Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management: A Comprehensive Analysis

This report delves into the intricacies of entrepreneurship and small business management, exploring various types of entrepreneurial ventures, their similarities and differences, and the impact of small businesses on the economy. It analyzes the characteristics, traits, and skills of successful entrepreneurs like Richard Branson and Nandan Nilekani, highlighting how their backgrounds and experiences influenced their entrepreneurial journeys. The report also examines the role of small businesses in the post-Brexit social economy and evaluates the differences that small, medium, and large businesses make to the economy.

Entrepreneurship and Small
Business Management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction......................................................................................................................................1
LO1..................................................................................................................................................2
P1. Carry out a mini research to examine different types of entrepreneurial ventures and
explain how they relate to the typology of entrepreneurship......................................................2
P2. As part of your research investigation, explore the similarities and differences between
entrepreneurial ventures...............................................................................................................4
M1. Investigate a diverse range of entrepreneurial ventures to demonstrate an understanding of
entrepreneurship in both the public and corporate sector............................................................6
LO2..................................................................................................................................................7
P3. Assess and interpret relevant data and statistics in your mini-research, to illustrate how
micro and small businesses impact on the economy...................................................................7
P4. Explain how important small businesses and business start –ups will contribute to the
growth of the social economy after ‘Brexit’................................................................................9
M2 Evaluate the differences that small, medium and large businesses make to the economy,
applying relevant data and statistics..........................................................................................11
LO3................................................................................................................................................13
P5. Carry out a mini-research to determine the characteristics, traits and skills of two
successful entrepreneurs, which differentiate them from other business managers..................13
P6. Assess how aspects of the entrepreneurial personality as discussed in P5, reflect
entrepreneurial motivation and mindset....................................................................................15
M3. Explore and examine different lines of argument relating to entrepreneurial characteristics
...................................................................................................................................................17
LO4................................................................................................................................................18
P7. With practical examples obtained through your mini-research, examine how background
and experience can hinder or foster entrepreneurship...............................................................18

M4 Analyse the link between entrepreneurial characteristics and the influence of personal
background and experience to specific successful entrepreneurs..............................................19
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................20
References......................................................................................................................................21

LIST OF FIGURE
Figure 1: Growth of SMEs..............................................................................................................7
Figure 2: Contribution of SME to economy of UK.........................................................................8
Figure 3: Contribution of UK to EU after Brexit..........................................................................10
Figure 4: Employment in small, medium and large businesses.....................................................11
Figure 5: Employment opportunities in UK by SMEs..................................................................12

LIST OF TABLE
Table 1: Differences between entrepreneurial ventures..................................................................4

Introduction
Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management covers all the aspects of business and its
related activities with the help of skills and abilities of an entrepreneur. The current report will
focus on exploring and illustrating the types of ventures as well as its differences and similarities.
It will also focus on assessing the impact of small business enterprises on economy by assessing
the relevant data and statistics. The report will support to identify the traits, characteristics and
skills of Richard Branson and Nandan Nilekani to differentiate them from business managers.
Last task of the report will help to examine various environments that foster or hinder the growth
of an entrepreneur.
1

LO1
P1. Carry out a mini research to examine different types of entrepreneurial ventures and explain
how they relate to the typology of entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship can be defined as the creative approach with respect to business activities so
that people in an organization can be organised and managed to achieve the common goal.
Entrepreneurial Ventures provides advisory services to mid scale organizations at their initial
stage. They have main focus on remodelling of business model to resolve the major issues that
hinders their growth. There are many types of entrepreneurial ventures which are explained as:
Serial Entrepreneurial Venture
Entrepreneur who comes up with new and innovative ideas for setting up of new business are
known as serial entrepreneurs. Irrespective to other entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneur after
implementation of ideas assign responsibility to other and switch to new venture with a new idea.
It has been identified that ventures set by serial entrepreneurs perform much better than any other
ventures.
Social Entrepreneurial Venture
Social entrepreneurship utilise start up organizations for developing, funding, as well as
implementing solutions to resolve the environmental, cultural and social issues. Unlike corporate
or traditional businesses, social ventures have high focus on maximizing profit in terms of social
satisfaction rather than gain in terms of monetary values (Scarborough, 2016). These are mainly
non profit organizations, non-governmental or voluntary organizations whose major motive is to
work for welfare of the society.
Public Entrepreneurial Venture
Such type of ventures is set up to lead change in context to public realms. Public Entrepreneurial
ventures work in favour of public’s interest with the support of government who is responsible
for major of the decision making. The combined objective of such type of ventures is to focus on
benefits of society along with maximisation of profit gains. The activities and actions of Public
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Entrepreneurial ventures have high focus on alignment of legal as well as political rules and
regulations for its effective functioning.
Private Entrepreneurial Venture
The combination of ideas from one or more individual to form an enterprise can be defined as
Private Entrepreneurial Venture. Main motive of such type of ventures is maximisation of profit
by bringing more and more innovation in its products and services. High risk is associated with
Private Entrepreneurial ventures which can put positive as well as negative influence on the start
up.
Scalable Entrepreneurs
Scalable start-ups are responsible for new and innovative ideas for scalable business model for
the higher growth and profitability of an organization (Holmén et.al.2015). Such type of ventures
enters into a new market and has main focus on enhancement of wealth and profit margins.
Entrepreneurial Venture Set By Female
Ventures set up by females with major motive of growth and equality with respect to men in the
society. Such types of ventures are set up with high enthusiasm and focuses on maximising profit
so that they can serve society as much as possible.
3

P2. As part of your research investigation, explore the similarities and differences between
entrepreneurial ventures.
Similarities as well as differences between various entrepreneurial ventures are explained below:
Table 1: Differences between entrepreneurial ventures
Attributes of Ventures Social Entrepreneurship Business Entrepreneurship
Characteristics Social Entrepreneurship has high focus on
betterment of people living in a society as
well as environment.
Business entrepreneurship
whether it be the serial, scalable,
or set up by female, has main
characteristic of generating
revenue as well as profit.
Roles Their major role is to adopt and innovate
new products and services for the
betterment in context to three areas that
includes society, people and environment.
Since the major focus of
business entrepreneurs is to
generate more revenue and
profitability, their role is to gain
competitive advantage in the
market (Scarborough, 2016). To
acquire the same, they indulge
into development of quality
product to acquire the maximum
of customer attention.
Objectives Major objective of social entrepreneurship
is to develop effective products that would
impact the existing conditions of the
lifestyle of the people. They have high
focus on enhancing the environmental
issues such as pollution so that human can
be prevented from health hazards.
To generate higher profit
margins and revenue, their main
objective is to acquire maximum
of market share. They have no or
very less focus on serving the
people for the welfare of society.
Similarities between Entrepreneurial Ventures
 The major aim of all the ventures is to gain growth and development for the betterment of
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an organization.
 All the ventures have lower or higher risk to enter into a new market
 All the ventures whether it is the social or business ventures have high focus on
developing strategies so that desired objective can be achieved (Schaper et.al.2014).
 Business and Social venues for the achievement of goals and development of strategies,
provides training to resources at each and every level of business activities.
5

M1. Investigate a diverse range of entrepreneurial ventures to demonstrate an understanding of
entrepreneurship in both the public and corporate sector.
An entrepreneurial venture operates their business with high risk factors in order to gain high
returns. A venture operates in both public and corporate sector with various purposes. Ventures
that operates in public sector are mostly non profitable and are led under the super vision of
government policies (Morris et.al.2015). They have no objective of making many profits rather
they focus on enhancement of society o raise the living standard of people living in a society.
There are many ventures that works for welfare of society are Red Cross or NHS. A venture in
corporate sector sectors follows the practice of investing funds to the start ups for their own
future growth. Corporate entrepreneurship focuses on developing new products and services so
that they can gain maximum profit and revenue.
6

LO2
P3. Assess and interpret relevant data and statistics in your mini-research, to illustrate how micro
and small businesses impact on the economy.
Small scale businesses are rapidly growing in UK and major of their growth is favoured by
economical as well as political conditions. Small business enterprises contribute to the economy
of the country and this is the reason why a political as well as legislative factor highly favours
the economic position of the country (Small and medium sized enterprises, 2018). There are
several factors that contribute to the growth of economic condition in UK which includes growth
in revenue generation and overall turnover. As per the research in 2014-15, £ 5.7 Billion was
identified as the amount of turnover from micro and small business enterprises. This amount was
estimated to be 13.7% of the total turnover generated from small, medium and large enterprises.
Figure 1: Growth of SMEs
(Source: European Commission, 2018)
Not only small business enterprises contribute to the nations’ GDP but it also provides large
number of employment opportunities. It was estimated that SMEs in UK provides 27million
employment opportunities to both men and women. This number of employed people was 25.7%
of the overall workforce in UK (Denscombe, 2014). The growth of small scale businesses is
because of such large number of employees that supports innovation and creativeness in an
organization.
7

Figure 2: Contribution of SME to economy of UK
(Source: Economic Voice Staff, 2017)
In the year 2007-08, UK suffered from various challenges that led to downfall in economic
conditions amongst which recession was one of the major factors. A small Business enterprise
plays an important role surpassing the challenges and difficulties faced by nation. Therefore, it
can be concluded that innovation and creativity are necessary for the growth and development of
the businesses of SMEs and therefore, it has developed advanced techniques to develop and
innovate products.
SMEs are growing in UK and major of them belong to real estate, retail and hospitality sector.
As per the research, 39,8% of the entire revenue is generated from start-ups which belongs to
these three sectors.
8

P4. Explain how important small businesses and business start –ups will contribute to the growth
of the social economy after ‘Brexit’
Growth of small business and start-ups has significant impact on growth of economy in UK. One
of the major factors that impact the economic growth due to SMEs is Brexit. Brexit is the
situation where UL voted to leave European Commission.
Establishment of SMEs is growing at rapid rate after Brexit. Brexit has many of the changes in
the business environment, however small business enterprises being at small level easily adopts
the changes and is not influenced in the negative manner. As per the statistical data in 2015, it
has been observed that UK has gained large number of profit from its export business. It has
exported products of worth £133 billion to the rest of European Commission Countries.
Therefore, it can be stated that import and export businesses are largely benefit from the impact
of Brexit. Businesses now have wider scope of expansion and growth (Robson, C., 2017).
Small Business and business start-ups impact the economic condition in UK by providing large
number of employment opportunities. As per the statistical data of 2015, it was observed that
more than 450,000 start ups established and offers employment to large number of people in
UK. Recruitment agencies are finding growth in their business because of employment in SMEs.
9

Figure 3: Contribution of UK to EU after Brexit
(Source: Market Inspector, 2018)
From the above statistical data, it is clear that UK becomes free from contributing to the
combined budget of European Commission. UK contributed £13 billion to the overall budget of
EU. Brexit enable SMEs to make business deals with various countries across the globe. Brexit
will minimise barriers to SMEs that operates in service sectors like insurances. Along with
elimination of trade agreements, SMEs are also benefited by lesser obligations and regulations.
All the above explained factors facilitate SMEs to operate their business in an efficient manner
and support increase in profit and revenue generation which directly contributes to the economic
growth in UK. More number of SMEs will result into more number of employment opportunities
which act as the backbone to the nations’ GDP (Market Inspector, 2018).
10

M2 Evaluate the differences that small, medium and large businesses make to the economy,
applying relevant data and statistics.
Small and Medium size businesses are the backbone to economic growth in UK.
Figure 4: Employment in small, medium and large businesses
(Source: Employment data in UK)
Small Business in UK plays an important role in growth and sustainability of economic
conditions in UK. From the above figure it has been identified that maximum number of people
from the overall population in UK are employed in small and medium enterprises. With the
increase in employment opportunities, cash flow within the economy is also increased (Storey,
2016). Large number of small businesses provides large number of business opportunities for
local as well as regional population in UK.
11

Figure 5: Employment opportunities in UK by SMEs
(Source: Brexit, 2018)
Small Business and Medium Sized enterprises are responsible for 13.6 million of jobs whereas
large business provides 9.2million of jobs. From the above figure, it is clear that in 2001 SME
creates 1 million jobs and at the same time there is decrease in 1 million of employment at the
same time.
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LO3
P5. Carry out a mini-research to determine the characteristics, traits and skills of two successful
entrepreneurs, which differentiate them from other business managers.
Entrepreneurship is considered as new approach and followed trend with respect to business
opportunities in the market. In the competitive era of business, it is important for some
entrepreneurs to perform in a better manner and for this they must possess some special
characteristics and traits which differentiate them for other business managers (Kirzner, 2015).
Entrepreneur is responsible for starting up of new business by implementation of new ideas.
They are responsible for developing new ideas as per the changing business environment in
terms of strategies. To understand the skills and traits, two entrepreneurs Richard Branson and
Nandan Nilekani are considered.
As per the scenario, Joe Woods who have successfully set up an IT business that facilitates large
number of organization to processes debit and credit card payments from vendors. He posses
various skills and traits similar to Richard Branson and Nandan Nilekani which are explained as:
Richard Branson: He is well known as business magnate and founder of Virgin Group. Richard
Branson stated that it is important to have set of skills as well as abilities to become a successful
entrepreneur. One of the major assertion he made was to take risk taking is very important in
setting up of new business. It is wrongly believed that risk bring losses rather it brings lot of
opportunities for personal as well as business growth. Richard Branson learned from failure
which was the biggest factor for his successful journey (Drucker, 2014). He believes that to
become successful entrepreneurs, individual must not step back because of fear from failure
rather they must learn from new challenges and move on to achieve goals.
Joe Woods similar to Richard face many security issues while implementing the IT systems but
he learned and become successful.
Nandan Nilekani: He is one of the well known entrepreneurs in India and holds a position of co
founder in Infosys which is a multinational IT organization which operates its business
worldwide. His main quality that support him to reach top of the position is of not sitting idle or
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commanding his employees. He personally looks over the matters and takes step to rectify or to
improve the situations. Similar to Joe Woods as per the scenario, he is also an IT professional
who possessed clear vision to achieve organizational goals. His quality of not sitting idle and
keen eye on vision supports him to become successful.
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P6. Assess how aspects of the entrepreneurial personality as discussed in P5, reflect
entrepreneurial motivation and mindset
There are numerous elements that boost the success of entrepreneur that includes ability of risk
taking, innovation, development as well as implementation of innovative and new ideas related
to business. In addition to this, to become successful entrepreneur, it is important to posses
leadership as well as management skills. It is clear from the above traits that to become a
successful entrepreneur it is important to rethink and reinvent on regular basis to become
competitive in the market.
There exist correlation between entrepreneurial motivation, mindset and personality. It is well
known fact that motivation and mindset of an individual is highly influenced by the family
environment or external environment. This can be understood by considering the example of
Richard Branson (Dominic Powell, 2017). He belongs to the educated family background. His
father was barrister and mother worked as flight attendant. He posses the traits of learning new
things from his parents but faced several health issues in his educational journey. Interest of
implementing new ideas, he at his very early stage started a magazine known as Student.
Creative and free environment are the significant traits of leadership as well as management.
Along with these Richard Branson posses several other qualities that reflect his motivation and
mindset:
Freedom Oriented: Richard Branson suffered from dyslexia and opted to left education to start a
magazine known as Student. He very rapidly switches to start mail order firm which indicates his
nature of freedom. This quality helped him to implement new ideas and led him to achieve his
goals.
Innovative: Richard Branson implemented lot of innovative ideas to business that includes
magazine publication, mail order record business, Virgin records deals with musical records, and
many more. All the changing businesses show that he was quite innovative and gained success in
all the fields with innovative ideas.
Perseverance: Many a times in his entire journey of entrepreneurship, it is observed that he
suffered from losses and downfalls. He still managed to survive and succeed to reach his goals.
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Visionary: His clear vision of establishing the airline organization led him to bring lot of
innovation in spite of severe downfall and financial loss. This quality is clear from his successful
survival even after drastic financial loss.
Risk taking: At the beginning of his career, he distributed ‘Student’ magazine at free of cost
which was a high risk as he was unaware of the recovery of profit (Miller, 2015). But his quality
of risk taking and strategy, he later covered the loss and gain huge profit through higher selling
and advertisements.
16

M3. Explore and examine different lines of argument relating to entrepreneurial characteristics
There exist clear link between background of an individual and entrepreneurial characteristics.
Many a time’s background of an individual hinders the growth of an entrepreneurship. In both
the cases of Richard Branson and Nandan Nilekani, their background fosters their growth. There
were still some reasons like fail to complete education, financial support and many more which
become challenges in their growth (DeNisi, 2015). However, they still possessed some
characteristics like risk taking, innovation, implementation of ideas, leadership skills and many
more, that support them to overcome the barriers and get succeed in life.
17

LO4
P7. With practical examples obtained through your mini-research, examine how background and
experience can hinder or foster entrepreneurship.
An entrepreneur comes up with different approaches to develop and implement their ideas that
facilitate process of decision making. The differences in their approach are due to difference in
their personality traits which they acquire through experiences in their life. Education as well as
experience of life acts as catalyst to enhance personality of an individual that directly or
indirectly supports them to become a successful entrepreneur (Gailly, 2018). Some of the traits
that includes self management, co ordination as well as motivation are very important to become
a successful entrepreneur that are derived from education as well as life experience to support
them to overcome the challenges in their path.
Richard Branson possess the ability of risk taking which he gained from his past experiences as
he believed that each difficulty brings new opportunity to learn new things and opens path to
gain knowledge. His positive behaviour and attitude to achieve goal, it is clear that education and
past experiences in both personal and professional life plays an important role in successful set
up of business.
Ability of risk escalates the growth of entrepreneurs as it is one of the important characteristics
of an entrepreneur. Therefore, it is recommended to an entrepreneur to understand all the aspects
of risk and its relevant benefits and losses which will help an individual to develop strategies
accordingly (Laukkanen and Tornikoski, 2018).
In the case of Nandan Nilekani, he left his job to start a new business which shows his ability to
take risk. His guidance of successful entrepreneurs and his appropriate following and listening
ability led him to become successful. Also, Nandan belong to educated background that fosters
him to become successful.
18

M4 Analyse the link between entrepreneurial characteristics and the influence of personal
background and experience to specific successful entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneur posses positive and negative attributes because of their past experience as well as
knowledge gained from their family members. Entrepreneurs are born and along with this it is
known fact that family and life experiences also plays an important role that hinders or fosters
their growth (Dunne, 2017). This can be explained by considering example of Richard Branson
who possessed an ability of risk taking which he acquire through his past business experiences.
He managed to recover loss with his ability which shows that personal background either hinder
or fosters their growth.
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Conclusion
From the entire report, it has been concluded that various types of sectors operates with various
types of ventures. All the ventures operate with differences and similarities in an organization.
Small business enterprises is studied in detailed and have understood that the growth of small
and medium enterprises in UK have higher impact on growth of economy in UK. They play an
important role in functioning and portioning of strategies developed by an organization. They
also provide lot of employment opportunities which influence the economy of country. It has
been identified that different entrepreneurs possess different traits and qualities that support them
to become successful.
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References
Books and Journals
DeNisi, A.S., 2015. Some further thoughts on the entrepreneurial personality.
Denscombe, M., 2014. The good research guide: for small-scale social research projects.
McGraw-Hill Education (UK).
Drucker, P., 2014. Innovation and entrepreneurship. Routledge.
Dunne, C., 2017. Can Intercultural Experiences Foster Creativity? The Relevance, Theory and
Evidence. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 38(2), pp.189-212.
Gailly, B., 2018. Manage Entrepreneurial Ecosystems. In Navigating Innovation (pp. 57-104).
Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Holmén, M., Berglund, H., Björkdahl, J., Mansoori, Y. and Sjölander, S., 2015. Entrepreneurs
Searching for Scalable Business Models: The Barriers of the Customer Development Process.
In Australian Center for Entrepreneurship Exchange (ACERE) 2015, 3-6 February 2015,
Adelaide Australia (pp. 396-411). Queensland University of Technology.
Kirzner, I.M., 2015. Competition and entrepreneurship. University of Chicago press.
Laukkanen, M. and Tornikoski, E.T., 2018. Causal mapping small business advisors’ belief
systems: a case of entrepreneurship policy research. International Journal of Entrepreneurial
Behavior & Research.
Miller, D., 2015. A downside to the entrepreneurial personality?. Entrepreneurship Theory and
Practice, 39(1), pp.1-8.
Morris, M.H., Neumeyer, X., Jang, Y. and Kuratko, D.F., 2015. Revisiting the entrepreneurial
context: Types of ventures and associated identities. In Academy of Management
Proceedings (Vol. 2015, No. 1, p. 14659). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of
Management.
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Robson, C., 2017. Small-scale evaluation: Principles and practice. Sage.
Scarborough, N.M., 2016. Essentials of entrepreneurship and small business management.
Pearson.
Schaper, M.T., Volery, T., Weber, P.C. and Gibson, B., 2014. Entrepreneurship and small
business.
Storey, D.J., 2016. Understanding the small business sector. Routledge.
Online references
Small and medium sized enterprises, 2018 [Online] [Assessed through] <
https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2011/01/charlie-elphicke-mp-where-will-jobs-and-
growth-come-from.html>, [Assessed on 21st June 2018]
Dominic Powell, 2017 [Online] [Assessed through] <
https://www.smartcompany.com.au/business-advice/richard-branson-on-the-most-important-
skill-any-entrepreneur-can-have/>, [Assessed on 21st June 2018]
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