In this course, we take a closer look at the entrepreneurial individual. During the course, you will be examining recent research evidence on entrepreneurial personality and behaviour, and comparing it with the views of practising entrepreneurs. Some people have strong views about the psychological and behavioural aspects of entrepreneurship and there are also many unresolved questions, for example:
It is tempting to look for simple answers to these questions. However, the factors influencing entrepreneurial activity are really rather complex and the subject of continuing debate. As you begin to take a more detailed look at the evidence and arguments you may find it useful to relate them to your own experience.
This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course BB846 Entrepreneurship: experience and perspective.
After studying this course, you should be able to:
consider what it means to be ‘an entrepreneur’
examine the role played by an entrepreneur’s family and friends
reflect on the narratives (or ‘stories’) that entrepreneurs create.
Though it is easy to find a basic definition of the words ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘entrepreneurship’, there is still a lot of disagreement over the way these words are used in practice. For example, while some people describe any small business owner as an entrepreneur, others reserve that term for a person who is either starting a new venture or running one that is highly innovative or capable of rapid growth. Similarly, while there is a common tendency to understand entrepreneurship largely in terms of exceptional individuals, it is also possible to emphasise the distinctive social relationships or networks that are associated with this kind of activity. this course encourages you to start thinking about entrepreneurship: what it is, how it works and why it is worth exploring.
There is a widespread tendency to stereotype entrepreneurs and, as a consequence, to over-simplify a far more complex phenomenon. For example, some people see commercial entrepreneurs as a wholly positive force in society, while for others they evoke negative images. At the same time, the language of ‘entrepreneurship’ has been used to describe radically different types of human behaviour. The end result is that a team of social entrepreneurs building innovative healthcare systems and a criminal gang creating illicit trading networks may both find themselves referred to as acting ‘entrepreneurially’. In the first activity, we start to explore this territory by asking what it means to be an ‘entrepreneur’.
Read Section 1.2 ‘Scoping and defining entrepreneurship’ in Exploring Entrepreneurship: Practices and Perspectives (Blundel and Lockett, 2011, pp. 4–9) and make your own notes on the working definitions of ‘entrepreneurs’, ‘entrepreneurial activity’, ‘entrepreneurship’ and ‘enterprise’ that are offered in the text. Also spend a few minutes considering the different kinds of activity that might be described as entrepreneurial, based on the ways it is organised, the context in which it takes place and the goals that are pursued in its name.
Now watch ‘A successful jam-making business’ (duration: 05:53 minutes). It features 20-year-old Fraser Doherty from Edinburgh, who started making jam at home with his grandmother. As demand grew, he looked into the jam market and spotted a gap for a healthier brand which he successfully marketed to supermarket chains. His success with SuperJam has brought global media attention. Now he uses some of the profits to fund afternoon social events for local pensioners. Make your own notes in response to the following questions:
You might also like to carry out a quick search to get updates on Fraser’s venture at the SuperJam website.
A Successful jam-making business
Music – Anything Goes, dur: 00:45
Angela Darcy, narrator:
Jam. One of Scotland’s traditional foods, we love it. On toast, on scones, this sweet tasting fruity preserve is as Scottish as neeps and tatties.
Now meet Fraser Doherty. This young man from Edinburgh knows a thing or two about jam. He is the brains behind SuperJam, a super fruit, super-friendly jam, sweetened naturally with grape juice.
SuperJam has an annual turnover of half a million jars. Fraser is only 20 years old, and he still lives at home with his mum and dad.
Fraser Doherty:
When I was 14 or 15 to have suggested that I was going to be supplying Tesco and Asda, two of the biggest supermarkets in the world, I would have been crazy to have imagined as a 14-year-old that that would ever be possible. And, you know, when I kind of look back at cooking jam in the kitchen when I was that age, you know, it’s, it has been an amazing journey and it’s come a very long way from, from that time.
Music – Boogie Woogie Party, dur: 00:31
Fraser Doherty:
It all started about six years ago when my grandmother taught me how to make jam one afternoon. I was 14 years old, and I got really excited about her jam recipes, and I soon started making jam in the kitchen at home and selling it to the neighbours, at Church fares and farmer’s markets. And it sort of grew and grew in the course of a few months. And after a while I got to the point I was making about 1000 jars of jam a week in my parents’ tiny little kitchen. And, you know, they could never get in to cook the dinner. And I soon had to come up with a big idea to move production into a factory.
When I was trying to convince huge companies, factories and supermarkets and other places to work with me definitely there were a number of people who were sceptical of this 16-year-old coming along with absolutely no money, no experience and really little more than just a set of recipes and this vague ambition to transform the world of jam.
Music – Anything Goes, dur: 00:14
Angela Darcy, narrator:
Fraser had to find a way to make his jams stand out from the crowd.
Fraser Doherty:
I did a lot of research and I found out that sales of jam have been in decline for the past couple of decades. And that’s mostly because jam’s got a very old-fashioned and er unhealthy sort of imagine. Um it’s usually 70 or even 80% sugar. It contains all lots of additives. And when people think of jam they think of old women, Church fares and the Women’s Institute. And I just set myself the ambition of trying to change all of that by coming up with a healthier, more modern brand of jam.
Narrator:
Less than three years after he first made jam with his gran Fraser’s SuperJam hit the High Street.
TV Presenter:
Tonight the jammy teenager who’s landed a supermarket deal thanks to his granny’s recipe.
Fraser Doherty:
When SuperJam was launched there was an incredible amount of media attention. You know, there was BBC Breakfast and GMTV and This Morning and TV shows from China and, and all over the world were interested in the story. And definitely it, you know, it’s helped the business to grow at a, a very fast pace.
Narrator:
Success at such a young age has catapulted Fraser into the limelight. He’s won a string of awards and found himself the subject of much media attention. But what is it that drives him?
Fraser Doherty:
I’m not motivated by money, financial success or any other material things that you could buy with that.
For me the exciting thing about starting a company is that I can start something er from nothing and grow it into, you know, hopefully a large business. I can challenge the status quo in an industry that’s been around for hundreds of years and hopefully use the profits from doing all of that to do good.
When I was a kid my grandmother used to make jam and scones. And she would visit all the elderly people in her area who were living alone and they often didn’t get very many visitors and may be didn’t have any family. And she would take my little brother and I with her at the weekends. And we would have to tell them stories. And my little brother would play his guitar. And it was kind of something that we were always brought up with and that my gran felt very strongly about.
And so about a year ago I started a project running tea parties for elderly people.
The whole idea is just er to have a great afternoon. It is completely free for the guests. We have live music, dancing, scones and clotted cream and jam. And you know hopefully it would put some smiles on, on a few people’s faces.
Female 1:
This is wonderful because I can’t get out very much. But this has been great today. And to see all these elderly people enjoying themselves is something wonderful.
Female 2:
The jam is delicious. Probably shouldn’t have had the cream but never mind, I danced if off.
Fraser Doherty:
It’s great to, to see a room full of people having a, a good time and, you know, a lot of the people here have come from care homes. And some of them are living alone and it’s a good opportunity to get out and have fun and make some new friends. So it feels great to be able to give that kind of opportunity to people.
Amazingly I’m talking about jam, making jam and er doing everything to do with jam everyday for the past six years. Er I do still love jam and, and have jam on my toast or porridge most mornings.
Fraser Doherty’s story might be seen as reinforcing another stereotype of the entrepreneur as an exceptional individual. However the case also contains evidence of external factors that helped him create a successful business venture at such an early age. In the next activity, we examine the influence exerted by other people, including family and friends.
No man is an island
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main …
One of the persistent myths of entrepreneurship is of the lonely hero taking on the rest of the world. Though a few prominent entrepreneurs might appear to fit this mould, the reality is rather different. People often turn to those around them, including immediate family and trusted friends, for help and support – particularly in the early days of a new business venture. We have already seen an example of this in Fraser Doherty’s venture, ‘SuperJam’, which was inspired by his grandmother’s enthusiasm for making jam, and established with the enthusiastic support of his parents (Activity 1). Entrepreneurs use their informal networks to obtain a rich variety of resources. These include tangible resources, such as start-up capital and a place to store stock or equipment, and intangible resources, such as personal encouragement and advice. For example, the inexperienced owners of a new venture might gain much-needed credibility by recruiting a friend or relative with useful experience and a trustworthy reputation. We have been using the term ‘resource’, which suggests that networks always have a positive impact on a venture. But is there a downside to such relationships?
1. Listen to ‘Friends, family and fools: a help or a hindrance?’ by MariaLaura Di Domenico and note how the interviewees describe their experiences.
2. Make some notes addressing the following questions
3. Spend a few minutes thinking about your own informal networks, and imagine how you might draw upon those relationships to help in establishing a new entrepreneurial venture. Begin with your immediate contacts (friends, family and colleagues) and then try to identify any important indirect contacts that you might have through these individuals (for example your friend’s brother, partner or employer). How might you make use of these connections, and what issues do you see arising?
Family businesses raise some interesting questions about the entrepreneurial personality and how it is formed. There are many examples suggesting that entrepreneurial careers are often prompted by the example of older relatives and that many of the key decisions in a growing venture are influenced, either directly or indirectly, by family and friends. Members of a person’s informal network can be a source of great support, particularly in the early years of a new business. However, as indicated in ‘Friends, family and fools: a help or a hindrance?’ they can also create serious challenges such as internal rivalries, conflicts of interest and other tensions. These issues need to be sensitively managed if you want the venture and the personal relationships to survive. There are also important ethical issues to consider. These become clearer if you consider the position of the other people involved – the elderly aunt who is persuaded to provide funding out of her retirement savings, or the friend who agrees to give up a well-paid job in return for the promise of a stake in the new venture. It is worth considering how entrepreneurs might do harm as they ‘exploit’ their networks, and how these negative outcomes might be avoided.
For the final part of this activity, you were asked to think about your own informal network. In practice, our personal networks change over time, with new connections being made and strengthened, while others are lost or weakened. You may find it useful to reflect on these changes, both in your own network and in those described in the accounts of the many entrepreneurs that we will encounter during the course. Much of this change is due to changing circumstances (e.g. moving house, starting a new job, enrolling on a course), but it is also evident that some people are particularly adept at manipulating their networks in order to pursue their entrepreneurial aims.
In the final activity we return to the questions ‘What does it mean to act entrepreneurially and to be an entrepreneur?’ ‘How are entrepreneurs perceived by other people?’ and ‘How do they represent themselves?’
The life experiences of an entrepreneur can often provide the basis of a good story. These narratives can be interesting, informative and compelling, they may contain elements of drama, personal tragedy and, as in the following example, humour. But what do these stories actually tell us about entrepreneurship?
1. Read ‘An early entrepreneurial experience?’ a short account by Fraser Doherty (founder of ‘SuperJam’) describing an early childhood experience of visiting a chicken farm. As you read, make notes addressing the following questions:
You may find it useful to take a brief look back at Activity 1, which charts the growth of Doherty’s ‘SuperJam’ business, and at the other activities in this course, which have examined some different aspects of entrepreneurship.
2. Talk to a colleague, friend or family member who has an entrepreneurial background; ask them if they are willing to share a similar short anecdote or to describe a memorable event that illustrates their life as an entrepreneur. Alternatively, locate a short anecdote in an entrepreneurial autobiography or a short autobiographical article (articles should be easily located online as many prominent entrepreneurs make this kind of material freely available on their personal websites).
3. Write a short summary of the anecdote and analyse it using the same three questions that you applied to the Fraser Doherty story and compare the answers.
I started my entrepreneurial journey very young, although some people start even younger than I did. In a lot of ways, starting at such a young age has an advantage: the naivety of youth makes any dream possible! When I was about ten, I visited a chicken farm and was fascinated by the business of collecting eggs from the hens. I asked the farmer if I could have a box of eggs, so that I could hatch them into chickens of my own, and sell the eggs. The farmer gave me half a dozen eggs and laughed, saying that there was no way I could hatch them into chickens. She joked that I’d have to sit on them for three weeks.
When I told my parents about the idea, they weren’t too pleased at the prospect of having chickens running around, as you can imagine, but they said that I could give it a go. I suppose they doubted that I would manage to hatch out the eggs. I then had to figure out how I was going to keep a box of eggs warm around the clock for about three weeks. I thought about using lots of hot water bottles, putting the eggs in the oven on a really low temperature or maybe leaving them in the greenhouse. Obviously, none of these ideas was going to work. Eventually, I had the idea of keeping the eggs on top of the cable TV box under the television. It was quite warm there if the telly was left on all the time.
I waited anxiously for weeks, checking every day that the eggs were OK. Finally, one morning, everyone was sitting eating breakfast and we could hear a little chirping coming from under the television. The fluffy yellow chick had hatched out of its egg. I named her Henrietta, which, being ten years old, I believed to be quite a witty name for a hen. Later in the day, another two of the chicks hatched and so I had to start thinking about what I was actually going to do about them.
(Doherty, 2011, pp. 9–10)
This activity should help you to reflect on some of the issues that have covered during this course. For example, is there evidence here of distinctively entrepreneurial mindsets or behaviours? In addition, you might consider whether there is evidence here of external influences, and of how these might have helped to either encourage or challenge the entrepreneur (Activity 2). You might also refer back to Activity 1 in order to put Fraser Doherty’s story into context, and to see how this early experience might have influenced his subsequent entrepreneurial career.
If you have been able to make contact with an entrepreneurial individual, it could be interesting to have a broader discussion about the issues we have covered in this course. For example: What is their perspective on the search for an entrepreneurial personality? Where (and how) did they develop their entrepreneurial abilities? How much importance do they attach to informal networks? Given the high profile of entrepreneurs you might also talk to people who do not have an entrepreneurial background, to get some different points of view.
During this course, you have been encouraged to examine some important ideas about entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, and perhaps to challenge some of your own preconceptions. You looked at how one entrepreneurial individual went about creating a successful business venture at an early age, and how other entrepreneurs have made use of informal ties with family and friends. In doing so, you also considered the mixture of personal and social influences on entrepreneurial activity.
It may be useful at this stage to review some of the issues we have covered in this course. This brief summary should help you to recall some of the main points:
We hope that you found this course interesting and that it has encouraged you to continue studying entrepreneurship in its many different forms.
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Cover image John Goode in Flickr made available under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Licence.
Blundel, R and Lockett, N (2011) Section 1.2 ‘Scoping and defining entrepreneurship’ from Exploring entrepreneurship, Oxford University Press. www.oup.com
Extracts from the BBC programme Food Stuff: Seasonality, Jam & Export, tx: 27.11.09. © BBC
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