Pulling Entrepreneurship Theory Together
Hopefully you’ve already read the Definition of a Nascent Entrepreneur, the Four Abiding Elements of Entrepreneurs, the article on Entrepreneurs and their R&K Strategies, Entrepreneurs & the Environment, Entrepreneurs & Gaining Legitimacy, Entrepreneurship & Types of Selection and finally Entrepreneurs & Occurrences of Environment. Those are your basic building blocks of entrepreneurial theory.
So What does it all Mean to Your World
The simple thing that needs to be said now is to keep hold of that vocabulary that you just digested over seven long and perhaps challenging articles. I say challenging not because they were complex concepts but because it’s a new way of thinking about your business world. If you have a new venture large or small, commercial or social, then you’re an entrepreneur.
And having taken hold of that vocabulary listen to this final word – throw the rest away. That’s right, there aren’t any hard and fast rules of being a successful entrepreneur except to understand that vocabulary and to realise that it’s a complex ever changing world out there. Throw out any idea that what this series might have given you is the ABC of success.
However, the gem of the vocabulary means you can now discuss and digest that complex world using the facets and attributes you now understand.
And What do you do with that Vocabulary?
That’s a good question. And I’ll try to answer it in a simple way tracing back through the theory.
You now understand what an entrepreneur is… and what it involves (including an element of luck and a perpetual controlled risk of failure). You’re aware of the four elements that exist in entrepreneurs in talent, opportunity, capital and know-how and you understand that you can use either conformity or disobedience to achieve your goals.
With that in mind, given the ambiguous environment you’re operating in as an entrepreneur, you can employ an R strategy for flexibility or go after a K strategy and dig in for the long haul. And at the same time, with either the R or the K strategies, you can choose to generalise or specialise. Just knowing those are your options and being able to articulate it in this way enables you to identify and classify your competitors, too.
Add to that your understanding that the environment your business operates in shows the signs of evolutionary variation, selection and retention. Your business doesn’t survive in a vacuum… change is a norm and to be expected and adapted to over time.
And you understand the importance in your business of gaining cognitive and socio-political legitimacy. You understand the idea of having a resource profile which you can add to or have reduced… and that different types of businesses emerge into your business space including spin-outs. While the knowledge corridor someone creates can be quickly exploited by the competition.
Finally there was some discussion about the types of selection and the occurrences of environment. All of these theoretical terms can mix into the entrepreneurs’ vocabulary – making them a little smarter, a little more resilient and mentally flexible to roll with the punches.
Yes you can operate in that ambiguous environment just winging it and you might be successful. Heck I hope you are successful. But the vocabulary gives you the opportunity to approach your business intelligently, too.
If you missed the gem in the crown back there… the keyword is failure. Entrepreneurs need to embrace it. Fail and fail to eventually succeed… the Capitalist world swims in that paradigm. Beyond all of that… enjoy the ride uber-entrepreneurs. May the selective force be with you.
The Entrepreneurship 101 Series
Other installments in this short series on the definition and challenges of entrepreneurship are below. There is a special thankyou to Dr Colin Jones from the University of Tasmania for providing the underlying theoretical component that makes up the bulk of this series.
- Definition of a Nascent Entrepreneur
- Four Abiding Elements of Entrepreneurs
- Entrepreneurs and their R & K Strategies
- Entrepreneurs & the Environment
- Entrepreneurs & Gaining Legitimacy
- Entrepreneurship & Types of Selection
- Entrepreneurs & Occurrences of Environment
- Pulling Entrepreneurship Theory Together
