Report: Thomas Edison's Entrepreneurial Characteristics and Motivation

This report delves into the entrepreneurial characteristics and motivations of Thomas Edison, examining his impact as an American inventor and businessman. It explores Edison's background, highlighting his contributions to fields like mass communication and electric power generation. The report critically evaluates his entrepreneurial traits, including motivation, vision, passion, decision-making skills, confidence, and creativity. Furthermore, it applies Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to understand Edison's motivational drivers, considering physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization needs. The analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the factors contributing to Edison's success and his influence on modern industrialization.

Entrepreneur

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
Background of Thomas Edison...................................................................................................3
Characteristics of Entrepreneur...................................................................................................3
Entrepreneur Motivation..............................................................................................................4
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Entrepreneurship refers to setting up of business by individuals known as entrepreneur,
which takes upon financial risk in the hope of generating higher profits. An entrepreneur is an
individual who creates a new business who enjoys most of rewards, by bearing most of risk.
Entrepreneur is seen commonly seen as innovator of new goods and services, new ideas and new
business and process. Present report will brief of chosen entrepreneur and will critically evaluate
entrepreneurial motivation and characteristics by using different model and theories.
MAIN BODY
Background of Thomas Edison
Thomas Alva Edison is an American inventor and businessman who is referred as greatest
inventor of America. He has invented many devices in fields such as mass communication,
electric power generation, sound recording and various others. His invention has wide spread
impact in world of modern industrialisation. He was first inventor or entrepreneur to apply
principle of teamwork who worked with many employees and researchers. In his career he
worked as telegraph operator which have inspired some of his invention in economy and
benefited the same. The only ideas that were interesting to him were the once that he was
commercialising. He was driven with passion and excellence which led him with successful
invention and made him great entrepreneur
Characteristics of Entrepreneur
 Entrepreneurs such as Edison are highly motivated all time as a result putting down
long hours, days, months and years to get there ideas and business successful by
putting down all their efforts, money creativity to just pursue their dreams. They
are highly motivated with their hard work despite of being knowing that there are
chances where the efforts will not be rewarded in certain cases, where they refuse
to get into fear of failure and work hard and smart which helps in getting to the
position where they desire to be (Kozubíková,2017).
 Thomas Edison and other entrepreneurs have vision for which they are
continuously committed to achieve and accomplish objectives and what strategy
and action plan to they need on side to reach their goals. They have clear and
underlined vision followed and supported with defined mission to achieve the

same. Vision from them act as compass and direction force that lays down to utilise
opportunities in way that no other can else understand and utilise.
 Entrepreneurs like Thomas Edison are driven with Passion to get there things done.
It is drive which comes from inner that motivates them in their tough time and
encourages them to take challenging task and risk for which they are highly
rewarded which can be in terms of recognition, profits, respect and other things
(Ahn, Han, Kang, 2019).
 Thomas Edison and other entrepreneurs possesses decision making skills efficiently
and effectively where they derive to make good decision that support their growth
in highly competitive business environment. Entrepreneur not only make good
decision but also make quick decision in order to get full utilisation of opportunities
and resources
 They are highly driven with confidence as without that it is hard for them to derive
success in marketplace. Edison believed in himself and was driven with confidence
to fight with difficulties and discouragement which came in his way, which
motivated him to take risk and succeed in their future.
Thomas Edison was driven with creativity which allows him to innovate new things. It helped
him with coming up with new ideas and solutions for the problems and allows him to think out
of the box. It provides with the ability to make new products and services for the market they are
currently playing in by identifying various risk and challenges and converting various
opportunities in way that profit them a lot (Eniola,2017).
Individuals who fails to take into consideration all above mentioned characteristics may
suffer harsh time in implementing strategies for their business operations to run with smooth
functioning.
Entrepreneur Motivation
Thomas Edison is a well-known American inventor who has changed the world and provided
something which was believe to be impossible to achieve. Therefore, it can be considered there
was high level of motivation was shown by Thomas Edison to break the conventional method
and create a league of its own. So, content theory of motivation was used by Edison. To achieve

life goals a systematic series of developments has to be done, thus Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
theory can be implemented in this scenario.
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
This theory concentrates on psychological needs which an entrepreneur must possess in
order to become successful and achieve life objectives. The theory is divides into five segments
which are designed in a pyramid shape which goes from bottom to top. Following is the
representation of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for Thomas Edison.
Physiological Needs–
Physiological Needs are the basic needs which an entrepreneur has to achieve in order to
become successful these needs comprises of requirements such as food, water and shelter. These
are necessary for an entrepreneur like Thomas Edison because he is responsible for developing
an organization and organization is the group of employees gathered together for achieving a
common goal (Mahto and McDowell, 2018). Therefore, Thomas Edison’s first basic objective
was to fulfil these basic requirements of him and his employees so that they are able to
concentrate their efforts for achieving their objectives. Once the entrepreneur is able to fulfil
these basic requirements then they are able to concentrate their efforts for achieving an specific
target. This is an important step for an entrepreneur to achieve but at the same time this also
increases organizational expenditures and reduces company’s economic growth.
Safety Needs-
Once an entrepreneur is able to fulfil its basic requirements then arises the physiological
needs such as job security and work place safety. This need motivates entrepreneur to develop a
base line for performance, such that they are able to maintain a basic economic growth for the
organization (Manish and Sutter, 2016). Entrepreneur like Thomas Edison has to implement
organizational structure such that this same confidence is circulated among organizational
employees through fulfilment of safety need entrepreneur and employee can concentrate on
achieving their organizational targets. With that entrepreneur is also responsible to maintain a
safe and hygienic workplace were employees are more focused for achieving their targets
irrespective of uncertainties. Therefore entrepreneur like Thomas Edison has to fulfil basic
financial and job security needs of employees with proper medical care.
Social Needs-

Social needs are also called as love and belonging needs. Once the entrepreneur is able to
fulfil the basic and safety needs of employees then arises belonging needs at which employees
and entrepreneur seeks to develop an effective relationship with others. These relationships
include development of high level of trust among family, friends, etc. These needs arise when the
entrepreneur is able to fulfil its basic and safety needs then the employee tends to share its
achievement with his friends and family (Cohen, Kaspi-Baruch and Katz, 2019). This
relationship tends to motivate entrepreneur and fellow employees to work hard and so they can
share their achievement with their loved once. This social needs is important for entrepreneur
because they are sharing their achievement with other but on the other hand this stage also lead
to misleading behaviour of employees because they are paying high attention on developing their
network.
Esteem Needs-
This is the next stage which an entrepreneur like Thomas Edison faces in their way of
becoming successful. At this stage entrepreneur seek to showcase itself as an higher positioned
person among group therefore it seek to maintain its dignity and sense of achievement which an
entrepreneur has achieved from its hard work. High level of self related activities can be seen at
this stage where entrepreneur put comparatively high efforts for maintaining its status. This is an
physiological need which requires lot of physical activities such as learning new skills talking
with aggression, this all is to separate oneself from the crowd. Good side is entrepreneur faces
high level of self confidence in its abilities but on the other hand it also pays high attention on
irrelevant activities which would affect its reputation.
Self-Actualization Needs-
This is the final stage which arises when an entrepreneur is able to fulfil all the previous
needs in order to become successful, at this stage entrepreneur is highly motivated for achieving
a highest position to which one can grow itself (Raza, Qazi and Shah, 2018). Therefore
properties of developing oneself to its full potential can be seen at this stage where entrepreneur
try to leave a legacy for becoming successful and achieving its full potential. This can be the
stage where Thomas Edison might have established high efforts in invention and has achieved a
product of its hard work which is capable of changing the world.

CONCLUSION
From the above analysis it can be concluded that entrepreneur are the whole and sole of
organization who are responsible for developing an organization. At which it is the responsibility
of entrepreneur to stay focussed for achieving their goals and becoming successful by achieving
their life objectives. In order to achieve this entrepreneur must poses several skills so their
working process can be improved with time resulting in better performance at life on at
workplace.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Ahn, T.U., Han, D.H. and Kang, T.W., 2019. The Effects of Entrepreneur Competence
Characteristics on Start-Up Performance: Focusing on the Mediating Effect of the Start-
Up Support System. Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and
Entrepreneurship,.14(1). pp.73-83.
Cohen, H., Kaspi-Baruch, O. and Katz, H., 2019. The social entrepreneur puzzle: the
background, personality and motivation of Israeli social entrepreneurs. Journal of Social
Entrepreneurship. 10(2). pp.211-231.
Eniola, A.A., 2017. Entrepreneur-firm characteristics and financing sources. International
Journal of Research Studies in Management. 6(2). pp.13-21.
Kozubíková, L.,and et.al ., 2017. Important characteristics of an entrepreneur in relation to risk
taking: Czech Republic case study. Journal of International Studies.
Mahto, R.V. and McDowell, W.C., 2018. Entrepreneurial motivation: a non-entrepreneur’s
journey to become an entrepreneur. International Entrepreneurship and Management
Journal. 14(3). pp.513-526.
Manish, G.P. and Sutter, D., 2016. Mastery versus profit as motivation for the
entrepreneur. Journal of Entrepreneurship and Public Policy.
Raza, S.A., Qazi, W. and Shah, N., 2018. Factors affecting the motivation and intention to
become an entrepreneur among business university students. International Journal of
Knowledge and Learning. 12(3). pp.221-241.

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