EdithPhiri
Entrepreneurial Context The starting point for entrepreneurship is…
Entrepreneurial Context The starting point for entrepreneurship is what we call an entrepreneurial context. For Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the entrepreneurial context was a computing system in which users were dependent on mainframe computers controlled by a central IT staff who guarded the mainframe like a shrine. Users got their computing tasks done, but only after waiting in line and using the software designed by the IT staff. If users wanted a software program to do something out of the ordinary, they were told to wait six months for the programming to be done. From the users’ perspective, the experience was inefficient and unsatisfactory. But since the centralized computing model was the only one available, users put up with it and built the delays and inefficiencies into their workflow, resulting in an equilibrium, albeit an unsatisfactory one. System dynamicists describe this kind of equilibrium as a “balanced feedback loop,” because there isn’t a strong force that has the likely effect of breaking the system out of its particular equilibrium. It is similar to a thermostat on an air conditioner: When the temperature rises, the air conditioner comes on and lowers the temperature, and the thermostat eventually turns the air conditioner off. The centralized computing system that users had to endure was a particular kind of equilibrium: an unsatisfactory one. It is as if the thermostat were set five degrees too low so that everyone in the room was cold. Knowing they have a stable and predictable temperature, people simply wear extra sweaters, though of course they might wish that they didn’t have to. Pierre Omidyar and Jeff Skoll identified an unsatisfactory equilibrium in the inability of geographically based markets to optimize the interests of both buyers and sellers. Sellers typically didn’t know who the best buyer was and buyers typically didn’t know who the best (or any) seller was. As a result, the market was not optimal for buyers or sellers. People selling used household goods, for example, held garage sales that attracted physically proximate buyers, but probably not the optimal number or types of buyers. People trying to buy obscure goods had no recourse but to search through Yellow Page directories, phoning and phoning to try to track down what they really wanted, often settling for something less than perfect. Because buyers and sellers couldn’t conceive of a better answer, the stable, yet suboptimal, equilibrium prevailed. Ann and Mike Moore took note of a subpar equilibrium in parents’ limited options for toting their infants. Parents wishing to keep their babies close while carrying on basic tasks had two options: They could learn to juggle offspring in one arm while managing chores with the other, or they could plop the child in a stroller, buggy, or other container and keep the child nearby. Either option was less than ideal. Everyone knows that new-borns benefit from the bonding that takes place because of close physical contact with their mothers and fathers, but even the most attentive and devoted parents can’t hold their babies continuously. With no other options, parents limped along, learning to shift their child from one hip to the other and becoming adept at “one-armed paper hanging,” or attempting to get their tasks accomplished during naptime. In the case of Fred Smith, the suboptimal equilibrium he saw was the long-distance courier service. Before FedEx came along, sending a package across country was anything but simple. Local courier services picked up the package and transported it to a common carrier, who flew the package to the remote destination city, at which point it was handed over to a third party for final delivery (or perhaps back to the local courier’s operation in that city if it was a national company). This system was logistically complex, it involved a number of handoffs, and the scheduling was dictated by the needs of the common carriers. Often something would go wrong, but no one would take responsibility for solving the problem. Users learned to live with a slow, unreliable, and unsatisfactory service – an unpleasant but stable situation because no user could change it. Entrepreneurial Characteristics The entrepreneur is attracted to this suboptimal equilibrium, seeing embedded in it an opportunity to provide a new solution, product, service, or process. The reason that the entrepreneur sees this condition as an opportunity to create something new, while so many others see it as an inconvenience to be tolerated, stems from the unique set of personal characteristics he or she brings to the situation – inspiration, creativity, direct action, courage, and fortitude. These characteristics are fundamental to the process of innovation. The entrepreneur is inspired to alter the unpleasant equilibrium. Entrepreneurs might be motivated to do this because they are frustrated users or because they empathize with frustrated users. Sometimes entrepreneurs are so gripped by the opportunity to change things that they possess a burning desire to demolish the status quo. In the case of eBay, the frustrated user was Omidyar’s girlfriend, who collected Pez dispensers. The entrepreneur thinks creatively and develops a new solution that dramatically breaks with the existing one. The entrepreneur doesn’t try to optimize the current system with minor adjustments, but instead finds a wholly new way of approaching the problem. Omidyar and Skoll didn’t develop a better way to promote garage sales. Jobs and Wozniak didn’t develop algorithms to speed custom software development. And Smith didn’t invent a way to make the handoffs between courier companies and common carriers more efficient and error-free. Each found a completely new and utterly creative solution to the problem at hand. Once inspired by the opportunity and in possession of a creative solution, the entrepreneur takes direct action. Rather than waiting for someone else to intervene or trying to convince somebody else to solve the problem, the entrepreneur takes direct action by creating a new product or service and the venture to advance it. Jobs and Wozniak didn’t campaign against mainframes or encourage users to rise up and overthrow the IT department; they invented a personal computer that allowed users to free themselves from the mainframe. Moore didn’t publish a book telling mothers how to get more done in less time; she developed the Snugli, a frameless front- or backpack that enables parents to carry their babies and still have both hands free. Of course, entrepreneurs do have to influence others: first investors, even if just friends and family; then teammates and employees, to come work with them; and finally customers, to buy into their ideas and their innovations. The point is to differentiate the entrepreneur’s engagement in direct action from other indirect and supportive actions. Entrepreneurs demonstrate courage throughout the process of innovation, bearing the burden of risk and staring failure squarely if not repeatedly in the face. This often requires entrepreneurs to take big risks and do things that others think are unwise, or even undoable. For example, Smith had to convince himself and the world that it made sense to acquire a fleet of jets and build a gigantic airport and sorting centre in Memphis, in order to provide next-day delivery without the package ever leaving FedEx’s possession. He did this at a time when all of his entrenched competitors had only fleets of trucks for local pickup and delivery – they certainly didn’t run airports and maintain huge numbers of aircraft. Finally, entrepreneurs possess the fortitude to drive their creative solutions through to fruition and market adoption. No entrepreneurial venture proceeds without setbacks or unexpected turns, and the entrepreneur needs to be able to find creative ways around the barriers and challenges that arise. Smith had to figure out how to keep investors confident that FedEx would eventually achieve the requisite scale to pay for the huge fixed infrastructure of trucks, planes, airport, and IT systems required for the new model he was creating. FedEx had to survive hundreds of millions of dollars of losses before it reached a cash-flow positive state, and without a committed entrepreneur at the helm, the company would have been liquidated well before that point. Entrepreneurial Outcome What happens when an entrepreneur successfully brings his or her personal characteristics to bear on a suboptimal equilibrium? He or she creates a new stable equilibrium, one that provides a meaningfully higher level of satisfaction for the participants in the system. To elaborate on Say’s original insight, the entrepreneur engineers a permanent shift from a lower-quality equilibrium to a higher-quality one. The new equilibrium is permanent because it first survives and then stabilizes, even though some aspects of the original equilibrium may persist (e.g., expensive and less-efficient courier systems, garage sales, and the like). Its survival and success ultimately move beyond the entrepreneur and the original entrepreneurial venture. It is through mass-market adoption, significant levels of imitation, and the creation of an ecosystem around and within the new equilibrium that it first stabilizes and then securely persists. When Jobs and Wozniak created the personal computer they didn’t simply attenuate the users’ dependence on the mainframe – they shattered it, shifting control from the “glass house” to the desktop. Once the users saw the new equilibrium appearing before their eyes, they embraced not only Apple but also the many competitors who leaped into the fray. In relatively short order, the founders had created an entire ecosystem with numerous hardware, software, and peripheral suppliers; distribution channels and value-added resellers; PC magazines; trade shows; and so on. Because of this new ecosystem, Apple could have exited from the market within a few years without destabilizing it. The new equilibrium, in other words, did not depend on the creation of a single venture, in this case Apple, but on the appropriation and replication of the model and the spawning of a host of other related businesses. In Schumpeterian terms, the combined effect firmly established a new computing order and rendered the old mainframe-based system obsolete. In the case of Omidyar and Skoll, the creation of eBay provided a superior way for buyers and sellers to connect, creating a higher equilibrium. Entire new ways of doing business and new businesses sprang up to create a powerful ecosystem that simply couldn’t be disassembled. Similarly, Smith created a new world of package delivery that raised standards, changed business practices, spawned new competitors, and even created a new verb: “to FedEx.” In each case, the delta between the quality of the old equilibrium and the new one was huge. The new equilibrium quickly became self-sustaining, and the initial entrepreneurial venture spawned numerous imitators. Together these outcomes ensured that everyone who benefited secured the higher ground. Source: https://www.law.berkeley.edu/php-programs/courses/fileDL.php?fID=7288 REQUIRED: According to the extract, entrepreneurship is premised on an entrepreneur making sense of a suboptimal equilibrium within an entrepreneurial context, imposing his or her personal characteristics on the suboptimal equilibrium and in the process creating a new stable equilibrium, one that provides a meaningfully higher level of satisfaction for the participants in the system. As a researcher with a keen interest in business development, you are proposing an exploratory study with the aim of unpacking the linkages between entrepreneurial contexts, characteristics and outcomes. You intend to gather data from successful entrepreneurs in the city of Cape Town. With an interpretivist stance, you have formulated the following research objectives: To unpack how entrepreneurs make sense of a suboptimal equilibrium in an entrepreneurial context; To explore how entrepreneurs (un)successfully bring their personal characteristics to bear on a suboptimal equilibrium; and To understand the critical factors of the sustainability of entrepreneurial ventures. Please outline how you would go about conducting the proposed study with reference to the following:
1.1 Formulate a suitable title for the proposed study.
1.2 Specify the aim and significance of the proposed study.
1.3 Formulate THREE (3) research questions that the proposed study will attempt to answer.
1.4 Specify and briefly discuss an appropriate research design for the proposed study, and rationalise the choice of this particular design.
1.5 Based on the design you have chosen above, discuss the research methodology you would follow with regard to:
1.5.1 Sampling Methodology:
1.5.1.1 Specify the target population for the proposed study.
1.5.1.2 Propose a method of sampling for the study and discuss why this method of sampling is fit for the purpose of the study design.
1.5.2 Method of Data Collection:
1.5.2.1 What data collection instrument(s) and/or method(s) can one use to collect the data? Provide a rationale for, and justify the appropriateness of, the proposed data collection method(s).
1.5.3 Method of Data Analysis:
1.5.3.1 Briefly discuss the method(s) of data analysis that you would use in your study #(specify and explain, where necessary, the methods of analysis you would employ for each of your research questions in 1.3).
