Programme: BA (Hons) in International Business with Foundation Year
Module: Understanding the Entrepreneurial Spirit
Module level : Level 4
Resources
Essential Resources
Rae, D. (2015). Opportunity-Centred Entrepreneurship. (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan International Higher Education.
Recommended Resources
Bygrave, W.D. and Zacharakis, A. (2019). Entrepreneurship. (5th ed.). Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Son.
Burns, P. (2018). New venture creation: a framework for entrepreneurial start-ups. (2nd ed). Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Bessant, J. and Tidd, J. (2015). Innovation & Entrepreneurship. (3rd ed.). London: Wiley
Stokes, D., Wilson, N. and Mador, M. (2010). Entrepreneurship. London: Cengage Learning.
Pervaiz, A. and Shepherd, C. D. (2010). Innovation Management: Context, Strategies, Systems and Processes. New York: Prentice Hall.
Trott, P. (2021). Innovation management and new product development. 7th ed. Harlow: Prentice Hall.
Wickham, P. (2006). Entrepreneurship. London: Prentice Hall.
Week 2 – Lecture
Personal enterprise:
connecting opportunities
and personal goals
Topics for today’s session
•
Key ideas on entrepreneurial learning
•
The Entrepreneurial learning model
•
Entrepreneurial capabilities and skills
•
Connecting opportunities and personal goals
•
Being a leader: forming and leading entrepreneurial teams
•
Networking, influencing and selling: vital skills in seeding opportunities
•
Assignment guideline
Introduction to the module
AIMS
Through the completion of this module, you will:
1. Gain an understanding of the theoretical and practical frameworks that underline
entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship development.
2. Obtain knowledge and understanding of key aspects of business planning, financing, evaluating
risk and how innovation creates competitive advantage
3. Develop marketing knowledge and skills, including the role of marketing and marketing
processes
4. Understand how entrepreneurial marketing contributes to business startup and growth.
5. Develop entrepreneurial skills that foster engagement with various stakeholders for business
development.
LEARNING OUTCOMES
On successful completion of this module, you will be able to:
1. Recognise and assess the scope and characteristics of entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship
2. Demonstrate a critical understanding of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs.
3. Present the differences between business activity and entrepreneurial activity, including notions of risk
assessment
4. Demonstrate knowledge of the significance of marketing to entrepreneurial activities.
5. Develop personal entrepreneurial skills and behaviour to individually be able to establish a business,
interact with and convince various stakeholders.
6. Evaluate how different national cultures will influence the effectiveness of different entrepreneurial
policies.
Assessment
▪ Assignment Deadlines and weight:
Deadline
Component
number
Form of
assessment
Learning
Assessment Weighting
outcomes
size
(%)
assessed
Late
Subn Core or
noncore
26/03/2023
1
2
Essay
Portfolio
1,500 words
1,500 words
50%
50%
1, 2, 3
4, 5, 6
19/03/2023
Yes
Core
Yes
Core
Assessment
▪ Component One: Refer to Assignment Brief posted on Brightspace
▪ Component Two: Refer to Assignment Brief posted on Brightspace
Key ideas on entrepreneurial learning
➢ Entrepreneurship comprises of the interconnected
processes of creating, recognising and acting on
opportunities, by combining innovating, decision
making and enaction.
➢ Learning is a developing, sensemaking process in
which people develop the ability to act differently.
Learning comprises knowing, doing, and
understanding why (Mumford, 1995).
➢ The term ‘entrepreneurial learning’ means learning
to recognize and act on opportunities, for example
by working socially and by initiating, organising and
managing ventures in social and behavioral ways.
Relating opportunity to personal goals (Rae, 2007)
Key ideas on entrepreneurial learning
Learn like an Entrepreneur
Problem Based Learning
➢ Gaining practical experiences and ‘learning by
doing’ is a key part of the entrepreneurial learning
process.
➢ Entrepreneurial effectiveness depends on numerous
individuals working effectively together rather than
just on the ‘lone entrepreneur’.
TL vs PBL (Adapted from Tan, 2021)
➢ A business is often the product of an entrepreneurial team, in which people must learn to
work effectively together.
➢ Therefore it is essential to develop skills of leadership and teamworking for a business to
grow, and for individuals to appreciate the distinctive contribution they can make.
The Entrepreneurial learning model
There are three interconnected themes that provides
a conceptual model of entrepreneurial learning:
➢ Personal and social emergence: becoming an
entrepreneur
➢ Contextual learning: using experience to find and
work on opportunities
➢ Negotiated enterprise: creating the venture by
interacting with others
Three major themes in entrepreneurial learning (Rae, 2007)
The Entrepreneurial learning model
Personal and social emergence: becoming an entrepreneur
Becoming an entrepreneur, or creation of the
entrepreneurial identity, is the result of early life and family
experiences, education and career formation, and social
relationships. This include:
➢ The narrative construction of identity – the stories
people tell about themselves and their ventures
➢ The identity as practice – convenient use of skills ad
abilities within the society
➢ The role of the family – culture, the influence of family
relationships, gender
➢ The tension between current and future identity – how
dissatisfaction can lead to entrepreneurship.
The entrepreneurial learning model showing sub-themes (Rae, 2007)
The Entrepreneurial learning model
Opportunity recognition arising from contextual learning
Recognising and acting on opportunities is an outcome of
contextual learning, which includes:
➢ Learning through immersion within the industry – such
as career or work experience that leads to intuitive skills,
networking and expertise
➢ Opportunity recognition and innovation through
participation – developing ideas from experience and
combining social knowledge with creative imagination of
the future potential of ‘what could be’
➢ Practical theories of entrepreneurial action – finding out
‘what works for me’
The entrepreneurial learning model showing sub-themes (Rae, 2007)
The Entrepreneurial learning model
Negotiated enterprise
Starting and growing a business negotiated enterprise,
including:
➢ Participation and joint enterprise – working with others
to create and run enterprises
➢ Negotiating meaning, structures and practices –
developing shared beliefs about enterprise, culture
sharing and employee engagement
➢ Engaging in networks of external relationships – building
and managing relationships with people around the
business
The entrepreneurial learning model showing sub-themes (Rae, 2007)
➢ Changing roles over time – roles growing with the
venture.
Activity
Each and individual has the potential and free choice to pursue a career
as an entrepreneur
a. True
b. False
Activity
Entrepreneurs typically have enough confidence to believe that they can make a difference in
the final outcome of their ventures.
a. True
b. False
Activity
A good trait for an entrepreneur is to be a calculated risk taker.
a. True
b. False
Entrepreneurial capabilities and skills
Conducting entrepreneurial activity requires a number of dynamic capabilities, that changes at
various stages of development of a business. These capabilities are illustrated in the below figure:
Entrepreneurial Management Capabilities (Rae, 2007)
Entrepreneurial capabilities and skills
Entrepreneurial capabilities
Management capabilities
Personal organisation
Leading and managing people
Interpersonal interaction*
Managing organisation and operations
Investigating opportunity
Managing finance and resources
Applying innovation
Strategic venture planning
Responsible management – social,
legal, environmental and ethical
responsibility
Connecting opportunities and personal goals
➢ Opportunities are perceived in different ways by people – even when same data is available to them.
➢ This is mainly due to individual perspectives, pervious experiences and past learning.
➢ In connecting ideas, opportunities and personal goals, there are few factors that significantly
influence the process, including:
Factors
Influence
1. Family background
Significant influence where there is a family history of starting and running
businesses in a particular trade, industry or profession.
e.g. Sam Walton founded Walmart; Jamsetji Tata founded Tata Group
2. Personal interests or
hobbies
Provide a means of learning about a particular activity and starting a
business, either early in working life or after a career in employment.
e.g. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in his garage
Connecting opportunities and personal goals
Factors
3. Previous career
experience
Influence
Employment in an industry enables ‘niche’ opportunities to be recognized and
development of networks and skills. People develop unique knowledge which
they can use in their own business.
e.g. Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook in his Harvard dorm
4. Education, training Those factors often provides the abilities, the awareness that entrepreneurship
and professional
is achievable, as well as development of necessary contacts to start a business.
development
Practice and experience within the industry offers a key benefit over education
only, and although graduate enterprise is to be commended, it may not be the
best initial career choice.
5. Social and
Those factors often provides entrepreneurs with successive business
community networks opportunities; through their networks, they develop awareness of opportunities
and connections
and are able to use these to develop business ventures. Social and economic
issues in communities, such as unemployment, a shop or childcare, have been
the spur for many social entrepreneurs to get started.
Connecting opportunities and personal goals
Entrepreneur vs Intrapreneur
➢ Research indicates that Start-up culture is increasing,
with 62% of millennials aiming to be entrepreneurs.
➢ While the entrepreneur role comes with certain
benefits, the reality is that over 60% of new business
projects and ventures are doomed to fail.
➢ Depending on the preference of each individual, it
must be noted that INTRAPRENURSHIP is another
way of doing business, offering higher chances of
success but reduced ownership.
Understanding Intrapreneurs
Connecting opportunities and personal goals
Entrepreneur vs Intrapreneur
The employee of an organization
(innovation within the organization)
Establishes own business with an
innovative concept
Increased responsibility and
freedom
Utilizes own resources
Risks are undertaken by the
individual
Entrepreneur
Leadership
Adaptability
Emotional
Intelligence
Risks are endured by the organization
Intrapreneur
Organisation provides the
Resources/ finance
Business ownership and freedom to
maneuver
Being a leader: forming and leading
entrepreneurial teams
An important application of your entrepreneurial capabilities is in considering what contribution you
can make to an entrepreneurial team.
An entrepreneurial team is a group who have come together to exploit an opportunity, usually by
setting up a new venture.
The ideal entrepreneurial team is likely to have:
➢ complementary skills and expertise compatible goals and
motivation – people want to achieve the same things
➢ compatible personalities and working styles
➢ trust, honesty with each other and mutual respect
➢ effective leadership.
Being a leader: forming and leading
entrepreneurial teams
➢ An useful in tool assessing the efficiency of an
entrepreneurial team is the DISC Model.
➢ The model focuses on Dominance, Influence,
Steadiness
and
Conscientiousness,
as
determinants that can improve work
productivity, communication and teamwork.
DISC model with competencies grouped in each dimension (Adapted from Pardo-del-Val, 2022)
Being a leader: forming and leading
entrepreneurial teams
International new ventures or Born Global Teams ?
Studies have shown that 50% to 75% of all international new ventures are started by more than
one individual (Sedziniauskiene et al., 2019). The 10 year survival rate of those new ventures is
illustrated in the below figure.
81 % survive
40 % survive
1 year
5 years
2 years
10 years
65 % survive
25 % survive
10-year survival rates of business start ups
Being a leader: forming and leading
entrepreneurial teams
➢ A new venture team is the group of founders, key employees, and
stakeholders, that move a new venture from an idea to a fully functioning
firm.
Bill Gates and Paul Allen: Microsoft founders
➢ Usually the team does not come together all at once. Instead, it is built as
the new firm can afford to employ additional people.
Examples of Famous Entrepreneurial Teams and successful co-entrepreneurs:
• Bill Gates and Paul Allen: childhood friends, founded Microsoft in 1975
• Larry Page and Sergey Brin: former PhD students- same supervisor, founded
Google in 1998
• Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak : former high school classmates, founded Apple
Inc in 1976
Larry Page and Sergey Brin: Google founders
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak : Apple Inc. founders
Being a leader: forming and leading
entrepreneurial teams
➢ The team also involves more than paid
employees. Many firms have:
• boards of directors
• boards of advisers and
• professionals
on whom they rely for direction and advice.
➢ New business tends to have a high propensity
to fail.
➢ The high failure rate is due in part to what
scientists call the liability of newness, which
refers to the fact that businesses often falter
because:
• the individuals who start the firms can not
adjust rapidly enough to their new roles and
• the firm lacks a “track record” with external
buyers and suppliers
Entrepreneurial team formation (Source: Lazar et al., 2020)
Being a leader: forming and leading
entrepreneurial teams
Size of Founding Team
The initial choice of most entrepreneurs/ founders is whether to
• start a venture on their own or
• create an preliminary entrepreneurial founding team.
Research indicates that new business started by a founding team
tends to have certain benefits, including:
• more talent (knowledge and capabilities), resources and ideas;
• Increased networking
• sales expertise in a market niche
• SUPPORT IN OVERCOME LIABILITY OF NEWNESS
Distinct Elements surrounding the new venture team
The Entrepreneur/Founder vs the Entrepreneurial Team
The capabilities of the entrepreneur (as a sole founder) or the
founding team team of a new venture have a substantial effect on the
manner in which the new business takes shape.
Being a leader: forming and leading
entrepreneurial teams
There are undoubtedly benefits of starting a venture as a team, but there are also a number of challenges
Advantages
➢ Increased talent, resources,
capabilities and ideas to the new
venture
Disadvantages
➢ Starting a venture as a team might be an issues when
the members find difficult to get along. For instance, if
two or more individuals start a business as “equals,”
conflicts can appear when the business needs to create
a formal structure and elect one individual as the CEO
➢ Starting a venture as a team will
➢ Challenges might arise when the co-entrepreneurs
provide a broader and robust network
have similar areas of expertise, which can cause
of social and professional contacts to
duplication rather the complementary actions
the new venture
➢ Starting a venture as a team will
provides moral support to the coentrepreneurs, and helps overcoming
the liability of newness
➢ Disagreement among the founders, in terms of risk
tolerance, levels of passion for the business or day to
day activities
Activity
Businesses often falter because the founders fail to adjust fast enough to their new roles and
because the firm lacks a "track record" with outside buyers and sellers. This is referred to as the:
a. innovator's affliction
b. creator's dilemma
c. liability of newness
d. burden of inexperience
Activity
Which of the following is not a characteristic of successful entrepreneurs?
a. Initiative
b. frustration
c. perseverance
d. strategic thinking
Activity
Which of the following statements about team building is true?
a. Most successful entrepreneurs have highly qualified teams that handle everything
having to do with the development of the venture.
b. Compared to the owner, employees are often more qualified to handle day-to-day
implementation challenges.
c. The entrepreneur has the clearest vision in the firm.
d. The entrepreneur needs a competent team to implement an idea.
Networking, influencing and selling:
vital skills in seeding opportunities
We learnt that the ideal entrepreneurial team is likely to have complementary skills and expertise,
as well as compatible personalities and aspirations. This indicates that entrepreneurs are not
homogenous. In fact, entrepreneurs are categorized into different types, including:
Networking, influencing and selling:
vital skills in seeding opportunities
➢ Sir James Dyson → An tech-entrepreneur, inventor and
philanthropist who has devoted his life to solving
problems and developing products through the
application of new technologies. Founder and Chairman
of Dyson, a problem solving, technology-led, company
which is present in 84 markets around the world.
➢ Oprah Winfrey →An Entertainment entrepreneur, TV
show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist.
Founded her own television production company, Harpo
Productions, Inc., in 1986, and a film production
company, Harpo Films.
Networking, influencing and selling:
vital skills in seeding opportunities
The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem
➢ In order to create sustainable
entrepreneurship and increase
networking, entrepreneurial
ecosystems are formed.
The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem (Source: OECD, 2014)
Activity
Toolkit hand out: entrepreneurial and management capabilities
You will be provided with a toolkit that will enable you to assess your personal,
entrepreneurial and management abilities. Complete the self-assessment and
answer to the following questions:
• What are the main capabilities you bring to an entrepreneurial team?
• Based on Sloan leadership capabilities, do you think you can show leadership,
or would you choose to support someone else in a leadership role by being a
team member?
• What complementary expertise, personality and capabilities would you look
for in other people as team members?
ASSIGNMENT BRIEFS
• Component 1
• Component 2
Assignment guideline
• Component One and Component 2
• General and basic guideline:
• All assignment questions contained in each of the
assignment briefs are to be addressed.
• Tick each question whenever it is completely
addressed.
• Read and understand each of the questions carefully
before conducting the respective research.
• One of the purposes of doing an assignment is to show
to your lecturer what you have learnt from the
lectures. How to do it? Always refer to the core
textbook and the lecture notes before answering the
questions. Cite all the relevant materials and apply
them to your assignment whenever required.
• Always refer to and follow the CRAAP Test. See table.
Assignment guideline
• Component One and Component 2
• General and Assignment-specific guideline:
• Refer to the Marking Guidance table stipulated in the assignment brief.
• Address each sub-topic logically and whenever appropriate.
• Quantitative measurement (word count) is one of the requirements but qualitative
work is equally required for each part of the assignment.
• In general, if you have addressed those points in the table, you’ll be fine. Yet, high
quality of work is always what we are looking for.
• Respective topics in the table should be sufficiently covered in the lecture notes.
• Your lecturer will walk you through with it during various lectures, before the
submission date or whenever appropriate.
SUMMARY
•
Key ideas on entrepreneurial learning
•
The Entrepreneurial learning model
•
Entrepreneurial capabilities and skills
•
Connecting opportunities and personal goals
•
Being a leader: forming and leading entrepreneurial teams
•
Networking, influencing and selling: vital skills in seeding opportunities
Any questions?
Thank You
References
Business Insider (2016). 10 insanely successful co-founders and why their partnerships worked. Available at:
https://www.businessinsider.com/10-successful-cofounders-and-why-their-partnerships-worked?r=US&IR=T
(Accessed: 7 December 2022).
Business Insider (2021). Jeff Bezos created Amazon from his garage – here are 14 of the most successful companies
that started in basements, sheds, and bedrooms. Available at: https://www.businessinsider.com/successfulcompanies-started-in-basements-garages-bedrooms-2020-4?r=US&IR=T (Accessed 08 December 2022).
Dr David Rae (2006) Entrepreneurial learning: A conceptual framework for technology-based enterprise, Technology
Analysis & Strategic Management, 18:1, 39-56, DOI: 10.1080/09537320500520494
Foss, N.J. and Klein, P.G. (2020). Entrepreneurial opportunities: who needs them?. Academy of Management
Perspectives, 34(3), pp.366-377.
Lazar, M., Miron-Spektor, E., Agarwal, R., Erez, M., Goldfarb, B. and Chen, G. (2020). Entrepreneurial team
formation. Academy of Management Annals, 14(1), pp.29-59.
References
Mason, C. and Brown, R. (2014). Entrepreneurial ecosystems and growth oriented entrepreneurship. Final report to
OECD, Paris, 30(1), pp.77-102.
Pardo-del-Val, M. and Revuelto-Taboada, L. (2022). Does the ideal entrepreneurial team exist?. International
entrepreneurship and management journal, 18(3), pp.1263-1289.
Sadiku-Dushi, N., Dana, L.P. and Ramadani, V. (2019). Entrepreneurial marketing dimensions and SMEs performance.
Journal of Business Research, 100, pp.86-99.
Sedziniauskiene, R., Sekliuckiene, J. and Zucchella, A., 2019. Networks’ impact on the entrepreneurial
internationalization: A literature review and research agenda. Management International Review, 59(5), pp.779-823.
Smith, B.K. (2020). Branded literacy: the entrepreneurship of Oprah’s Book Club. In WOMEN and LITERACY (pp. 157170). Routledge.
Tan, O.S. (2021). Problem-based learning innovation: Using problems to power learning in the 21st century. Gale
Cengage Learning.