MD4044 Entrepreneurship: Decisions, Ethics, and Legal Disputes

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of entrepreneurship, focusing on its nature, role in economic development, and the critical decisions, ethical challenges, and legal disputes faced by entrepreneurs. Using Steve Jobs as a case study, the report examines specific instances such as his return to Apple, ethical concerns regarding employee treatment in factories, and legal battles over intellectual property. The analysis draws upon academic sources to critically evaluate these aspects, highlighting the complexities and challenges inherent in entrepreneurship. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of ethical conduct and strategic decision-making for achieving sustainable success in the entrepreneurial landscape, alongside acknowledging the support available to students on Desklib, where past papers and solved assignments can be found.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................2
Nature of entrepreneurship.........................................................................................................2
Role of Entrepreneurship in developing robust economy..........................................................3
Critical analysis of difficult decisions made by an entrepreneur...............................................4
Critical analysis of ethical challenge they encountered.............................................................5
Critical analysis of legal disputes they encountered..................................................................6
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Introduction
Entrepreneurship is known to be act of creating a business or businesses with the help of
innovation and thus generate an amount of profit. It is related with transforming the world by
solving big problems (Fayolle and Gailly, 2015). For instance, creating innovative products
and offering new life-changing solutions. In US, small entrepreneur is known to be the
backbone of the economy as they play an important role to make the economy healthier at a
large. Entrepreneurship is that function who recognises production opportunity in the
industry, raises capital from various sources, arranges all sorts of resources for the day to day
operations so that organisation goal can be achieved with the development of overall
economy.
Other than economy growth, entrepreneurship also plays an important role in the society and
community development (Shepherd, 2015). It attracts dynamism from the economy and
pushes innovation in the markets with the help of advance entrepreneurial research. In
addition, Entrepreneurship creates an adequate platform for the entrepreneur where they can
develop new ways to researches and thus make necessary development in various sectors and
industries.
Nature of entrepreneurship
 Progressing innovation – These aspects help entrepreneur to introduce something
new in the market which helps in solving various problems with the help of some
creative ideas within or outside the organisation. Entrepreneurship also acts as an
innovative function by which things can be implemented in an effective way
(Piperopoulos and Dimov, 2015).
 Value creation – The procedure of creating value is very important in
entrepreneurship function as with the help of entrepreneurship, new technologies,
services, approaches, products and many more contribute to the value of enterprise.
 Gap filling function – This function reduces deficiencies at various levels of
business. In addition, some of the management inputs like leadership and motivation
also help in the entrepreneurship function to take sustainable measures against the

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problems and thus eliminate respective issues affecting organisation decision making
and policies (Suddaby, Bruton and Si, 2015).
 Risk-bearing function – In every organisation, there are some amount of risks
prevailing at any levels within the enterprise. With the help of entrepreneurship,
managers can work in uncertainties and gain long-term profit and perspectives
(Terjesen, Hessels and Li, 2016). Entrepreneurship tries to eliminate the various risk
acting as barrier in the path of achieving mission and vision of an organisation.
Role of Entrepreneurship in developing robust economy
Entrepreneurship plays a significant role in creating and developing a robust economy. Along
with this, various measures and functions are undertaken by the entrepreneur towards positive
side of economy. These are –
1. Employment in various sectors – When an entrepreneur introduces a new venture,
the requirement of new jobs also started in along with this. This fulfils the
requirement of various individuals who are continuously looking for jobs. This
creation of work fulfils the key goals of an economy and led country towards
economic development. In support of entrepreneurship, government also pushed
various efforts to help entrepreneur by increasing their morale through various
subsidies and policies (Aparicio, Urbano and Audretsch, 2016).
2. Development of society – In align with progressing economic growth,
entrepreneurship function also proved beneficial for the community as a whole.
Unlike the business, the primary goals of an entrepreneur are development of society
rather than profit generation. In development of communities, there are various
procedures conducted under entrepreneurship such as learning and training, healthcare
and various other facilities (Urbano and Aparicio, 2016).
3. Addressing environment challenges – With improvement in economic development,
entrepreneurship facilitates innovation that contributes in recognising of various
environment challenges through the development of advanced technologies. For
instance, innovation in climate change mitigation technologies is growing from last
decade and various manufacturing organisation are moving towards sustainable

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manufacturing by presenting pollution prevention integrated approaches in the
products life cycle (Williams, Martinez‐Perez and Kedir, 2017).
4. Promoting effectiveness and efficiency with help of new technologies –
Development towards advancement in technologies plays a significant role in
development of products and services driven by new technologies and creative
applications. Technology also proved to be beneficial in the development and growth
of economy and also improved productivity at various levels of organisations.
5. Encouraging Exports – In terms of exports, entrepreneurship plays an important role
to develop their businesses into the international markets. Through cutting-edge
innovation, entrepreneurship provides access to the bigger markets and help the
entrepreneur to lead their business more stably. Moreover, increasing exports will also
contribute to the development of the economy (Prieger et al, 2016).
6. Improve standards of living – Raising standard of living is another objective of
entrepreneurship function and contributes towards the economic growth and
development. This function enhances the quality of life of entire communities
including customers, employees and society.
Critical analysis of difficult decisions made by an
entrepreneur
One of the well-known entrepreneurs is Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Corporation. He is one of
the top commercial leader of this decade who takes various complex decisions and always
learns from his mistakes and tries again. One of the important and crucial decisions taken out
by Steve Job was to take control of Apple. After acquiring NeXT, then CEO took in Jobs as
an exceptional consultant. After inclusion, it is easy for him to convince the board of the
company for the possible replacement. This gives Job to take the control back in his hand.
Steve Jobs also gives various statements for killing the clones of company OS. Earlier, the
company wants to offer licensing of their OS (Mac) to various vendors but Steve job
recognise this deal as a threat and so he ends it. In addition, he also took many crucial
decisions for the framework i.e. hardware to software.
Under the primacy of Gil Amelio, various press leaks out the data of the company as
employees humiliating CEO for alterations of policies but when Job takes control in the

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company, he asked all the employees to stop making contact with the Press and also created
strong rules of privacy measures (Carroll, 2011). This helped the company to maintain
suspense in the announcement of various Apple products in the markets. Steve Job kept
media in his palms with maintaining constricted over various rules and policies.
In addition, Steve Job also brought various positive practices and policies for the employees.
He also signed many deals with close friends like Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle and former
vice president of promoting Bill Campbell (Dormehl, 2016). Many merchandise centric
sections are also cleared out by Steve Jobs that are exploiting company resources. Moreover,
he brought out new policies for many departments (Manufacturing, HR, Finance, Sales)
focusing every keen aspect. These changes in new policies result in various significant and
drastic changes in the business life cycle of Apple.
Critical analysis of ethical challenge they encountered
Apple is one of the top leading companies in the world; however, the company faced several
ethical problems in the past few years. These ethical issues impacted the company from
various perspectives and impact on the future growth potential in many countries. It can also
be said that these issues aroused at these levels because of failure in addressing the risks
adequately.
One of the biggest ethical issues faced by the company was not treating their employees in a
manner they should be treated. The company was successfully able to earn profits and also
fulfilling various aspects of corporate social responsibility in terms of stakeholders and
customers. However, their lack in focusing of internal organisations functions and aspects
results into an ethical dilemma.
In 2011, one of the accumulation was exposed against Apple and created an ethical issue
(Chamberlain, 2011). As per the scenario, the company was treating employees like machines
for the development of various products and software. In two factories of Southern China,
around five lakhs employees were hired by the company for building of various products.
The scenario explained, the company had provided employees the worst working
environment and this was only due to increased demands of Apple products. From other
perspectives, Apple wants to makes their owner and stakeholders happy and thus they
minimise the cost at various levels in order to increase the profit. This was the reason that

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why Apple choose China for their manufacturing and their legal laws relation to labours are
more flexible that other countries.
As per ethical theory, a company needs to act as a responsible corporation taking out various
decision by respecting every individual and things. However, Apple disregards their
employees and put various barriers in the lifecycle. This shows that before Apple was
running its corporation only for private achievement and also disregard customers by
affirming themselves as an ethical organisation.
The virtue theory of management includes courage, honesty, justice and temperance (Hackett
and Wang, 2012). However, Apple was neither satisfying their employees and they also have
no courage to stop unethical practices. In addition, the company also disregard their
stakeholders and customers by telling lie to them. In response with temperance, Apple also
not do any justice with the employees as the company did not apologized or compensated
what all they did poor to workers.
As per the scenario, the employees in the company are working for long hours and sometimes
they used to get break in more than 13 days. This shows that the company not following
China laws effectively as in China a worker is not allowed to be work for 36 hours and thus
all these explained that Job was facing various ethical challenge in aligning with development
of products.
Critical analysis of legal disputes they encountered
As a pioneer in the industry, a company has to face several legal disputes and thus many sorts
of these disputes are registered for Apple. In Naples, two brother introduced a fashion brand
and put the name of Apple CEO i.e. Steve Job. These brothers said in the press that they first
registered Steve Jobs brand in 2012 (Detrick, 2017). They also stated that the brand name
was not based upon Job signature black turtleneck and jeans. When Apple noticed, four large
folders of the legal document were sent by the legal department of Apple. However, the case
was won by those brothers. Later on, Apple also continued to fight with the brothers over
logo but again the court had declared the brothers to freely use the logo for their business.
Later on, the brother also declared that they will build an electronic brand under the same
brand name and logo globally.

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There was also a legal dispute registered between Samsung and Apple. Like Apple, Samsung
is also a well-established organisation however, there was a case registered between these
two companies in response with design of the smartphones, tablets and computers. As per this
dispute, Samsung originally and intentionally copies IPhone designs in building their
products. In addition, Samsung also registered a case on Apple for infringement of the patent
software. In this case, multiple issues were filed repeatedly. Like in 2012, Apple tried to sue
Samsung for copying various particular feature of iPad and iPhones. Moreover, in 2018,
Samsung paid 539 million dollars to Apple in for the damages done with replication of
specific features from the Apple products.

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Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that entrepreneurship functions need to be carried out in specific
ways for attaining true success and growth. With the help of this report, various aspects of
Entrepreneurship are outlined including nature, essentials and roles towards the development
and growth of economy. In addition, Steve Jobs, a well-known entrepreneur also selected for
various practical implications. It is also described that what are the important decision made
by Steve Jobs, ethical challenges he had faced and the legal disputed encountered between
the firms.

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References
Aparicio, S., Urbano, D. and Audretsch, D. (2016) Institutional factors, opportunity
entrepreneurship and economic growth: Panel data evidence. Technological Forecasting and
Social Change, 102(1), pp.45-61.
Chamberlain, G. (2011) Apple factories accused of exploiting Chinese workers [ONLINE]
Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2011/apr/30/apple-chinese-factory-
workers-suicides-humiliation [Accessed 09/01/2019].
Detrick, H. (2017) The Italian Clothing Brand Steve Jobs Has Nothing to Do With Apple's
Steve Jobs. And It's Totally Legal [ONLINE] Available from:
http://fortune.com/2017/12/28/steve-jobs-italian-clothing-company/ [Accessed 09/01/2019].
Dormehl, L. (2016) Larry Ellison: Steve Jobs shot down my Apple takeover plans [ONLINE]
Available from: https://www.cultofmac.com/428587/larry-ellison-steve-jobs-shot-down-my-
apple-takeover-plans/ [Accessed 09/01/2019].
Fayolle, A. and Gailly, B. (2015) The impact of entrepreneurship education on
entrepreneurial attitudes and intention: Hysteresis and persistence. Journal of Small Business
Management, 53(1), pp.75-93.
Hackett, R.D. and Wang, G. (2012) Virtues and leadership: An integrating conceptual
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Carroll, P. (2011) Apple’s Unlikely Saviors: Gil Amelio and Jean-Louis Gassee [ONLINE]
Available from: https://hbr.org/2011/10/apples-unlikely-saviors-gil-am [Accessed
09/01/2019].
Piperopoulos, P. and Dimov, D. (2015) Burst bubbles or build steam? Entrepreneurship
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Business Management, 53(4), pp.970-985.
Prieger, J.E., Bampoky, C., Blanco, L.R. and Liu, A. (2016) Economic growth and the
optimal level of entrepreneurship. World Development, 82(1), pp.95-109.

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Shepherd, D.A. (2015) Party On! A call for entrepreneurship research that is more
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Williams, C.C., Martinez‐Perez, A. and Kedir, A.M. (2017) Informal entrepreneurship in
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