the market, a trend of national income in the country, trade and transport policies. All will be responsible for the growth and development of the entrepreneurs. If the entrepreneurs start its business in the region where there are less governmental intervention, fewer taxes and duties are applied, subsidies provided by the government then the business has more chance to enhance. Using the unfair trade practices, irrational monetary and fiscal policies etc. are also the roadblock to the growth of entrepreneurship (Bauer and Becker, 2014).

Entrepreneurs have to work in the defined legal structure framed by the legal system and within the political boundaries. Entrepreneurs should take into consideration the societal and cultural factors also, as if the entrepreneurs ignored these aspects the idea, the product will not get acceptability in the market if it is in not according to the society. A frequent political protest, strikes etc. hinder the economic activity and entrepreneurship decisions (Bruton, Ahlstrom and Obloj, 2008).

There are some factors which affect the entrepreneurial decisions. The personality of an individual reflects the skills that an individual has. Individual pro-activeness to identify and utilize the opportunity in the market, an initiative taken by the personnel to do the things before asking to do, self-confidence to take and sticks to the decision once taken are some of the personal factors which are taken into consideration in entrepreneurial behaviour.  The attitude of entrepreneurs towards the social contribution is not less. They are the one who finds the problem of environment and with their innovative thinking solve the problems of society (Zahra, Wright and Abdelgawad, 2014). 

Entrepreneurs can also be of different types which the innovators, imitators, fabion, social etc. the innovators have the ability to think new ideas and try to be more economical in thinking in business and management.  Without them, the new innovations in the market are not possible. They are the one to take the initiative and analyse the needs and requirements of the individual. For analysing the needs and demands of the market, entrepreneurs do the work of research. In other words, the entrepreneurs finalize the ideas only after considering the variety of options, analysing the strengths and weakness by applying the analytical techniques, testing the application of the idea in the market, supplementing them with the empirical findings and lastly choosing the best alternative. From all the above analytics, the entrepreneur develops the management skills (Zahariadis and Herweg, 2017).

Personal Factors Impacting Entrepreneurial Decisions

Before studying about the entrepreneurship, I consider the entrepreneurship, a way to launch a new product in the market with some innovation in it which other products are not offering. Basically, I consider the entrepreneur a person who thinks innovates and take new initiatives to have the competitive edge in the market. But after researching and studying about the entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs, I come to know that the entrepreneurship is not a narrow concept as I think before doing the research. The entrepreneurship is more than launching a new product in the market. The entrepreneurship is basically the process of designing, launching, and running a new business while introducing some innovations in the business (Sarasvathy et al., 2014).

To generate the new ideas by analysing the problems and need in the market is the duty of entrepreneur. The entrepreneur concept lies that the business is not about the idea of power but the power of ideas. The generation of ideas and grabbing the opportunities can be done with effectiveness and efficiency by the entrepreneur. For grabbing the opportunity entrepreneur first check whether the business ideas can be possible in reality and will be acceptable in the market. The study of feasibility is done by the entrepreneur in whom the technical aspect, financial aspect and economic aspect of the new business are considered (Venkataraman et al., 2012).

 The feasibility is done to know the workability and profitability by the business venture. Before anything is invested in the business, a feasibility study is done to know the business idea is worth the time, effort and resources.  These feasibilities are checked top know whether the technology used in the business is updated and will have an impact on the market. The economic aspect is checked to know the budgets required in starting the business (Wirtz et al., 2016).

After checking the feasibility study, the business plan is developed. For crafting the business plan, the blueprint is made for the future course of action. The planning is done in which all the things are decided that what work to do, how it can be done, what are ways to achieve the goal and by whom it should be done. All these decisions are taken into the crafting the plan. After crafting the plan, the decision related to the marketing of the business plan is decided that how the marketing of the plan is to be done so that the knowledge and information of this idea can be reaching to the public at large (Davidsson, 2015). 

Types of Entrepreneurs

While marketing the idea and business plan, certain marketing issues are faced by the entrepreneur. These marketing issues include finding the right marketing channels. It is hard to find the entrepreneur to which channel to opt for promoting its plan. Doing the marketing using the social media is a common way of promoting the new business but the social media users get so tired that they started ignoring these kinds of pages and anything related to the entrepreneurship as a whole (Demil et al., 2015).

Entrepreneurs have to decide other things while implementing business which includes deciding on ownership form and a team of entrepreneurial. Before doing the research, I consider the ownership can only be individually formed and entrepreneurs are the only person to do all the work related to the new business. But after getting the thorough research I come to know that the new innovators can be a sole proprietor, partnership form or can be a company form of business also (Maier, Meyer and Steinbereithner, 2016).

 The entrepreneurs also require the team building to have support in the business. The business support is as important as funds in the business.  The building of the team is required to do all the work of business accurately. An individual entrepreneur cannot do all things of the business which includes engineering, marketing, sales, finance, and operations.  Every business has its own set of culture to be followed in the organization so to maintain that culture and aura in the business, works are divided and distributed according to the capability and skills of the individual, it will bring specialization in the business (Mainela, Puhakka and Servais, 2014).

The main factor which affects the business selling’s and revenues is the pricing policy set by the entrepreneurs. A customer may always not want the low price; they judged it to be of the low quality. The entrepreneurs which are considered to be the innovators have commonly used the price skimming in which they charge the high price for the product as they have introduced something new and innovative product. So price can be put high when there are; fewer competitors in the market.  The credit strategies are giving and taking the products on credit basis. Long credit period is worse for the business as the funds are blocked. So entrepreneurs should go with the less credit period of time (Phillips et al., 2015).

The Importance of Feasibility Studies for New Business Ideas

The arrangement of funds can be done in several ways by the entrepreneurs who include the funds from the angel investors, owners fund, a loan from the financial institution etc. Entrepreneurs should take the finance according to the nature and type of business. If the business has regular inflows of cash, then entrepreneurs can go for the loans, as there is regular payment of interest. If the business does not have the regular cash flows then the business go for the owner’s funds or equity. An entrepreneur should also have an eye on the achieving the financial viability. The financial viability so business is checked by using the break-even analysis when business is reached a level where there is no loss no profit situation. An entrepreneur has to manage its cash flows to know the profitability and losses of the business. All the expenses and income should be taken into the account so that the actual situation of the business can be accountable (Coviello, McDougall and Oviatt, 2011). 

Nowadays scope of online business is flourishing in the market; entrepreneurs can expand their business by using the e-commerce sites to have more viability in the business. It is found from the research that small business who conducts the business online can recover the payment faster and conduct of business becomes easier. Entrepreneurs can also opt for the same to have short credit in the market and funds can be collected from the market in short span of time (Davidsson, 2015).  

References

Arend, R.J., Sarooghi, H. and Burkemper, A. (2015) Effectuation as ineffectual? Applying the 3E theory-assessment framework to a proposed new theory of entrepreneurship. Academy of management Review, 40(4), pp.630-651.

Bauer, M.W. and Becker, S. (2014) The unexpected winner of the crisis: The European Commission’s strengthened role in economic governance. Journal of European Integration, 36(3), pp.213-229.

Bruton, G.D., Ahlstrom, D. and Obloj, K. (2008) Entrepreneurship in emerging economies: Where are we today and where should the research go in the future. Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 32(1), pp.1-14.

Busenitz, L.W., Plummer, L.A., Klotz, A.C., Shahzad, A. and Rhoads, K. (2014) Entrepreneurship research (1985–2009) and the emergence of opportunities. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 38(5), pp.981-1000.

Coviello, N.E., McDougall, P.P. and Oviatt, B.M. (2011) The emergence, advance and future of international entrepreneurship research—An introduction to the special forum. Journal of Business Venturing, 26(6), pp.625-631.

Davidsson, P. (2015) Entrepreneurial opportunities and the entrepreneurship nexus: A re-conceptualization. Journal of Business Venturing, 30(5), pp.674-695.

Demil, B., Lecocq, X., Ricart, J.E. and Zott, C. (2015) Introduction to the SEJ special issue on business models: business models within the domain of strategic entrepreneurship. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 9(1), pp.1-11.

Maier, F., Meyer, M. and Steinbereithner, M. (2016) Nonprofit organizations becoming business-like: A systematic review. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 45(1), pp.64-86.

Mainela, T., Puhakka, V. and Servais, P. (2014) The concept of international opportunity in international entrepreneurship: a review and a research agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews, 16(1), pp.105-129.

Phillips, W., Lee, H., Ghobadian, A., O’Regan, N. and James, P. (2015) Social innovation and social entrepreneurship: A systematic review. Group & Organization Management, 40(3), pp.428-461.

Sarasvathy, S., Kumar, K., York, J.G. and Bhagavatula, S. (2014) An effectual approach to international entrepreneurship: Overlaps, challenges, and provocative possibilities. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 38(1), pp.71-93.

Venkataraman, S., Sarasvathy, S.D., Dew, N. and Forster, W.R. (2012) Reflections on the 2010 AMR decade award: Whither the promise? Moving forward with entrepreneurship as a science of the artificial. Academy of Management Review, 37(1), pp.21-33.

Wirtz, B.W., Pistoia, A., Ullrich, S. and Göttel, V. (2016) Business models: Origin, development and future research perspectives. Long Range Planning, 49(1), pp.36-54.

Zahariadis, N. and Herweg, N. (2017) The multiple streams approach. In The Routledge Handbook of European Public Policy (pp. 54-63). Oxon: Routledge.

 Zahra, S.A., Wright, M. and Abdelgawad, S.G. (2014) Contextualization and the advancement of entrepreneurship research. International small business journal, 32(5), pp.479-500.

Zott, C., Amit, R. and Massa, L. (2011) The business model: recent developments and future research. Journal of management, 37(4), pp.1019-1042.