Entrepreneurship: The Practice and Its Characteristics
Posted: Monday, January 29, 2007
by Ismael Tabije
http://www.BestManagementArticles.com
Entrepreneurship is the practice of starting new organizations, particularly new businesses generally in response to identified opportunities. Entrepreneurship is often a difficult undertaking, as a majority of new businesses fail. Entrepreneurial activities are substantially different depending on the type of organization that is being started. Entrepreneurship may involve creating many job opportunities.
To some, entrepreneurship is all about taking risks. The behavior of the entrepreneur reflects a kind of person willing to put his career and financial security on the line and take risks in the name of an idea, spending much time as well as capital on an uncertain venture. Still another view of entrepreneurship is that it is the process of discovering, evaluating, and exploiting opportunities to come up with a new business venture.
Entrepreneurs have many of the same character traits as leaders. Similar to the early great theories of leadership, however, trait-based theories of entrepreneurship are increasingly being called into question. Entrepreneurs are often contrasted with managers and administrators who are said to be more methodical and less prone to risk-taking.
Characteristics of entrepreneurship:
1. The entrepreneur has an enthusiastic vision, the driving force of an enterprise.
2. The entrepreneur's vision is usually supported by an interlocked collection of specific ideas not available to the marketplace.
3. The overall blueprint to realize the vision is clear; however details may be incomplete, flexible, and evolving.
4. The entrepreneur promotes the vision with enthusiastic passion.
5. With persistence and determination, the entrepreneur develops strategies to change the vision into reality.
6. The entrepreneur takes the initial responsibility to cause a vision to become a success.
7. Entrepreneurs take prudent risks. They assess costs, market/customer needs and persuade others to join and help.
8. An entrepreneur is usually a positive thinker and a decision maker.
Too often entrepreneurship is seen as the process of finding capable individuals and providing nourishment (venture capital and know-how). Yet we know that some communities are far more successful than others in entrepreneurship and that such communities are also thriving economically even during times of economic downturn. Community entrepreneurship is about applying entrepreneurial principles to the process of creating a community that is highly supportive of entrepreneurship itself, both within classroom walls and without. We need new social entrepreneurs to invent those designs.
Copyright 2007 Ismael D. Tabije
Unlock the secrets of successful executives and professionals. http://www.BestManagementArticles.com -- the article directory with thousands of free articles in business and management--tips, advices, strategies and solutions for your success. Specialized articles in the field of Entrepreneurship may also be accessed at: http://entrepreneurship.bestmanagementarticles.com/
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