Entrepreneurship and Risk Taking: A Case Study of Henry Ford

This essay delves into the crucial role of risk-taking in entrepreneurship, emphasizing its impact on innovation, strategic planning, and achieving a competitive edge. It highlights how entrepreneurs, by embracing risks, can identify opportunities and navigate challenges. The essay provides a case study of Henry Ford, demonstrating how his willingness to take risks, such as reducing prices and increasing employee wages, contributed to his success in the automobile industry. The essay draws from academic sources to support the arguments, illustrating how risk management and strategic thinking are essential for entrepreneurial success. The assignment underscores the significance of risk-taking as a key factor in distinguishing successful entrepreneurs and achieving sustainable growth in the business world.

The entrepreneurs must be enriched with various qualities like willingness to face risks, inborn
qualities of adventurism, innovative urge for creativity etc. In order to make dynamic changes to
the production process and to make use of the raw materials effectively, the entrepreneurs must
be ready to face risks and challenges. This enables the entrepreneurs to raise capital, develop
vision and ideas, finding right employees, overcoming competition, keeping up with the new
trends etc. The risks taken by the entrepreneurs allows the people to distinguish themselves from
their competitors and gain a competitive edge in the marketplace (Macko, A. and Tyszka, T.,
2009).
The entrepreneurs who are highly well-informed and have a risk-taking spirit are able to see
opportunities which other seen to ignore. The level of risks are higher when the entrepreneurs are
taking a step towards innovating and to figure out the best option that can help them move
forward. Once the entrepreneurs are accustomed to taking risks, they can learn various important
skills on calculation of the various contingencies along with strategic thinking as well as
planning (Allah, M.A. and Nakhaie, H., 2011). This can be explained by using the example of
Henry Ford, who took various risks and slashed the prices in a steep manner and risked taking
the losses. For satisfying the needs of the consumers, he took all the risks and even cut down the
working hours and increased the minimum wages for all his employees to enable them to work
for longer hours before quitting. The risk move was one of the strongest reasons that helped
Henry Ford to achieve heights in the automobile world.

References
Macko, A. and Tyszka, T., 2009. Entrepreneurship and risk taking. Applied psychology, 58(3),
pp.469-487.
Allah, M.A. and Nakhaie, H., 2011, December. Entrepreneurship and risk-taking.
In International Conference on E-business, Management and Economics (IPEDR),
Singapore (pp. 77-79).