Introduction to Entrepreneurship

• Entrepreneurial Mindset


  The most common characteristics associated with successful entrepreneurs as well as the elements associated with the "dark side" of entrepreneurship
• Significance of GEE 003-Entrepreneurial Mindset


  The importance of this course/subject to the course/major that you are trying to pursue right now
• Entrepreneurs


  • Recognize opportunities where others see chaos, contradiction, or confusion
  • Are aggressive catalysts for change within the marketplace
  • Challenge the unknown and continuously create breakthroughs for the future
• Entrepreneurship


  • Seeking opportunities
  • Taking risks beyond security
  • Having the tenacity to push an idea through to reality
• Entrepreneur


  One who undertakes to organize, manage, and assume the risks of a business
• Entrepreneurship


  A dynamic process of vision, change, and creation. Requires an application of energy and passion towards the creation and implementation of new ideas and creative solutions
• Essential ingredients of entrepreneurship


  • The willingness to take calculated risks—in terms of time, equity, or career
  • The ability to formulate an effective venture team; the creative skill to marshal needed resources
  • The fundamental skills of building a solid business plan
  • The vision to recognize opportunity where others see chaos, contradiction, and confusion
• Myth 1: Entrepreneurs Are Doers, Not Thinkers
• Myth 2: Entrepreneurs Are Born, Not Made
• Myth 3: Entrepreneurs Are Always Inventors
• Myth 4: Entrepreneurs Are Academic and Social Misfits
• Myth 5: Entrepreneurs Must Fit the Profile
• Myth 6: All Entrepreneurs Need Is Money
• Myth 7: All Entrepreneurs Need Is Luck
• Myth 8: Entrepreneurship Is Unstructured and Chaotic
• Myth 9: Most Entrepreneurial Initiatives Fail
• Myth 10: Entrepreneurs Are Extreme Risk Takers
• Macro View: External


  The Environmental School of Thought, The Financial/Capital School of Thought, The Displacement School of Thought
• Types of people involved with contemporary small businesses


  • The entrepreneur who invents a business that works without him or her
  • The manager who produces results through employees by developing and implementing effective systems and, by interacting with employees, enhances their self-esteem and ability to produce good results
  • The technician who performs specific tasks according to systems and standards management developed
• Entrepreneurial Mind-Set


  Describes the most common characteristics associated with successful entrepreneurs as well as the elements associated with the "dark side" of entrepreneurship
• Who Are Entrepreneurs?


  • Independent individuals, intensely committed and determined to persevere, who work very hard
  • They are confident optimists who strive for integrity
  • They burn with the competitive desire to excel and use failure as a learning tool
• Cognition


  The mental functions, processes (thoughts), and states of intelligent humans—attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions
• Social Cognition Theory


  Posits that knowledge structures (mental models of cognitions) can be ordered to optimize personal effectiveness within given situations
• Entrepreneurial Cognition


  The knowledge structures that people use to make assessments, judgments, or decisions involving opportunity evaluation, venture creation, and growth
• Characteristics of the Entrepreneurial Mind-Set


  • Determination and perseverance
  • Drive to achieve
  • Opportunity orientation
  • Initiative and responsibility
  • Persistent problem solving
  • Seeking feedback
  • Internal locus of control
  • Tolerance for ambiguity
  • Calculated risk taking
  • High energy level
  • Creativity and innovativeness
  • Vision
  • Passion
  • Independence
  • Team building
• Entrepreneurs cause entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurship is a function of the entrepreneur
• Entrepreneurship is characterized as the interaction of skills related to inner control, planning and goal setting, risk taking, innovation, reality perception, use of feedback, decision-making, human relations, and independence
• The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship


  The Entrepreneur's Confrontation with Risk - Financial risk versus profit (return) motive varies in entrepreneurs' desire for wealth, Career risk—loss of employment security, Family and social risk—competing commitments of work and family, Psychic risk—psychological impact of failure on the well-being of entrepreneurs
• Entrepreneurial Stress


  The extent to which entrepreneurs' work demands and expectations exceed their abilities to perform as venture initiators, they are likely to experience stress
• Sources of Entrepreneurial Stress


  • Loneliness
  • Immersion in business
  • People problems
  • Need to achieve
• Dealing with Stress


  • Networking
  • Getting away from it all
  • Communicating with employees
  • Finding satisfaction outside the company
  • Delegating
  • Exercising rigorously
• Reasons for Unethical Behaviors Occur


  • Greed
  • Distinctions between activities at work and activities at home
  • Survival (bottom-line thinking)
  • A reliance on other social institutions to convey and reinforce ethics
  • Lack of a foundation in ethics
• Ethical Code of Conduct


  A statement of ethical practices or guidelines to which an enterprise adheres. Are becoming more prevalent in industry, Are proving to be more meaningful in terms of external legal and social development, Are more comprehensive in terms of their coverage, Are easier to implement in terms of the administrative procedures used to enforce them
• "Always Do the Right Thing": 'Reasons for management to adhere to a high moral code: It is good business because unethical practices have a corrosive effect not only on the firm itself, but on free markets and free trade which are fundamental to the survival of the free enterprise system. Improving the moral climate of the firm will eventually win back the public's confidence in the firm.'