Lessons of Success Case Histories of Eight Successful Companies (original) (raw)
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Untangling the concept of entrepreneurship towards a common perspective
African Journal of Business Management, 2018
There continues to be a lack of a commonly agreed perspective of entrepreneurship despite the concept being studied for a long period of time. Definitions of the concept and constructs of study in the field have depended on the researcher's conceptualisation of what constitutes entrepreneurship and as a result there are variations in the study focus and measurement of entrepreneurship. An analysis of literature was therefore conducted to untangle the concept of entrepreneurship towards a common perspective despite similar failed attempts by scholars in the past. The analysis showed that researchers and theorists trace entrepreneurship through the same early theorists that include Cantillon, Say, Marshall, Walker, von Thunen, Menger, von Mises, Schumpeter, Knight, Kirzner, Shane and Venkataraman etc. That means the background to the concept is the same but with varying interpretations. The underlying perspective however is that entrepreneurship is a human behaviour with identifiable driving motives and it requires definitive competencies; skills, knowledge and abilities. The behaviour is purposively exerted, involves various activities and judgmental decisions that are undertaken through a process of identifying, evaluating and exploiting opportunities to create socioeconomic value under conditions of uncertainty. Although the socioeconomic value manifests in new products or services, new sources of supplies, new methods of production, new markets and/or new organisations, it is the new organisation that is commonly recognised as the output of the entrepreneurship process. This perspective narrows and limits the understanding of the concept of entrepreneurship to new and small business ventures with implications on measurement of entrepreneurship. Our analysis shows that all variations of entrepreneurship such as sole entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, necessity motivated entrepreneurship, opportunity motivated entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship etc are connected within the broader view of the same concept, thereby presenting a common perspective of entrepreneurship.
The Challenging Dynamics of Nascent Entrepreneurship
2018
Nascent entrepreneurship has long been studied from a variety of perspectives. A major stream of work by psychologists and sociologists suggests that nascent entrepreneurs have distinctive traits and competences. A second focus for research has been studying the environment in which nascent entrepreneurs operates. Recently, the identification and exploitation of entrepreneurial opportunities has emerged as a third focus. In this paper we will address the following questions: (1) what are the individual characteristics of those individuals who are attracted to becoming an entrepreneur? (2) What are the environmental factors contributing to new venture creation? (3) What are the steps in the creation process? We will attempt to answer these three questions by arguing that the central process of nascent entrepreneurship is centred on opportunity recognition, evaluation and exploitation, and influenced by contextual factors (e.g. external knowledge) and personal characteristics and comp...
The entrepreneurial process and economic success in a constrained environment
Journal of Business Venturing, 2002
The nature and impact of the entrepreneurial process on economic and business success is difficult to research as there are many intervening variables to consider. It is also a complex ongoing evolutionary process, which can only be fully understood in the context of the wider socioeconomic environment. Conventional cross-sectional quantitative approaches can only provide limited insights and answers on the entrepreneurial process. This paper explores the role of the entrepreneurial process in the economic and business success of Sri Lankan villagers. The setting is especially favourable for the study of entrepreneurial processes, as it approximates to a ''natural experiment'' in which many normal intervening variables are controlled for. Families with no previous assets were settled on two and a half acres of land in 1984. From equal beginnings, the village had polarised 10 years later into a majority of economically unsuccessful villagers, and a small but influential and successful entrepreneurial class. An ethnographic and multiple-embedded case study approach was adopted to explore their success. The economically unsuccessful villagers had entered a cycle of impoverishment, rapidly running into debt, many losing control of their allocated paddy lands, and having to become wage labourers to make a living. The successful entrepreneurs in contrast had accessed a surprising range and combination of economic opportunities, and had started multiple ventures (an average of 3.7 each). The findings reveal that entrepreneurial processes were important in the successful entrepreneurs' emergence from an extremely unpromising and constrained environment. In achieving success, they were not much more innovative in identifying opportunities than the unsuccessful villagers. Rather, they were much more creative and persistent in finding ways to mobilise scarce resources. In particular, their ability to extract value from their social networks and contacts was a vital element in their struggle to accumulate more capital. The successful entrepreneurs were also adept at efficiently managing their enterprises, a factor that became increasingly important as pluriactivity increased. This supported the argument that both entrepreneurship and management are necessary for business success, and that they are interdependent and complementary. As most economic 0883-9026/02/$ -see front matter D 2002 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. PII: S 0 8 8 3 -9 0 2 6 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 7 4 -X * Corresponding author.
Against Entrepreneurship, 2020
Entrepreneurs are occupying an important role in our societies. They are heroes who bravely fight for the economy's growth. In spite of many stories about brilliant entrepreneurs that we daily read in the press, it does not seem easy to define what it is that makes an entrepreneur an entrepreneur. As Cole (1969, p. 17), a pioneer of entrepreneurship research, observed: "[F]or ten years we ran a research centre in entrepreneurial history, for ten years we tried to define the entrepreneur. We never succeeded". Fifty years later, we still encounter difficulties when trying to
The Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship
2015
This chapter focuses on institutional obstacles to entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur carries out a highly complicated composite act. She needs intelligence to collect and digest information about business opportunities. She needs foresight about the possibilities new technologies and other developments create. She needs judgment and leadership skills to found a company and guide its growth. She needs communication skills to enthuse financiers to back her vision. The number of active entrepreneurs therefore depends on how many individuals possess these skills. But skills are not endowments. Individuals decide to develop those skills that advance their well being and to forego developing those that do not. The prospects of a career as an entrepreneur depend on the economic environment, which can be facilitative or detrimental. A multitude of factors determine this environment: rules and regulations, the quality of government, the availability of education, and the ambient culture. Man...
Entrepreneurship: introduction
Psicothema, 2011
Many investigators from diverse perspectives focus their studies on the area of entrepreneurship due to its important role as an engine of economic and social development. The aim of this monograph is to provide an overview of the state of entrepreneurship research. It presents the controversy about the domain of the study and whether entrepreneurship can be considered a legitimate field of knowledge. We study the aspects that differentiate people who are entrepreneurs from those who are not from the perspective of cognitive psychology and we discuss the role of entrepreneurial education. The work is also an attempt to understand the factors that determine the durability of a company such as resources, location, personality traits, strategies, organizational systems, etc. Lastly, we examine the reality of entrepreneurship research in Spain.
Entrepreneurship in Theory and Practice: Paradoxes in Play
2017
Contents: Preface Introduction: The Ideas Behind the Book 1. What is Entrepreneurship? 2. Who is the Entrepreneur? 3. Emergence of Opportunities 4. Evaluation of Opportunities 5. Organisation of Opportunities 6. Resources 7. Networks 8. The Business Plan 9. Intrapreneurship 10. Social Entrepreneurship 11. Synthesis and Recap
Foundational Research in Entrepreneurship Studies: Insightful Contributions and Future Pathways
2018
William B. Gartner's seminal paper in 1985 (Gartner 1985) on new venture creation brought a fresh focus on the process of entrepreneurship, the birth of a new venture and on all the factors that made the birth possible. Much of the research before his paper was focused on the successful personalities running a business venture. It explored questions like whether entrepreneurs were different from non-entrepreneurs, whether entrepreneurs were born or made and whether entrepreneurial skills could be measured and predicted (Sexton et al. 1981).
Entrepreneurship and entrepreneur A review of literature concepts
African Journal of Business Management Vol. 6(10), pp. 3570-3575, 2012
The field of entrepreneurship is still a relative one that is less explored, and many opinions in regard to defining the concepts of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs remain the same. A trial was made by this paper to explore the diversity of concepts identified in specialty literature, and this was approached in their historical evolution. Entrepreneurship entails forming a new organization or restructuring an organization which has already been in existence. It is often a complicated enterprise, so, consequently, numerous enterprises find loads of difficulties in survival. This is an entirely different field involving unique personality traits on the part of the entrepreneur, such as good communication skills, patience, foresightedness, and many more traits, which heads his personality to a brighter side. We believe in opportunities for advancing understanding on the historical role of culture and values on entrepreneurial behavior, using more careful methodologies than in the past, and seeking to specify more exactly how important culture is relative to other variables. There still are major opportunities to complement research on the role of institutions in economic growth by exploring the precise relationship between institutions and entrepreneurs. Finally, conclusions are drawn and some future research directions outlined.