Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice: Individual Report Analysis

This report delves into the realm of entrepreneurship, examining its core concepts and the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. It provides a detailed analysis of entrepreneurial ventures in the current volatile business environment. The report explores the strengths and weaknesses of prominent entrepreneurs, specifically Richard Branson and Mark Zuckerberg, and assesses the impact of these traits on their careers. The report provides insights into entrepreneurial concepts, risk-taking, innovation, and the challenges faced by entrepreneurs. The report also considers the significance of vision, communication, and the ability to adapt. Through this analysis, the report aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of entrepreneurship theory and practice, offering valuable insights for aspiring entrepreneurs and business students. The report draws on academic sources and provides a thorough exploration of the key aspects of entrepreneurship.

Running head: ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE
Entrepreneurship theory and practice
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Executive Summary
This report focuses on the entrepreneurial venture. In the extreme volatile business environment,
launching and running business independently has become a major trend as it is the key of
staying aside from hardcore competition in the market. It is imperative to note that strong vision
and great self-confidence are the key of running own entrepreneurial venture with utmost
efficiency. This report has presented the strengths and weaknesses of two of the famous
entrepreneurs namely Richard Branson and Mark Zuckerberg. The impact of both strength and
weakness on their career as successful entrepreneur has also been presented in the report.
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Table of Contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................4
Conceptualization of entrepreneurship:...........................................................................................4
Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs:....................................................................................6
Strengths and weaknesses of Richard Branson and its impact on his career as entrepreneur:........7
Strengths and weaknesses of Mark Zuckerberg as successful entrepreneur:..................................9
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................10
Reference:......................................................................................................................................11
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Introduction:
In the highly volatile business environment, starting and running own business has
become a latest trend. This is the way, through a strong financial base can be acquired. There lies
the significance of successful entrepreneurship. As discussed by Drucker (2014) starting and
running own business is considered as entrepreneurship and the person, who operates own
business independently is considered as successful entrepreneur. The functions of entrepreneurial
venture comprise of discovering comprehensive business opportunity in the market and exploit
them properly for the sake of gaining immense success from business.
Entrepreneurship can have strong influence on promoting both national economies. In
addition to that,Kirzner (2015) stressed on the fact that entrepreneurship has considerable
contribution on lowering the issue of unemployment by offering wide range of job opportunity to
local people. This paper will put forth critical discussion of entrepreneurship. Fundamental
concept of entrepreneurship and the ideological nature of successful entrepreneurs will be
evaluated. The discussion will be illustrated by taking reference from Richard Branson and Peter
Jones- two of the most successful entrepreneur of UK. The strengths and weaknesses of both of
these entrepreneurs will be discussed in the paper.
Conceptualization of entrepreneurship:
According to Venkataraman (2019) entrepreneurship is defined as the process of
planning, designing and running own business. This is considered as the capacity and willingness
of organizing and managing own business venture by their own risk in order to make profit. The
chances of risk related to profit making is comparatively high in the context of entrepreneurship.
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Rawhouser et al. (2019) highlighted by saying that entrepreneurship is considered as the activity,
of exploiting the business opportunity by own in order to transform the innovation into products
or services. Execution of innovative activities is one of the most important factors for gaining
success from entrepreneurial venture. It is worth to mention here that entrepreneurship can also
act as an assumption of responsibility in order to design and implement effective business
strategy in terms of starting own business. Innovation in creating products or services and
thereby making wealth out of it are the fundamental activity of successful entrepreneur. Wiklund
et al. (2019) put stress on the fact that this is the mode of discovering existing opportunity in the
market, transforming the underlying ideas into action, undertaking effective promotional
activities in terms of launching the entrepreneurial venture and harmonizing the business in the
market.
Controlling own decision and action, creating something new and innovative, attaining
both personal and professional development and accessing strong financial basis are the key
motivators of running own entrepreneurial venture independently. Frederick et al. (2018)
stressed on the ground that the inclusion of innovative ideas paves the way for entrepreneurial
venture to satisfy increased demand among the customers and thus keep them happy and
satisfied. This is the way, through which the entrepreneurs also reinforce their position in the
market. However, Kirzner (2015) argued that there are certain challenges, which are often being
faced by the entrepreneurs in the way of running their business smoothly. Appropriate
management of cash flow is the major issue, faced by the entrepreneurs in the contemporary
times. Cash flow is one of the most imperative factors for the survival of the small and medium
size business organizations. Still, Read et al. (2016) observed that some of the entrepreneurs are
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facing issues in the way of paying bills and delayed invoicing. These issues are making it
difficult for the entrepreneurs to run their business in a cost effective manner.
Entrepreneurship is basically a response to the market demand, which can take place in
the field of social endeavor, education, agriculture and social work. Parker (2018) showed that
successful entrepreneurship is one of the major factors in economic development as it plays a
major role in promoting a consistent growth in the economy. In the developed countries like UK,
both governmental and private entrepreneurship are the key to promote national economy. Over
the past few years, the rate of employment in UK has been increased by 50%. Eckhardt et al.
(2018) shaded light on the fact that entrepreneurship supports in forming the capital by aligning
both human capital and savings. Contrarily it has been observed by Venkataraman (2019) that
sometimes it becomes difficult for the entrepreneurs to hike competent staffs and thus accelerate
their organizational productivity. The entrepreneurs often dread the interview process higher than
that of the efficient employees. Thus, the recruitment process followed by the entrepreneurs are
highly is very much time consuming. This created difficult for the entrepreneurs to hire skilled
and competent staffs. Still, large scale employment opportunity is also being provided by
entrepreneurship which is the key of lowering the concentration of economic power. The
majority of small and medium size organizations in UK are defined as entrepreneurial ventures.
Characteristics of successful entrepreneurs:
An entrepreneur is considered as the individual, who takes necessary steps for starting,
managing, running and controlling own business venture by bearing the risk and enjoying the
reward. Entrepreneur, in its simple form is considered as the innovator who explores creative
ideas and exploit them in the creation of high quality of products or services. Stuetzer et al.
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(2018) perceived that they possess equal responsibility of facing the risk of start-up businesses
along with reward in the form of profit. In the era of global financial uncertainty,
entrepreneurship plays a major role in terms of economic development. In addition, Barringer
(2015) also opined that successful entrepreneurs anticipate both the current and future need and
thereby make products accordingly with the intension of satisfying the requirements of end users.
Entrepreneurship is process of starting and running own business. Successful
entrepreneurial venture requires comprehensive skill and competency level among entrepreneur,
as it is the key of running own business with utmost efficiency. Maintaining a certain system
while running the business is one of the key characteristics of successful entrepreneurs, through
which they become able to run their own business venture with utmost efficiently. Burns and
Dewhurst (2016) commented that the entrepreneurs follow step-by-step approach with the
intension of running own business in a comprehensive manner. Lawful and purposeful activity is
the ideological nature of successful entrepreneurs, through which they run their business by
following a consistent legal framework.
As the aim of running own entrepreneurial venture is to strengthen the value of social
gain, the inclusion of legal framework serves the entrepreneurs with the capability to avoid
practicing any kind of illicit business related activities. Creativity and innovation is the key
characteristic feature of successful entrepreneurs, through which they produce high quality of
products or services as per the needs and requirements of the customers. Read et al. (2016) said
that with the assistance of both innovation and creativity, the entrepreneurs become able to attain
long term success from business by keeping the customers happy and satisfied. On the other
hand, Parker (2018) argued by saying that sometimes the entrepreneurs faced issues in the way
of delegating the task in an appropriate manner. Due to lack of ample knowledge regarding the
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market condition, the entrepreneurs face issues in order to figure out relevant resources and
effective delegation drive, which are the key factors in the way of carrying out right delegation
process and thus ensure smooth functionality of the corporate entity.
Self-motivation is one of the major traits of successful entrepreneurs. The inclusion of
self-motivation drives the people to take necessary initiative as well as risk in terms of running
own business. In addition, self-motivation also leads them to take risk for the sake of running
own business. In opposition, Storey (2016) contended on the ground that team building is a
critical challenge, faced by the entrepreneurs. It is true that the entrepreneurs possess ample self-
motivation which enables them to carry out own business venture. Yet, lack of effective
management experience restricts them to motivate the staffs, which is the key of aligning them in
a single platform. This is the reason for which selection of = right team for start-up business is
the biggest challenge for the entrepreneurs.
Strengths and weaknesses of Richard Branson and its impact on his career as
entrepreneur:
Entrepreneurship is the art of integrating innovation and thus produces high quality od
products or services. Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is one of the famous British
entrepreneurs and the founder of Virgin group, which is currently controlling more than 350
companies. From very early age, he was highly willing to be an entrepreneur. Thus, it can be said
that, strong will power is the most significant strength of Richard Branson. As showed by
Etzkowitz and Zhou (2017) the inclusion of strong will power has led him to launch his first
business venture at the age of 16. However, at the initial stage, lack of experience was his
greatest weakness. Still, he has taken the weakness as the opportunity and thereby become the
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voice of young generation. Effective communication skill is a major strength of Richard
Branson, through which he has become able to maintain a strong professional network, which is
very much needed in order to become a successful entrepreneur. Richard Branson possessed the
vision of captivating challenging future, which is inevitable in running business independently.
Hitt and Duane Ireland (2017) shaded light on the ideology that this vision has enabled him to
expand his business in much wider business domain, which is the key of gaining strong
recognition in the market and thereby amplify the statistics of profit. In addition, strong vision
has also played a critical role for Richard Branson to create positive organizational culture,
which has fostered commitment among the employee to accomplish organizational objectives.
Ability to take risk is also a vital strength of Richard Branson. It has been observed that,
through strong will power, he has created his initial business. In order to provide monetary
support to this business, Richard Branson has launched his second business venture namely
‘Virgin Records’. This risk taking ability has led him to transform his ideas into action and
thereby launch his second business venture with utmost dedication. Lack of profitability from the
first business is a major weakness of Richard Branson. Cooper (2017) observed that at the initial
stage, lack of ample cash flow was a biggest challenge for him. In this case also, strong will
power has enabled him to overcome this challenge. Instead of fearing, he decided to integrate
flexibility in their business process and launched his mail-order discount record business, which
has developed at a very impressive rate within a few years (Eckhardt et al. 2018).
However, inability to speaking publicly is his major weakness. It is true that, he has great
communication skill, still, he shows reluctant attitude while speaking publicly. Yet, high
aspiration of achieving the best is also a major strength. His high aspiration and sporting spirit
have led him to expand his business across the globe (Burns and Dewhurst 2016). He always
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seeks for effective business opportunity and exploit the opportunity in order to acquire
competitive advantage. Recently, he has launched a space travel company namely Virgin
Galactic.
Strengths and weaknesses of Mark Zuckerbergas successful entrepreneur:
Person with great innovative ideas and ability to operate own business competently is
considered as successful entrepreneur. Mark Zuckerberg is a famous American technology
entrepreneur. In addition, he is also a popular philanthropist and the founder of famous social
media Face book. As per the perception of Wiklund et al. (2019) running diverse range of
business is the key aspect of entrepreneurial venture of Mark Zuckerberg. Having clear vision is
the biggest strength of Peter David Jones. Through this way, he can visualize the inner meaning
of success. His vision towards success is open and transparent.
He has stuck with his vision during the entire growth of Facebook. His vision is to create
a product, which can strengthen the value by letting people, connected around the world. Risk
taking and going beyond the comfort zone is another vital strength of Mark Zuckerberg, through
which he has become able to travel across the continents in order to communicate his vision with
that of the audience and thus expand his business to much wider business domain. On the
contrary, Wiklund et al. (2019) argued that wearing a tie every day is the greatest personal
challenge faced by Mark during 2009. However, before wearing the signature grey shirt, Mark
wore the tie for an entire year. The fundamental reason behind this activity of Mark is to convey
a powerful message. After the recession during 2008, face book had faced immense challenge for
the entire year. In this extreme volatile business environment, Mark had showed that, his
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company is taking this challenge and wearing a tie with the intension of shading light on the
seriousness of the situation.
Mark Zuckerberg is highly willing to repeat mistake in various aspects such as privacy
policy and new feed in face book. Venkataraman (2019) started that through this way, he
integrates innovation in order to promote considerable growth of face book. Mark Zuckerberg is
blessed with the ability to understand the key requirement of customers. He can assess the
fundamental need of people to be connected with the world. Through this way, he has developed
provocative approach to keep the customers attracted (Barringer 2015). Following the code of
conduct is also a critical personal challenge faced by Mark Zuckerberg during 2012. It has been
admitted by Mark Zuckerberg that lack of ample time is making it difficult for his to initiate the
programing for writing the code. Therefore, Mark Zuckerberg has set the personal challenge for
him to write one number of code regularly and maintaining cordial connection with the staffs.
Building confidence is a biggest strength of successful entrepreneur. The inclusion of
self-confidencesupports the entrepreneurs to perceive challenging situation positively (Parker
2018). This is the way, through which the entrepreneurs exploit the negativity into opportunity
and thus attain long term success from business. However, in the early days, Mark Zuckerberg
has faced several challenges in the way of launching his business. He faced immense criticism
due to his. He was being called as “Toddler CEO”. But, he has used this criticism positively and
experienced considerable growth of his entrepreneurial venture. The twins from senior year have
claimed that Mark had stolen their ideas and used them in his own project. Mission and
consistent vision is the key factors, through which Mark had integrated innovative ideas in his
business process and became the most successful entrepreneur across the globe. In addition to
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that, self-learning and self-improving are also powerful ways, through which Mark had mitigated
the challenges.
Conclusion:
Based on the discussion, it can be concluded by saying that entrepreneurship plays a
major role in terms promoting both the local and economy. It has been observed that,
entrepreneurs plays a major role in terms of creating the employment opportunity and thus
reduce the critical issue of unemployment. Strong skills and competency level among the
entrepreneur is very much needed to run the entrepreneurial venture successfully and thereby
accomplish organizational objective.
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