Guven 1
Emre Guven
Dr. Steffen Guenzel
ENC 1102
January 8, 2019
Prospects on Future Entrepreneurship
Introduction
New technologies, globalism, and environmental concerns has provided the vision of rapid change that could impact the very fabric of society, thus can also do such in the business world, since markets are based on consumer preferences and these have a direct correlation with the status of society. Entrepreneurship, which is the main determinant of business progress and thus also the main factor in adapting to change, has become more vague in expressing its future. So, thequestion,"What is the future of entrepreneurship?", is raised. Rather than stating if entrepreneurship will become better or not, this paper will analyze the current situations and/or changes occurring in the following key determinants that is designing the future of entrepreneurship: education, business culture, corporate settingand government; in order, to determine a reliable prospect on this matter.
Education
Anironic fact concerning entrepreneurship in the United States is that, although entrepreneurship, compared to the rest of the world, is much more invested into, educating children to become entrepreneurs does not reflect the same attention. This claim uses education in the terms pertaining to parental and school education. Children, at a very young age, are taught to classify jobs, such as being a doctor or lawyer, as good jobs; however, entrepreneurship is not deemed belong to such a classification (Herold). Cameron Herold gives an example of anti-entrepreneurial education from parents by explaining the method of giving an allowance to show that children are raised to have steady-paid jobs. He argues that there is nothing steady about having a entrepreneurial job and that this method of education limits the potential creativity and business-mindedness needed to contribute to the economy and support of entrepreneurship. He suggests that parents should enforce values that requires creativity in order to obtain an opportunity from which reward could collected from. He concludes that this will promote the basic understanding on how entrepreneurial jobs function, along with improving critical problem-solving. The school education system also contributes to the argument of Herold because, although it requires critical analysis and some problem-solving skills, the system lacks the realism that entrepreneurs face by not including factors such as time pressure and limitations on information (Henderson and Robertson 238). Some effort is being shown in response to this problem. Courses involved in entrepreneurial education is increasing; however, they lack much uniformity, in order to promote them nation-wide (237). A collection of characteristics and central teachings need to be compiled so that these types of courses are increased to a greater amount and more influential level. Education will definitely be a major determinant in the success of entrepreneurship in the future because of the very nature of its concept. It has the power to form or reshape a person's character and potential. Future generations will greatly benefit in the business and entrepreneurial world if the education system is reformed by taking on the values and qualities present in those fields and implementing them into the core of their teachings.
Business Culture
Current society has a double-opinion on entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurs are seen, as Jessica Bruder puts it, in the hero status (Bruder 72). This is best seen with famous entrepreneurs, such as Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerburg. On the other hand, many people observe the field of entrepreneurship as being too risky, naturally they also abstained from classifying it as a good job and mostly avoid it as a profession (Henderson and Robertson 237). The culture that surrounds entrepreneurship acts in the same way. It comes with a lot of future benefits, but brings along with a number of current downfalls. Such downfall is the high risk, which is in the very fundamental nature of entrepreneurship. The word, culture, in this context does not follow the traditional definition of society, customs and rules, but pertains to the context of the specific culture of entrepreneurship, which is the relationship between the entrepreneur and the rules of business, along with its impact on the entrepreneur himself/herself. The traditional entrepreneur is known to create start-up businesses. This process, or stage of being labeled as a start-up, has been observed to impact the entrepreneur, both, physically and mentally (Bruder 73). Physically, many entrepreneurs start slacking on necessary sleep and start having ill eating habits, either eating too much or too little (73). Mentally, it can come to a point of being extremely depressed or even suicidal due problems such as economic strain, personnel problems, and a hectic schedule (72-73). Such conditions are natural for fields of business with high risk. For this reason, such difficulties will continue to be present in the entrepreneurial start-up businesses.
A new breed of entrepreneurship has formed, in recent times, that merge the culture of entrepreneurship with that fixing social problems; this new notion is called social entrepreneurship. The motive or the logical reasoning behind this new breed of entrepreneurship could be observed in the following sentence: "Helping one who is injured does not do much for the next one or the next hundred" (Dees 326). In this case, helping the one person injured pertains to the traditional way of dealing with social problems and that is the usage of charities. Making sure that no one gets injured again correlates to social entrepreneurship. It is a process of implementing problem-solving, that is relevant in entrepreneurship, into fixing social problems, such as poverty. A major incentive for doing this is the hope of returning a profit (324). This might seem like using honorable or goodwill situations for selfish needs; however, business, especially entrepreneurship, creates economic growth and that can hit the root for solving many social problems. The U.S. government, however, currently favors the usage of charities through laws and tax incentives (326). The usage of social entrepreneurship needs to expand. With incentives of profit and the nation's stance with capitalism, it could be foretold that laws will be changed in favor of this new breedand social entrepreneurship will takeover, but not fully eliminate, the method of using charity to fix social problems.
Corporate Setting
Ideas and concepts, directly or indirectly, deriving from entrepreneurship are not are just influencing other non-business fields. Large companies have had an innovation problem due to the high competition from smaller firms who have been able to put into practice their innovation in a faster, more practical, and easier pace due to their natural smaller size (Thornberry 329). To solve this problem corporations have started to rigorously explore new methods and this has led to the increase relevancy of corporate entrepreneurship(330). Shankar Chelliah, Mohamed Sulaiman, and JayaramanMunusamy define corporate entrepreneurship "as the sum of a company's efforts aimed at innovation, proactiveness, and risk taking." However, this concept can be explained in a much more in-depth analysis, where approaches to corporate entrepreneurship within large, medium, and small sized companies are observed.
Since the topic of large companies had opened previously, it would be most appropriate to start analyzing them first. It is necessary for these large companies to understand that they cannot continue to just incrementally improve established business models; they must create new and unique ones (Blank 3). Four different ways of using entrepreneurial ideas has been taken into action by a number of large firms; these are: corporate venturing, intrapreneuring, organizational transformation, and industry rule-breaking (Thornberry 330). The first way, Corporate venturing, in its most simplistic terms, could be described as creating a business within a business, which in this case would be the pertaining large corporation (330). The second, intraprenuring is, sort of like, importing entrepreneurial mindsets and behaviors into that of the corporate environment (331). The third, corporate renewal aims at restructuring,in a new and unique way, resources to create a more efficient and, naturally, a more profitable business plan (331). The fourth and final way of utilizing entrepreneurial ideas in corporations is called rule-breaking and this method takes corporate renewal and radicalizes it, in the sense that, instead of restructuring the company's business plan, it aims at transforming the market itself (331). All four of these ways present concrete evidence that large companies are definitely taking initiative and necessary steps in order stay competitive through the means of innovation. It is important to note that there is still no standard strategy for creating innovation (Blank 1). So these initiative, taken now, will turn, develop into, and/or create a foundation for solid and established methods in the future, thus an integration of entrepreneurship with large corporations is evident.
Small and medium sized firms could be grouped into the same general faction because, not only do they share most of the same characteristics, they also seem to create the opposition against large companies over innovation. Especially in the United States, they have been the forerunner of innovative business. Due to their natural smaller size compared to large corporations, implementing new ideas, business plans, and/or services have been done in a relative ease(Thornberry 329). As it has been observed the innovative edge of Small and Medium Manufacturing Enterprises (SMEs) over large corporations will dwindled in the future, as large corporations further fund innovative projects. So, SMEs have to also acclimate with change. A key factor in determining what will pull this change forward is the role of internationalization. A large amount of SMEs presence in the global market has come about in the last ten years (Chelliah, Sulaiman and Munusamy 506). It turns out that corporate entrepreneurship proves to be very effective when SMEs participate in the global markets (513). The natural larger amount of providers involved in the global markets compared to those in local or national ones causes promotion for more innovative experimentation with business plans (505). So, SMEs still are going to be the forerunners in innovation; however, their mindsets about and objectives for innovation will shift to appealing and satisfying global markets instead.
Role of Government
The Untied States of America has a long tradition of free enterprise. This has caused intervention to be limited to only the local level governments (Yu, Stough and Nijkamp S96). So, it evident that innovation and entrepreneurship is promoted, developed, and spread from the bottom, local level, to the top, federal or ultimate power of government. Another factor to take into consideration is that the government promotes entrepreneurship even more by providing favorable tax policies towards small and start-up firms (Gale and Brown 887). The U.S. government has an incentive to do this because small businesses provides the highest net job gains in the nation (876). Such methods and environments are not seen in areas such as, Europe and China. Both have used strong government responses as facilitators for entrepreneurship, but have resulted in different success. Throughout Europe, many government-run/supported centers were created in order to promote innovation because they had fallen behind United States and Japan in technological advancement(Yu, Stough and Nijkamp S96). Large amount of reforms were undertaken, which provided subsidies to start-ups (S97). As a result, technological advances have been notably seen recently. The story in China also started in a similar fashion, where they too had fallen behind technologically; however, its implementation has been seen in a much larger scale. In 1988, China created the Torch Program, which aimed to develop high-tech products by creating technology-oriented firms (S97). By 2007, this program established 548 Innovation centers (S97). Many small enterprises have been created, but nearly all has been focused on exportable goods (S98-S99). So, there has been minimal contributions to the local economy. It is also questionable if the innovation centers helped in the increase of firms or not because the success rate of graduates from those centers are unclear (S99). The role of the government in the United States seems like it will not change because there is a sense that current government approach is providing the necessary factors of entrepreneurial growth.
Conclusion
Observing the main determinants of future entrepreneurial success concludes the idea that the concepts of entrepreneurship has the potential of being incorporated by both business and non-business related fields. Two examples of this will be the rise of social entrepreneurship in tackling social problems and the increase rise of corporate entrepreneurship in elevating innovation capabilities at large business corporations. Small and medium sized firms will shifttheir traditional entrepreneurial views from satisfying local needs to competing in the global market. Education has proved to be a vague determinant because although reform is needed to increase the entrepreneurial mindsets in children, any significant or influential action upon it seems dubious mainly due to the lack of central teachings about entrepreneurship and due to the inability of implementing business oriented values into core teaching. The current U.S. government's approach towards beneficially favoring small business, by using incentives such as tax breaks, has in its current stage been very successful compared other nations. So, any radical changes by our government seems very unlikely.
Works Cited
Blank, Steve. "The Future of Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship." 3 December 2012. The Berkeley Blog. Blog. 20 February 2013.
Bruder, Jessica. "The Price." Inc. 2013 September 2013: 72-77. Article.
Chelliah, Shankar, Mohamed Sulaiman and Jayaraman Munusamy. "The Role of Corporate Entrepreneurship in Internationalization of Small and Medium Manufacturing Enterprises (SMEs)." Thr International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences (2011): 505-516. Document.
Dees, Gregory J. "A Tale of Two Cultures: Charity, Problem Solving, and the Future." J. Bus Ethics (2012): 321-334. Document.
Gale, William and Samuel Brown. "Small Business, Innovation, and Tax Policy." National Tax Journal (2013): 871-892. Document.
Henderson, Roger and Martyn Robertson. "Who Wants to be an Entrepreneur? Young Adult Attitudes to Entrepreneurship as a Career." Education + Training (1999): 236-245. Document.
Herold, Cameron. Let's Raise Kids to be Entrepreneurs [video file]. June 2010. <
Teal, Elisabeth J. and Archie B. Carroll. "Moral Reasoning Skills: Are Entrepreneurs Different?" Journal of Business Ethics (1999): 229-240. Document.
Thornberry, Neal E. "Corporate Entrepreneurship: Teaching Managers to be Entrepreneurs." Journal of Mangement Development (2003): 329-344. Document.
Yu, Junbo, Roger R. Stough and Peter Nijkamp. "Governing Technological Entrepreneurship in China and the West." Public Administration Review (2009): S95-S100. Document.