Entrepreneurship Characteristics and Types

Study Notes

An entrepreneur is someone who identifies a business opportunity, develops an idea, and gathers the resources to execute it. They are also willing to take risks.
Entrepreneurship is more about attitude than skill.
Creating a business isn't required to be an entrepreneur.
Other individuals work for an established business entity.
Attitudes are prioritised over skills.

Entrepreneur: Identifies, develops, and creates a new business idea, taking on risks.
Businessperson: Manages an existing company, fulfilling goals.

Financing limitations: Difficulty securing loans and investor interest.
Wage gap and the glass ceiling: Lower earning potential creates limitations in savings, making starting a business more difficult..
Work-life imbalance: Significant disparity in time spent on household responsibilities.
Low self-esteem: Women sometimes undervalue their capabilities to start a business due to societal expectations.
Lack of mentors and role models : Limited visibility of successful women entrepreneurs creates fewer guides for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Innovation differentiates from creativity in the production of new products, processes or business models which improve solutions for our needs, unlike just creating the possibilities.

Schumpeter's Theory: Entrepreneurs drive innovation by seeking to enhance profitability.
Drucker's Theory: Innovation is a process where entrepreneurs identify business possibilities and design solutions.
Rogers' Theory: Innovation adoption follows a defined pattern characterized by early adopters, followed by the majority.
Christensen's Theory: Business needs to consider the impact of disruptive innovations on their most loyal customers.
Porter's Theory: Innovation occurs in three key areas: Product differentiation, improved production processes, and new business models.

Offensive strategy: Aims to maintain leadership in the market by constantly introducing new products.
Defensive strategy: A business that wants to emulate the features of a company that is currently successful.
Imitative strategy: Builds on existing, successful products, usually at a lower cost.
Opportunistic strategy: Takes advantage of specific market niches or unmet customer needs.
Traditional strategy: Businesses that have been around for a while but still manage to adapt.

Digitalization converts analogue information into digital format for analysis, storage and transmission.
Advancements in technology (like internet of things, cloud computing, big data analytics, artificial intelligence) have accelerated digitalization.
Real-time data, advancements in communication, new work models, business transformation.

Advantages of digitalization include efficient communication, new methods of working, technological transformation, and expanded business.

Digital crime, mass surveillance, fake news, changing workforce skills, and digital inequality are some of the main challenges to digitalisation.

R&D&I is the investment by enterprises and states in research and innovation with the goals of producing new goods, services, and processes. R&D&I encompasses three main areas of work (Research, Development and Innovation).

R&D&I generates knowledge and improves quality of life, also produces solutions to social and environmental issues. It builds competitiveness, new business opportunities, productivity increases and technology advances which are all valuable aspects of societal development.