Assignment
I have long since unshackled entrepreneurship from its default association with business. I am no more a purist. What's more, I even dissociated entrepreneurship from creating one's own organisation; a virtual sacrilege!
While starting a new student club on campus, I felt as much like an entrepreneurs I did while setting-up a paints factory at Coimbatore. I felt as much like an entrepreneur when I launched a new academic programme as I did when I established a restaurant at Pune. To me, entrepreneurship is not an activity; it's a mindset coupled with a skillset.
The moment I started approaching it as a mindset, I started seeing entrepreneurship in all spheres of life; including but not restricted to business. Despite being an employee most of my working life, I acquired and applied the entrepreneurial mindset (and skillset) somewhere along the way. I had intently listened to entrepreneurs sharing exciting stories of their ventures; my own stories of jobs didn't sound different anymore. There was the same spotting of problems or opportunities, there was the same selling of ideas to multiple stakeholders, there was the same mobilisation of resources, there were the same proverbial setbacks along the way and then there were the same definite rewards in the form of fulfilment.
All the super-humanness attached to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship was actually becoming a hurdle in its spread. The huge amount of romanticism around entrepreneurship was making it sound improbable rather than doable. Heroes were being glorified rather than role models being offered. The whole thing served no purpose. It was time to take a fresh look at the approach. Unshackling the concept worked beautifully for me. Now there was no need to be a superhuman to be an entrepreneur; it was enough to feel like one. There was no need to start an enterprise to be an entrepreneur; it was enough to act like one in any organisation. Simply put, there was no need to be an entrepreneur to be entrepreneurial.
As Stewart Thornhill once said, "The difference between an entrepreneur and a non-entrepreneur is the simple act of starting." I have very conveniently inferred it as starting anything!
1. How do you relate the above article to Effectuation Theoretic Perspective central to Entrepreneurs? How are they different from non-entrepreneurs, therefore?
2. Why is the author not satisfied with the romanticism associated with entrepreneurship? What do you think is the central premise of entrepreneurship?
3. How do you associate your class learning of the Entrepreneurship Process Model with the Processes laid out in the given article?