The Evolution and role of entrepreneurs in emerging economies, The entrepreneurial and Intrapreneurial mindset, Qualities of entrepreneurs

1. UNIT 1

2. The word entrepreneurship is derived from the French word “entreprendre”
which means “to begin something” or “to engage in”. So, entrepreneurship
means to take the initiative, take the risk and begin a new business. It
involves innovation and fulfilling the needs of people with a profit motive. The
person who undertakes this endeavor is an entrepreneur. He plans and
innovates, organizes, arranges the capital and takes the risk of business and
investment. He bears the risk of buying the raw materials at certain prices and
selling the produce at certain prices which includes the profit.

3. According to McClelland : “An entrepreneur is someone who exercises some
control over the means of production and produces more than what he can
consume in order to sell (or exchange) it for individual (or household) income”.
International Labour Organization (ILO) defines: “Entrepreneurs as those people
who have the ability to see or evaluate opportunities, together with the
necessary resources to take advantage of them and to initiate appropriate
action to ensure success.”

4. EVOLUTION OF THE CONCEPT The word entrepreneur has a variety of meanings.
Originally, the word entrepreneurship has been derived from the French word
entreprendre which means to undertake. The word has undergone many
changes over a period of five centuries. In the early 16th century, a leader of the
military expedition was called an entrepreneur. In the 17th century
construction and fortification contractors were called entrepreneur. The
Oxford dictionary (1897) defines the word entrepreneur as the director or
manager of a public musical institution, one who gets up entertainment especially
musical performance. Later in the 18th

5. Later in the 18th century the word was used to refer to as those engaged
in economic activity. In 19th century, entrepreneurs were views from an
economic perspective. A close look at these meaning which has evolved with time
seems to suggest that in the earliest period, a person who was strong, took
orders & went in search of new lands as part of military expedition was an
entrepreneur which later shifted to mean a person with extraordinary idea to
build forts that could stand all attacks (an engineering or technical man)
was an entrepreneur. Whatever is the road that these terms as taken one thing
seem to stand out, i.e., A person with a rare blend of qualities like organising
skill, mental ability, adventurous attitude, love for hard work, clear in goals,
objectives, highly optimistic, emotionally stable, self-confident, positive
attitude with desire to take risk is an entrepreneur.

6. CHARACTERISTICS OF ENTREPRENEURS
Entrepreneurs are vision-oriented people
Entrepreneurs have a high need of achievement
Entrepreneurs do not rely on fate or luck, however they try to control their own
lives
Entrepreneurs undertake moderate risks, which is why they look for high earning
on their investments
Entrepreneurs have the abilities to deal with several ambiguous situations in
their ventures. They face these ambiguous situations and circumstances regularly
because they do certain jobs and tasks which are entirely new by nature.
Entrepreneurs have the tendency to be productive and efficient with in a given
period of time.

7. Qualities/Traits of an Entrepreneur
In order to organise and run a business successfully, an entrepreneur must possess certain traits
important for driving success. Some of them are −
●Self-confidence − Others will trust you only when you trust yourself. This is the most important
trait of an entrepreneur, who should have the confidence to take one’s own decisions.
●Risk-taking ability − Business is all about taking risks and experimenting. Entrepreneurs need to
have a risk-taking ability.
●Decision-making ability − Entrepreneurs should have the willingness and capability to take
decisions in favour of the organisation all the time.
●Competitive − Entrepreneurs should always be ready to give and face competition.
●Intelligent − Entrepreneurs always need to keep their mind active and increase their IQ and
knowledge.
●Visualisation − Entrepreneurs should have the ability to see things from different point of views.
●Patience − This is another virtue which is very important for entrepreneurship as the path to
success is often very challenging and it requires a lot of patience for sustenance.

8. ●Leadership quality − Entrepreneurs should be able to lead, control and motivate
the mass.
●Technical skill − To be in stride with recent times, entrepreneurs should atleast
have a basic knowledge about the technologies that are to be used.
●Managerial skill − Entrepreneurs should have the required skill to manage
different people such as clients, employees, co-workers, competitors, etc.
●Conflict resolution skill − Entrepreneurs should be able to resolve any type of
dispute.
●Organising skill − They should be highly organised and should be able to
maintain everything in a format and style.
●High motivation − Entrepreneurs should have high level of motivation. They
should be able to encourage everyone to give their level best.

9. INTRAPRENEURS:
The term Intrapreneur emerged during the 1970s.several senior executives of big
corporations left their jobs to start their own small business because the top
bosses in these corporations were not receptive to innovative ideas. These
executives turned entrepreneur achieved phenomenal success in their new
ventures; posing a threat to the corporations they had left. These types of
entrepreneurs came to be known as Intrapreneur An Intrapreneur is an inside
entrepreneur within a large firm, who uses entrepreneurial skills without incurring
the risks associated with those activities. Intrapreneur are usually employees
within a company who are assigned to work on a special idea or project, and they
are instructed to develop the project like an entrepreneur would. Intrapreneur usually
has the resources and capabilities of the firm at their disposal. Intrapreneurs are the
people working in big organisations holding key position. They are quite innovative