By contrast, entrepreneurship is developing a new venture outside an existing organization.  The traditional entrepreneur shall now act as an innovation hunter to proactively be able to set up new smart businesses; ideally from the beginning, till the end of any business life cycle. The term entrepreneur, etymologically originates from the French word entreprendre meaning “to begin something, undertake.” During medieval times, this word was used to describe an active working person.

Risk-taking is one of the famous attributes of entrepreneurs which is also frequently emphasized in the literature. Spiritually, some people are observed to tend to behave extra-ordinarily. As Jobs addresses; “You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever—because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-known path, and that will make all the difference.” Taking the risk phenomenon and the spiritual reflections into consideration; it can easily be summed up that entrepreneurship has something to do with inner-journey.

Another emphasis on entrepreneurship is its presentation as a mindset. “Entrepreneurship is first and foremost a mindset. To seize an entrepreneurial opportunity, one needs to have a taste for independence and self-realization,” said Olli Rehn, a member of the European Commission. Understanding the entrepreneurial mindset requires a certain threshold of empathy. First of all, entrepreneurship is the story of ambiguity. An anonymous supporting quote is likely to highlight the gist of entrepreneurship. It’s as follows: “Anyone, (can be an entrepreneur) who wants to experience the deep, dark canyons of uncertainty and ambiguity; and who wants to walk the breathtaking highlands of success. But I caution, do not plan to walk the latter, until you have experienced the former.” In this regard, as Schumpeter also points out; entrepreneurs seem to have some heroic vision. Schumpeter focused on high-level entrepreneurship and larger businesses. On the other hand, Marshall examined smaller businesses, partially. It was Hayek and Kirzner, who examined the entrepreneurs as middlemen hoping to profit by buying cheap and selling expensive.

When it comes to defining entrepreneurship; it can easily be discovered that various people have defined entrepreneurship differently. Despite this fact, the most common classification follows the mainstream of Collins and Moore; who claimed two types of entrepreneurship, differentiating due to the context of entrepreneurial activities undertaken. These are, firstly, independent entrepreneurship and independent entrepreneurs (similar to entrepreneurship/traditional entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs/traditional entrepreneurs in this paper), implying the process whereby an individual or a group of individuals, acting independently of any association with an existing organization, create a new organization 

Stopford and Baden-Fuller considered entrepreneurs as opportunists even in chaotic situations, and they also metaphorically approached entrepreneurship. According to them, entrepreneurs are like Olympic athletes, long-distance runners, symphony orchestra conductors, and top-gun pilots…These metaphors underline the entrepreneurs’ being ambitious, determined, self-challenging, and talent for synchronizing [12]. [Source: Mehmet Çağrı Gündoğdu / Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences 41 ( 2012 ) 296 – 303].

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San Francisco the Hub of Innovation and Leadership

TRI CK USA by Said El Mansour Cherkaoui

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What are the qualities/Characteristics of an Entrepreneur?

• Entrepreneur takes an idea & makes it into reality.
• Entrepreneurs take risks—risks of time, money, etc.
• Entrepreneurs are optimistic about the future.
• Entrepreneurs are innovators. They invent new products, services, processes, or methods.
• Entrepreneur enjoy freedom & use it for the betterment of their customers & ultimately for society.
• Entrepreneurs have a strong focus on anything they are doing.
• Entrepreneur is confident, optimistic & loves facing challenges in life & business.
• Entrepreneurs make decisions independently.

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There are various types of entrepreneurs. We will see some of it.

• Industrial Entrepreneurs: They are in the business of manufacturing products. E.g. Manufacturing of automobile parts.
• Trading Entrepreneurs: They are in the business of buying & selling products or services. E.g. Traders of Houses.
• Imitative Entrepreneurs: These types of businesses copy other successful businesses & run the business similarly.
• Drone Entrepreneurs: These types of entrepreneurs don’t like to change their business style. They don’t involve innovation. They just want to be like how they are.
• Fabian Entrepreneurs: They don’t change until it is very much needed. They adopt change when it is very necessary.

What are the various functions of Entrepreneurs?

• The main function of an Entrepreneur is to take risks.
• The second function is to start the enterprise.
• The third function is to keep an eye on the internal & external environment.
• The fourth function is to make arrangements for necessary resources.
• The fifth function is to deliver products/services to customers.

Innovation

• Innovation is one of the key requirements for entrepreneurship.
• Innovation is nothing but new ways of doing old tasks.
• Innovations can be Chemical, mechanical, managerial, technical, institutional, service, etc.

According to Joseph Schumpeter, there are five types of innovations.

• Introduction of new & good quality product.
• Introduction of a new method of production.
• Introduction of a new market.
• Use of some new sources of supply as raw material.
• They are making a new organizational form of industry.

The innovation process in Entrepreneurship includes the following steps.

• Research of market
• Development of product/service
• Marketing of product/service
• Production
• Use by customer
• Feedback from the customer.

Innovation has emerged as a headline in the field of business management, recently. Kuratko determines the magic words to describe the innovative way of our time: Dream, create, explore, invent, pioneer, and imagine [34]. Innovation itself is changing. The etymological roots of innovation stretch to the Latin word innovare, meaning to do something new. Most of the innovation definitions have focused on similar points with different perspectives. The key common points imply change and renewal for a better situation. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), inside the Oslo Manual—the source of information regarding international technological developments— defines innovation by linking it to technological change.

According to the OECD, innovation means “completing products and services by developing them technologically. The European Union (EU) has made a broader definition. To the EU, innovation introduces the change in workforce talent, working conditions, and managerial and organizational jobs. Also, it’s about renewal and growth in product and service range. In addition to this, a well-known expression about innovation; characterizes it as the process of converting new ideas into value-creating outputs such as new products, methods, or services. With the help of innovation; companies acquire the ability to develop and apply not only new products, processes, or designs but also new operations and business models.

After having experienced enormous financial crises all over the world in recent years; company survival has emerged as the most crucial issue both for SMEs and even some large companies.  SMEs, as the increasing value of the new economy, are obligatorily undertaking the mission of being innovative. It’s innovative SMEs that will lead the way to economic recovery.

This is what sets innovation-led companies apart: they have been successful in establishing organizational cultures where initiative is rewarded and failures are encouraged. They have structures, processes, and senior leadership that are supportive of innovation, and they have built an ecosystem of partners that enables these organizations to constantly bring in new ideas into their organizations.

MMP: Can any organization be innovation-led, or is it more relevant for some rather than others? Are there simple changes that can be implemented in the short term? And what about the long term?

NN: With accelerating innovation change, every organization needs to aim to become innovation-led. We all have been reading about significant changes caused by new technologies such as AI, VR (virtual reality), blockchain, and big data. These technologies will impact every type of organization. However, some researchers have argued that in highly turbulent and uncertain markets, it could be beneficial for companies to scale back on innovating until they can better understand the future directions of these markets.

In the short term, many established organizations have chosen to set up separate innovation labs. These are usually set apart from the rest of the organization so they can operate uninhibitedly. However, such labs often don’t work, as this recent commentary demonstrates.

In the long term, companies need to pursue a double strategy: developing an internal innovation capability and partnering externally – including cooperating with and even acquiring, innovative companies/start-ups. This is a strategy many leading tech companies are pursuing.

MMP: Do you have any guidance regarding the challenges creative companies face when developing innovation strategies? What can they take from tech companies and vice versa?

NN: Research on creative companies has shown that many creative companies while being quite innovative, are less business-savvy concerning turning new ideas into profitable business models. This is something that has plagued the creative industries sector for quite some time – individual creativity often drives the success of the organization, but they struggle to create a sustainable business model to scale up this creativity.

Creative companies could learn from tech companies to put more focus on the scalability of their creative ideas and how to develop financially sustainable business models. On the other hand, tech companies can learn from creative companies how to ensure that their employees remain creative and innovative, even if they are part of larger organizations with bureaucracy and managerial practices that often stifle innovation. In many ways, the stories we hear from organizations like Alphabet/Google and Apple, about the playful environments they have created for their employees and the flat hierarchies they have established, are in line with how smaller creative companies operate. Yet, Amazon, for example, has been under the spotlight, because of the stifling practices and toxic culture its employees have experienced.

The question of how to keep the creative/innovative mindset as organizations grow is critical to ensure that large organizations, whether tech or not, can continue to be innovative.

Source of the interview on Innovation: Dr Natalia Nikolova is a Senior Lecturer, at UTS Business School and Faculty of Transdisciplinary Innovation. Professor Margaret Maile Petty is UTS Executive Director of innovation and Entrepreneurship.

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