The Relationship of Entrepreneurial Traits - Assignment Example

College: Entrepreneurship Introduction In the recent past, the world has seen significant growth and development of various small firms in the different parts of the world. These small firms have been the fruits of different entrepreneurs who have continued to develop new business ideas in different places of the world. The continued evolution of new business ideas has resulted to magnificent growth and development of different businesses of the world as well as growth and development of new knowledge and skills adequate to run various the new businesses. An entrepreneur is such an important player in the field of business. He becomes in charge of making various vital decisions when developing the idea of the business and when managing the business he has already developed (Leaptrott 2). Other players in the field of business adequately imitate such entrepreneurs. Different scholars of the world have time and again argued on issues surrounding entrepreneurship with some arguing that the different skills and business knowledge possessed by most entrepreneurs of the world is innate. On the other hand, others have also argued that the best entrepreneurs of the world are made and not born with the entrepreneurial knowledge and skills. Apart from one being born with the entrepreneurial business skills and knowledge, such skills and knowledge can be grown and developed through learning and through different experiences in life of an individual; his or her family background, past experiences such as childhood experiences and even past working have largely been viewed by different scholars as the most sufficient factors that can trigger entrepreneurial ideas in a person (Carr & Sequeira 1090; Drennan et.al 233-234). Every other single day, different new venture and businesses have continued to be born. Some of these ventures have grown to be the biggest ventures this world has ever seen by becoming amongst the multi-billion dollar corporations of the world. Such large firms initially develop from a single business idea by a single entrepreneur or by a group of entrepreneurs. The idea then becomes expanded as a result of the prevailing opportunities in the market and with time, the small firm eventually grows to become a big company in terms of the market it serves and the labor force. Entrepreneurship has today not only become a contributor to the economic development of the world but a key source of employment to most of the disadvantaged members of the societies of the world. It has become an important source of self employment too and a crucial source of income to most families. This has not only aided in economic development of the different societies of the world but also largely contributed to evolution of even the different large economies of the world. This has therefore made entrepreneurial field of business an important field of research to different scholars of the world who have committed their time and resources to try and break down the importance and contributions of entrepreneurship to the world economy today. Background of the entrepreneur The entrepreneur was born somewhere in the Middle East. His goal in life was to always excel and become a prominent business investor even though the environment that he had thrived in was a bit challenging. As a small kid he was raised up in a small town in Pakistan and the town faced the problem of insecurity. The country too frequently experienced political instability and a lot of socio-economic strains. The country was not good enough for living or business either. Even though his family before settling in the small town had kept on moving from one region of the country to another, his father’s dream of maintaining the family business never died. His father still ran a small IT company that had only one store in the small town where they stayed. Both his parents were unemployed and the only source of income for the family was from the family business. The small family company had specialized in installation of CCTV cameras and other security gadgets to different institutions in the town ranging from the banking institutions and insurance companies to large hotels and even large jeweler shops in other major towns. Despite the size of the IT firm, it was quite popular in the town and different individuals admired its quality work. In his early life, the entrepreneur worked for the family business as one of the field operators who were involved in the installation process of the CCTVs and other security gadgets in different institutions. In his early life, he had received some technical training in a local institution in a neighboring town and following the increased demand in quality installation in the security industry, the entrepreneur decided to cross the borders to US where he went to pursue a business related IT degree. This was aimed at helping him acquire knowledge of IT and business at the same time and learn how to integrate the two. While still studying abroad, the entrepreneur used to get several casual labor jobs as a sales agent for his adequate experience as a field installation officer in the family business. He was not trying to deviate from the family IT job in fact he used to think a lot about how he could transform the family business into a big organization that could not only operate in his country of origin but also in other parts of the world. He aspired to become not just a field officer of their family company but also a manager of the business store belonging to the family company which was located in the small town where he was born. However, his dreams were never fulfilled since following a war crisis experienced in his country of origin; their family business was forced to shut down. Expensive items were vandalized and others burnt down following the political unrest. The family IT firm could not continue running as a result of the prevailing political climate and also following the fact that it was facing a lot of financial constrains since most of the companies’ revenue were used to cater for the family expenses and also for the fact that the company was not insured at the time of the crisis. The family company eventually closed down. The family business may have closed down but the entrepreneur’s though of becoming a prospective investor did not. It still continued to grow in him as he continued to advance his business and IT skills. The decision to start-up the business After graduating from a college in the US, the entrepreneur did not work in the business IT industries of the world as he had aspired to but rather worked as a sales representative of a doll company in China where he was to be in charge of promoting the major doll brands of the company in the Chinese market. China was a world different from what he was used to in his life. Even though he had faced difficulties getting used to the American life during his part-time working and studies, the Chinese culture was a bit complicated than even the American culture though the country was far much better than his country of origin not only in terms of the prevailing political stability he experienced in China and solidarity of the different individual across different Chinese communities he witnessed but also in terms of the spontaneous growth in the economical developments the country was experiencing. He felt like he had just joined a new world where stiff competition was the only key element of survival and also the fact that the only way the products he was selling could do better in the market was him becoming a part of the Chinese culture so as to adequately understand the market and its key target elements. The issues of mix of cultural aspects and marketing are not too good for business since some companies get scared away or fail to perform in such economies (Ahlstrom 386-387). There are a number of major corporations of the world who have failed in the market or have refrained from investing in the Chinese economy as a result of its complexity in the cultural aspects. Nevertheless, the entrepreneur had to find his own means of surviving in his current world though from a business point of view, this world made him even a better entrepreneur. He had to develop knowledge concerning the Chinese market and also find ways of pursuing the different customers in the market to purchase his products. He merged with the Chinese locals to adequately develop means of penetrate the market and reach out to different target groups so as to adequately promote his sales. He was even left with no choice than to learn the Chinese language and other cultural aspects of the different Chinese communities what later boosted his doll sales. In his business of sale of dolls and other fashion wears, the entrepreneur learnt several aspects which were crucial in the functioning of the Chinese market and especially the different ways of approaching one of the most cultural influenced markets of the world. This not only helped him promote the sales of the company he was working for but also largely aided in his decision to start his own business. This world had opened his eyes and what different people viewed as a complicated market full of cultural influences was an opportunity to him and as at this juncture he was doing everything possible to adequately transform his ideas into a business. Following his three years experience as a sales representative in the Chinese market, the entrepreneur had learned that some companies of the world feared approaching the Chinese market or did not want to make any sales in this particular market following its cultural influence on the purchase of the different products. He very fast stopped working for the doll company and became a self employed sales consultant based in Bangkok. After several years of working as a sales consultant aimed at helping different organizations of the world make ventures in the Chinese market, he had acquired several stakeholders and could not continue running the business from a single office from just one laptop. He decided to open up a small company that mainly dealt with market consultancy issues. To the entrepreneur, even though it seemed a different field from what he used to do as a young person when he worked for the family business back in Pakistan, the idea was generally similar for he then used to consult different individuals and persons concerning the security issues of their business as an installation officer. The idea was similar since in both cases he was directly involved with the different clients. The decision to work for his own company and as a consultant was not solely influenced by prevailing market opportunity he sought to utilize in the Chinese market but also was influenced by his past experiences. For the larger part of his life, he had been into private business working for the family business and therefore he had acquired adequate knowledge and skills good enough to run a business and above all he was born from an entrepreneurial family. His father fought hard to maintain the family legacy that had been passed to him by his own father and therefore the entrepreneur had also to try hard and revive the legacy of the family by building up his own business. Coming from such a family, there was no way he was to remain employed by the doll company for the rest of his life. At point in life he used to admire the freedom of working for a family business or a person’s own business. The entrepreneurial skill and knowledge were in his bloodstreams. He was that kind of a person who saw opportunities where others could not and also developed key business ideas out of simple occurrences. The family business had made him grow personal traits of a true entrepreneur. Different scholars of the world do strongly believe that growth and development of new ventures anywhere in the world is readily influenced by the individual’s personal traits (Baum and Locke 587). Strong personal traits are key success factors to not only new business ideas but also in running different organizations. The subsequent management and development of the new venture The newly opened consultant firm operated in Bangkok and dealt with market consultations in relation to the Chinese market. At first, the entrepreneur used to run the consultation business from a single office with only the help of one single secretary. His stay in China had made him meet several business individuals who happened to also get attracted by the radical growth of the Chinese market. Several individuals had made it in this market while others struggled relentlessly to stay in the market and eventually fell out. In the case on the entrepreneur, he was quite successful in expanding the ventures of the doll company he had been working for. He had even learned to speak in the Chinese language following a number of Chinese language classes he had attended to enhance his eloquence in the language. He had also attended various cultural festivals that had adequately helped him fit in the shoes of his target individuals and adequately enhanced relations between him and his clients. This way he easily maneuvered the market and adequately achieved what only few individuals had been able to achieve in the Chinese market. The management of the new firm was not an easy task for him bearing in mind that he was in a foreign country and more so operating in a foreign market with less information of how to go about the legal procedures in relation to establishment of firms in China. Nevertheless, he first operated as a sole-proprietor where he used to run the business alone. In this case, all decisions of the firm were only made by him and he was solely in control of all the company finances. This means that the issues of profits or even losses of the newly established firm, the entrepreneur had an unlimited responsibility. At the beginning, the entrepreneur just had several clients and mainly in the field of marketing. These clients felt the need to have an advisor to help them ease the difficulty of venturing into the market. The entrepreneur was there to help them do so following his experience in this particular market. He not only offered guidance on how to approach the market but also adequately helped these firms develop various marketing strategies adequate in the Chinese market. The consultancy firm would eventually become popular in the Chinese market not only for the good business advices that helped different organizations succeed in the market but also the kind of strategies the firm continued to develop for the different organizations approaching the Chinese market. The entrepreneur had readily integrated the skills and knowledge he had in business to the different experiences he had acquired from the different regions of the world he had worked in. All these skills, knowledge and experience together and his IT profess helped him develop several market strategy models that started to even sell in the internet. His business idea was slowly turning into a leaping venture in the world market. Even though it was hard to capture the attention of the big institutions of the world, the consultancy firm continued to adequately aid in establishment and growth of different firms in the Chinese market. To some point, the consultancy firm had expanded not only in number of clients it was serving but also on the number of employees the entrepreneur had hired. They adequately helped him serve all his customers timely and with quality. Work Cited Ahlstrom, David, Bruton, Garry, and Yeh, Kuang. Private firms in China: Building legitimacy in an emerging economy. Journal of World Business, 43(2008): 385-399. Baum, Robert, and Locke, Edwin. The Relationship of Entrepreneurial Traits, Skill, and Motivation to Subsequent Venture Growth. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89.4 (2004):587-598. Carr, Jon, and Sequeira, Jennifer. Prior family business exposure as intergenerational influence and entrepreneurial intent: A Theory of Planned Behavior approach. Journal of Business Research, 60(2007):1090-1098. Drennan , Judy, Kennedy, Jessica and Renfrow, Patty. Impact of childhood experiences on the development of entrepreneurial intentions. Entrepreneurship and innovation, (2005): 231-238. Leaptrott, John. The Effect of Work - Family Role Conflict on Business Startup Decision- Making Processes. Journal of Behavioral Studies in Business, 09218: 1-15. Read More