Rooks 1
Three Articles of Entrepreneurship
Alyssa Rooks
EEE 2083 – Online
Dr. Trost
1/17/23
The article titled, “In Search of the Meaning of Entrepreneurship” by Robert Herbert & Albert Link, there are many valuable lessons and some quotes that caught my attention. This article sparked a few questions when I was reading, especially when the authors expressed, “According to sociological and psycho-management research, such people [creative venturers] are usually first-born children, generally male, college-educated, in their thirties at the time of their first significant venture, highly motivated, creative, energetic, and willing to accept risk” (Hisrich 1986). As a second child, female, 18-year-old, I am against all stereotypical odds of being a successful entrepreneur. Although I am very creative, energetic, highly motivated, and willing to take risks, I will have to work twice as hard to make it in this world as an entrepreneur, according to this specific article. The most important part of being an entrepreneur means taking accountability when Herbert/Link express, “The entrepreneur is someone who specializes in taking responsibility for and making judgmental decisions that affect the location, form, and the use of goods, resources, or institutions.” The entrepreneur must be accountable for everything whether it is good or bad. All the success is credited to the certain person, but they also must take the blame for the bad things since they are the ultimate person of the business. “The entrepreneur is a person, not a team, committee or organization” (Herbert/Link 1989 p. 47). Yes, it does take a full team to create a business since it has so many parts, but there is one mind. There is someone who ultimately has the exact idea of what they want to do, and they get to choose what they do with that. If you were to get a group of 10 people and only be able to end up with one kind of pizza, then majority would rule and everyone would end up with that one kind, even if they did not vote for that kind of pizza. I feel as if this applies to any business because you cannot always get everything you want, especially when there are budgets and varying ideas.
The second article I examined was titled, “Who is an entrepreneur? Is the wrong question” by William B. Gartner. This article explains how entrepreneurship can vary when the author speaks, “The literature appears to support the argument that there is no generic definition of the entrepreneur, or if there is we do not have the psychological instruments to discover it at the time” (Arthur Cole pp. 42-43). You can easily find a textbook definition of the word ‘entrepreneur,’ but it is not limited to just one or two things. I believe entrepreneurship is one of the broadest topics of a job. Gartner exemplified the meaning of an entrepreneur when he said “…once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur, since an entrepreneur is a personality type, a state of being that doesn’t go away…” (Gartner 1988 p. 25). If you were to lose your job, your degree in entrepreneurship would not just drastically go away. No matter if you were an entrepreneur for a day or a lifetime, this article dives deep into the broad meaning of entrepreneurship. This article has different reasoning than the first article when it expresses, “The ‘successful entrepreneur’ was defined as a man or woman who started a business where there was none before, who had at least 8 employees and who had been established for at least 5 year” (Hornaday and Aboud 1971, Gartner p. 16). This quote contradicts the excerpt from Robert Herbert and Albert Link since this excerpt exemplifies that women are just as capable of being entrepreneurs as men are. Yes, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but apparently the scientific research done in the Herbert/Link article is not a known fact to everyone. My favorite quote from this article explains, “A baseball player is not something one is, it is something one does, and the definition of a baseball player cannot stray far from this obvious fact without getting into difficulty” (Gartner 1988 p. 22). This quote is extremely helpful to help me, a freshman college student who has no experience in entrepreneurship, understand the concept of a job. I fully think that everyone has the chance to be successful with whatever job they have, just if they are passionate about it and good at it. Gartner left the audience questioning themselves when he had declared, “….look at what the entrepreneur does, not who the entrepreneur is…”. Benjamin Franklin, Jeff Bezos, and Oprah Winfrey are all famous entrepreneurs, but so are Kevin Plank, Sam Walton, and my uncle. About everyone in the world would know who the first three people are, but the last three people are equally as successful but have not made a name for themselves. Kevin Plank is the CEO of Under Armour, Walton is the founder of Walmart, and my uncle is the founder of three restaurants. All these people have created something great, but some get pushed back in the shadow, so we just need to appreciate all their unique creations.
In Saras D. Sarasvathy’s article titled, “What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial?”, she talks about causal and effectual reasoning. Causal reasoning can be determined by expected returns, competitive analysis, and/or pre-existing knowledge (Sarasvathy 2006 p. 5). This means that one thing leads another from different outcomes. For instance, if I do not do my homework, then I will not get a good grade on the assignment. Effectual reasoning focuses on building partnerships rather than being systematic, affordable loss, strategic partnerships, and the leveraging of contingencies (Sarasvathy 2006 p. 5). This means that this is the step where everything comes into place. Whether there are 5 or 10 causes, everyone cause has its own individual effect. Sarasvathy asked the question of, “How does one control an unpredictable future?”, which made me think about my future. This question sparks many other questions for me because I see many viewpoints which this can be perceived. Some famous children, North West for instance, are bound to grow up rich and never have to work, so her future is easily predictable in some aspects. I do think that some aspects of my future are predictable because they are things I control. As an example, I can predict that I will have a dog because I can get a dog. Some aspects that are unpredictable in my life are what my actual job will be, life expectancy and how much money I will make. Anyone can control their future if they work hard, then they can get what they want in life.
References
Gartner, W. B. (1988). “Who is an entrepreneur?” is the wrong question. American
Journal of Small Business, 12(4), 11–32.
https://doi.org/10.1177/104225878801200401.
Hebert, R. F., & Link, A. N. (1989). In search of the meaning of
entrepreneurship. Small Business Economics, 1(1), 39–49.
https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00389915.
Sarasvathy, S. D. (2006). What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial? SSRN
Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.909038.