Family Based Capitalization (FBC)

The Smallest Things Can Help You !!!

2011-06-02T21:59:00.001+06:00

Many of us business owners devote endless hours trying to come up with the next big thing. That's not necessarily a bad exercise, but sometimes we need to give our brains a rest. I'm a realist though, and I realize it's hard for entrepreneurs to shut their minds down entirely, even for a short time.

So instead of thinking big all the time, maybe you should take a break and think small. Understand that small does not equal trivial; sometimes the smallest change can have a huge positive impact. Here are 9 little things you can do to advance your business without breaking a sweat.

1. Just say no. I hate to lead with a negative, but I know how hard it is for business owners to turn away business, especially when the economy is in slow recovery. However, some clients are not worth having. Before you take on a new client or renew an existing contract, do a quick ROI to make sure it's all worth it.

2. Stop worrying so much. I am not a worrier (though I sure know a lot of them). Worrying just saps your energy and diverts your brain from thinking about really critical things. So don't worry, be happy!

3. Don't hesitate. What are you waiting for? Being flexible is still an advantage small businesses have over the big guys. I am not saying you should blindly leap into new situations, but you should heed the words of George S. Patton who said, "Opportunities do not come to those who wait. They are captured by those who attack."

4. Seize control. This is possibly the reason many of you became entrepreneurs -- it certainly was a motivating factor for me. I truly believe you will not succeed unless and until you take charge of your life. However, and I believe I've said this before but it bears repeating: Don't try to control the uncontrollable. It's an impossible and frustrating task.

5. Give back. In last week's interview with JJ Ramberg, I discussed how you can do well by doing good. You don't need to make grand gestures or donate thousands of dollars. All of us can help make a difference. Participate in community events. Donate something of value to a fund-raiser. Volunteer. Teach a class. Just do something.

6. Be innovative. Most of us know small businesses drive innovation in this country. And yet many business owners are intimidated by the "I" word. Innovation is relative. It can range from the truly inventive to the more mundane (but highly effective) aspects of business ownership. Any business can be innovative. Restaurants can add "different" food to their menus, retailers can open new channels of distribution. All of us can change our marketing strategies. As one of the greatest innovators of our time, Apple's Steve Jobs says, "Innovation is what distinguishes a leader from a follower."

7. Give customers what they want. Remember, even as the economic recovery gathers strength, consumer behavior has changed. Consumers are (and likely will continue to be) looking for value when they shop. And they're expecting the companies they do business with to offer coupons and promotions to not only draw them in, but to keep them coming back. In fact, a new poll from ShopSmart magazine reports 91 percent of women shoppers use coupons to get a better deal.

8. Take inventory. I'm not talking about conducting a physical inventory. Rather, we should all do a top-to-bottom assessment of our businesses. The key is to be keenly aware of what's going on so we can quickly move in a new direction if we need to. Markets have changed. Consumers are looking for new products and demanding new services. Start by asking yourself these questions:

· What am I doing right?

· What am I doing wrong?

· How can I deliver more value?

· How has my market changed?

· What will I need to change in order to meet future consumer demand?

9. Speak up. Not just because the squeaky wheel gets the grease, though that is certainly true. If you don't ask, you won't get. But more important -- and this is one of my favorite quotes -- as Eldridge Cleaver once said, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem."

Small Business: Saving the Earth

2011-06-02T21:58:00.001+06:00

For the last week my inbox has been bombarded with pitches from businesses, large and small, helpfully informing me that April 22 is Earth Day, and explaining how their companies are commemorating the event. Don't get me wrong; some of their products sound pretty cool, like the ecobutton from Staples promotional products, which, at the press of a button, puts your computer in "ecomode" (more energy-efficient than sleep mode).

I've learned some interesting facts as well. According to the folks at Nitro PDF Software, every person on the planet consumes about 123 pounds (or 12,500 sheets) of paper a year. Approximately 37 pounds of that is used just printing things out, which (hanging my head in shame) I admit I even did while researching this column. All this printing not only hurts the environment, but, according to Melanie Atta at email marketing company Campaigner, "About 1 to 3 percent of corporate revenues are spent on printing costs."

To save on paper consumption, both Campaigner and their competitor Constant Contact encourage all business owners to increase their email marketing, while cutting back on direct marketing. In fact, Constant Contact senior vice president Eric Groves says last year Constant Contact customers sent 28 billion emails in their marketing campaigns, saving more than 3.5 million trees.

This is all sound advice, but truthfully it makes me sad -- and mad -- that 41 years after the first Earth Day we're still concerned about these problems. I'm not saying we shouldn't be worried about the environment; I'm upset we haven't really fixed anything yet.

I realize I am an idealist; at times admittedly I'm even a Pollyanna. When I was in high school back in the 60s, my friend Barbara and I used to trek into the city, head to a dingy office and collect our folding table, petitions, and "Save the Environment" buttons, which we'd sell on the streets of New York, trying to raise funds and awareness. Fueled by the naivete of youth we thought we were doing our (very small) part to help change the world. So it stuns me that today we're still fighting that very same battle.

When I first moved to Los Angeles in the late 1970s, the sky was often colors that skies weren't meant to be. Smog alerts were routinely issued, warning the old, the young, and the infirm to stay indoors and not breathe the outside air. But aggressive new regulations, while not completely eradicating LA's infamous smog, have virtually eliminated smog alerts. Yet despite this triumph, some politicians are calling for an end to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), saying it hinders business.

I don't buy it. I believe businesses can simultaneously thrive and be environmentally considerate. Many businesses have embraced that philosophy as well. A new study released this week by CompTia, the trade association for the information technology industry, shows green IT initiatives are increasingly important to businesses. According to the 2nd Annual Green IT and Insights study, in 2009 only 9 percent of companies rated green IT as a high priority. This year 37 percent of businesses do, and that's expected to hit 54 percent by 2013.

In fact, says Tim Herbert, CompTIA's vice president of research, "It's likely many firms eye green strategies as a means to help the bottom line." Currently, 20 percent of businesses have a dedicated budget for green IT initiatives, but the survey says 44 percent are "moving in that direction."

So what is a green IT strategy? The CompTIA study says it includes factors such as reducing energy consumption, equipment usage, recycling and product disposal, a company's carbon footprint, and employee behaviors.

Technological advances make it a lot easier for small businesses to be environmentally conscious. Many businesses have already adopted a pro-environmental stance, making the ones that haven't look even less socially responsible. Last month research firm BBMG released a new report, Unleashed: How New Consumers Will Revolutionize Brands and Scale Sustainability [free registration required to read report], in which it labeled more than 70 million American adults "New Consumers." These are the people who are "defined less by demographics than by shared values … and are increasingly concerned with products' impact on the planet and its people." BBMG says that even during the recession, 25 percent of the New Consumers were willing to pay more for sustainable products.

Lately from Washington we've heard a lot of concern about the rising U.S. deficit and the debt future generations will be saddled with. I'm a bit more concerned that those generations have a future with water they can drink and air they can breathe. On this Earth Day, let's think about why we're still fighting many of the same battles from 41 years ago, and how businesses like ours can help create a greener and more sustainable world.

Small Businesses: Use Social Media

2011-06-02T21:56:00.001+06:00

From the buzz it generates, you'd think almost all small business owners would be actively involved in social media. But you'd be wrong.

This disconnect becomes clear in the latest Small Business Success Index survey conducted twice a year by Network Solutions (disclosure: they're a client of mine) and the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business. While the SBSI showed an "almost universal awareness among small business owners of Facebook and Twitter" only 27 percent of the entrepreneurs used Facebook for business purposes, and a mere 7 percent were Twitter users. Linked In garnered 18 percent.

Despite the tepid survey results, Network Solutions is a big believer in the power social media has to impact business. To gain some insight I talked to Tim Kelly, Network Solutions' CEO and the company's Director of Social Media (known on Twitter as the Social Media Swami) Shashi Bellamkonda (@sashib).

And those small businesses who have tried social media often see results: 63 percent say it helped make their customers more loyal. Other say social media it has helped them:

1. Stay engaged with customers.

2. Build brand awareness.

3. Identify and attract new customers.

So why aren't more small companies doing it?

More than half of small business owners (56 percent) worry that social media is too "time-consuming." Bellamkonda acknowledges that at the beginning, "it's hard for small business owners to keep up with their many responsibilities, without adding social media into the mix." But, he adds, "Rather than viewing social media as time consuming, you should integrate it into your marketing plan from the start. Once you become familiar with social media, you'll find it's an easy and affordable way to grow a loyal customer base, and more often than not, see that it's absolutely worth the time investment."

Bellamkonda believes the benefits are more than worth the time for small businesses. "If building a loyal customer base is a top priority (which it probably should be), social media is a great way to start. Its reach is immense with more than 500 million active users on Facebook and 1 billion tweets [sent] per week. Putting your small business out there gives you an opportunity to build relationships with your customer base, and allows customers to personally bond with your business."

Bellamkonda is a big proponent of Twitter, especially for dealing with customer service issues. "Twitter is fantastic because it's real time, and an easy way to [quickly answer] customer questions."

Even so, getting started with social media can seem overwhelming. Bellamkonda recommends starting slowly. "Ask your customers what social media platforms they use the most and start there," he says. "When you get a feel for your voice and presence on that network, you'll find it easy to expand to other platforms."

He boils it down to a 2-step process:

1) Listen. Where is your key audience online? Set up Google Alerts for your business. You'll begin to see where the conversations about your business are taking place. Listening helps you develop your voice.

2) Engage. Be sure you aren't just blasting out information and news about your business. Interact directly with your followers. Ask them what else they would like to see from you and your business.

Network Solutions CEO Tim Kelly puts it this way: "Social media levels the playing field" for small businesses, giving you "access to the exact same audience that the big brands" have. "No matter whether a business is large or small," Kelly adds, "you have to go where your customers are. Given the huge popularity of social media, odds are that's where many of your customers will be."

Entrepreneur and AllBusiness blogger Gini Dietrich, CEO of Arment Dietrich, recently put it in perspective: "This is not the Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will not come. Choose one tool, implement it into your overall business strategy, get good at using it, refine its use, and move on to the next one. And be patient. It does take time. After all, you're building relationships online. Online or off, relationships don't happen overnight."

Don't Turn Back, Entrepreneurs!!!

2011-06-02T21:54:00.001+06:00

The economy is in meltdown. Wall Street is floundering. Corporations are laying off thousands. The national unemployment rate is at a five-year high. But the New York Times thinks if you're an entrepreneur, you should close your business and get a job.

In Sunday's paper an article headlined Economy to Entrepreneurs: Turn Back was filled with example after example of entrepreneurs who have given up their businesses (for various reasons) and returned to the workforce. And miraculously, despite the lousy economy and that current 6.1 percent unemployment rate, none of the people profiled seemed to have a hard time landing a job.

The article also mentioned that we're headed for an increase in business bankruptcies this year (though since the bankruptcy laws were recently changed, it's hard to make comparisons to the past). It didn't mention how many of those bankruptcies were filed by big businesses. Lehman Brothers, anyone? Or the fact the federal government has interceded and bailed out a number of corporate giants before the ax could fall. AIG is just the latest example, as the Fed gallops to the rescue with an $85 billion loan.

When I first read the Times on Sunday I was so enraged I didn't even know where to begin. This article simply shows how easy it is to make your case by only interviewing people who prove your point. The opposite point could easily have been made by interviewing some of the hundreds of thousands of Americans (like me) who have started or will start a new business this year.

We don't know how many businesses will actually open their doors this year, but it's a good bet it will be more than 600,000, since that's been the case for quite a long time. I know from the folks at Microsoft's Office Live Small Business (where I also do some blogging) that, in just under the last three years, over one million people have gone there to create a business Web site.

A blogger from the Wall Street Journal took issue with the Times' point of view. And obviously I echo that position. If you're an entrepreneur whose business is hurting and you're thinking of quitting and finding a job, more power to you. But my guess is that's a small minority of business owners. Who really believes you can find "stability" (as one of the people interviewed said) or security as an employee these days? Or ever actually?

But we don't need to speculate. Look back to the stock market crash of 1988. Major corporations shed employees by the thousands (like they're doing now) who had no recourse but to start their own companies. I've long referred to these entrepreneurs as corporate refugees or accidental entrepreneurs; they didn't set out to start businesses, but realized they needed to do something to pay the bills. From this (and a few other factors) the entrepreneurial revolution was born. In fact, a record number of new businesses were created back then. The 1990s was the decade of the entrepreneur, and indeed we ended the decade with millions of new jobs created, innovative new businesses started, and a robust economy, all courtesy of the nation's (mostly new) entrepreneurs.

So let's talk about why you entrepreneurs actually are better suited for riding out this economic downturn than many bigger businesses. Lots of big businesses are cutting back on their marketing efforts right now, creating a vacuum you and your business can leap into. Remember all the advantages owning a smaller business gives you -- you can act quickly, adjusting your offerings, prices, and marketing efforts. Now is a good time to explore adding new product lines or offering lower-cost items. If you're a service provider, you might want to offer discounts to clients who pay early or sign multi-year contracts with you.

More people are shopping online now. So if you don't have a robust Web site, build one. And if you're thinking of starting a business, make sure the Web plays a big part in your business plan.

Be bold. Everything is negotiable now, particularly if you are in good standing with your banker, suppliers, or landlord. You'll never know what can be yours simply by asking.

I would never force entrepreneurship down someone's throat. Certainly, some people aren't cut out to run their own business. And circumstances can force some entrepreneurs out of business. But to imply that entrepreneurs should cut and run shows that the New York Times really doesn't understand entrepreneurs very well. We don't look to others to provide a safety net; entrepreneurs take control. Security is not lining someone else's pocket while being grateful for the tiny slice they dole out to us. Entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs because we don't run from risk, we face it head on. So New York Times, if you want to show the other side of the story, the side most entrepreneurs are on, gimme a call.

Issue to be Considered for Entrepreneurship -7

2011-06-02T21:52:00.001+06:00

Is Entrepreneurship an Instrument of Free Markets or Is it an Alternative to the Market Versus Government Debate?

Long after Frank Knight emphasized the importance of entrepreneurial "judgment" in creating the very notion of "profit," entrepreneurship scholars from Schumpeter to Baumol have bemoaned the lack of a central role for the entrepreneur in economic theory (Baumol, 1968; Knight, 1921; Schumpeter, 1942). The oft-repeated quote about the Prince of Denmark is a notable symptom of this lament. Yet economists refer to the "entrepreneur" all the time--a word that pinch-hits for the firm, the production function, the manager, and more recently the innovator, besides being a surrogate for a variety of other mechanical devices at the heart of the economic system of supply and demand equilibrated by the invisible hand. In this rhetorical free-for-all, the entrepreneur has simply disappeared into the market versus government debate. Instead of empirically examining where new markets come from we simply assume this elusive and obliging figure called the entrepreneur will miraculously produce it out of thin air. Even Arrow (1962) acknowledged it: "When a market can be created, we assume it will be." Clearly entrepreneurship, embodied in the process we have so far sketched in this essay, is not merely an instrument of free markets. Instead it uses both markets and governments as instruments in formulating and achieving new ends, even inventing other types of institutions along the way. Entrepreneurship thus provides a way to transcend the market versus government debate just as it provides new pivots away from the old dichotomy of for-profit and nonprofit ventures. In our view, entrepreneurship is a method, a meta-logic or procedural rationality if you will, to help us coherently yet pragmatically rethink and reformulate the categories that matter to human and societal progress.

It may be useful at this point to remind ourselves once again of the historical analogy with the development and role of the scientific method. For millennia, until Francis Bacon spelled out the techniques and logic of systematic discovery embodied in scientific experiments, inventions were occasional events, products of serendipity or thanks to so-called gifted men who could "read" the signs of nature (North, 2003). But by the nineteenth century, to paraphrase Whitehead (1997), invention had been routinized and millions of scientists trained in the scientific method have since helped move the world (literally) from a speed record of about 20 mph in chariots to over 18,000 mph in orbit over the course of less than two centuries (Toffler, 2005).

Imagine what the entrepreneurial method could do if we are able to extract, codify, and disseminate the "how" as well as the "what" of the outcomes of entrepreneurship. Already, the artifacts attributed to entrepreneurial action include not only firms and economic value, but also the creation of new markets (Santos & Eisenhardt, 2004; Sarasvathy & Dew, 2005), new opportunities (Alvarez & Barney, 2007; Sarasvathy et al., 2003), new institutions (Battilana et al., 2009; Pacheco, York, Dean, & Sarasvathy, 2010), and social change (Austin, Stevenson, & Wei-Skillern, 2006; Dean & McMullen, 2007; Mair & Marti, 2009; Townsend & Hart, 2008; Zahra, Gedajlovic, Neubaum, & Shulman, 2009). In order to nudge future entrepreneurship research in the direction of this task of spelling out the entrepreneurial method, we offer three immediate possibilities that we hope serve as stepping stones to the real work ahead of us.

Issue to be Considered for Entrepreneurship -6

2011-06-02T21:50:00.001+06:00

Investing in Social Problems?

Why is it that we invest in Genzyme or Microsoft, but give to Red Cross or Transparency International? Why is it that it takes 44 cents on a dollar for a good nonprofit to raise a dollar compared to about 5 for for-profits (Sargeant, Jay, & Lee, 2006)? Arguments fly back and forth that nonprofits subsidize for-profits or that nonprofits are less efficient and more fragmented than for-profits. And of course, the same tired old pivot--that for-profits are profitable and nonprofits are not. We find it difficult to believe that investing in software is more profitable than investing in the creative fount from which such a thing as "software" originated in the first place. If a piece of code that moves around a bunch of electrical impulses can create wealth, it is absurd to think that the mind that creates that piece of code is less profitable--and societies that foster and develop such minds even less so. We seek answers elsewhere.

For millennia, human beings did not realize how to harness and use the energies locked up in steam or in the movement and structure of atoms--just as we today struggle to usefully harness the energy locked up in sun, wind, and corn. Similarly, we simply have not yet found the mechanisms that can unleash the potential to close the virtuous circle connecting healthy societies with healthy babies and wealthy futures. Once a society has grown the baby and the ensuing adult has produced goods and services of value, we have relatively efficient and useful ways of pricing them and distributing them to those who want them and are willing and able to pay for them. With the invention of credit, we even know how to identify some of these in advance and reap the benefits within reasonable time lags. But credit markets are relatively new in human history (Poovey, 2008). There is considerable creative work ahead of us to expand them effectively to close the larger circle of human and social improvement. We do not believe this is a task better left to the revolutionary or to the policymaker. Instead we find tremendous scope in innovations already existent in today's credit markets. Moreover, these innovations can be transferred and transformed through entrepreneurial initiatives. The history of micro-credit alluded to earlier attests to such a profitable transfer. There is more where that came from. To give you but one new example, we present a brief case study:

Issue to be Considered for Entrepreneurship -5

2011-06-02T21:49:00.001+06:00

Are Social Ventures Different From For-Profit Ventures?

One simple answer to this question is that some ventures declare themselves for-profit by explicitly incorporating themselves as such and subjecting themselves to the discipline of markets--or price mechanisms of one sort or another. Others eschew the necessity to seek a positive cash flow at the end of the accounting year and deny any individual the residual claims of ownership at the end of the day. Several compelling arguments have been presented for the separation between for-profit ventures and other types of organizations--including market failure, the psychology of giving, the biblical equation of money with evil, cultural and historical dictates against profiting from the unfortunate, and of course, sheer habit (Bator, 1958; McKean & Browning, 1975; Wolf, 1979; Zerbe, Richard, & McCurdy, 1999). All these arguments and even the very question "Are social ventures different from for-profit ventures?" however continue to perpetuate a dichotomy that may not have served us well in the past and may hinder the promise offered by our project of spelling out the entrepreneurial method.

Consider the fact that some goods and services are set aside to be produced through the for-profit system and others through either governmental or some form of not-for-profit system. And as a practical matter, this difference usually means that entrepreneurs have to deal with at least two different systems of funding and accountability when endeavoring to stitch together the local optima in social choice. For practicing entrepreneurs this further means that valuable skills acquired in the production of wealth cannot smoothly be transferred to the production of social welfare. For example, knowing how to make a pitch to investors for funding a casino does not always translate into compelling arguments to private foundations for funding child healthcare. Nor can the creativity and passion that drive people to save the earth or protect children be easily leveraged to produce economies that can nurture and sustain them after they have been seized from the potential ravages of climate change or disease and poverty. That is why we find that societies with large well-meaning public sectors are not always leaders in job market growth or rapid commercialization of inventions. And as Mancur Olson demonstrated, countries with the most markets are often the ones with large numbers of unresolved social problems (Olson & Kahkonen, 2000). The friction between for-profit and nonprofit costs a lot more than individuals and societies can afford--not to mention being theoretically unnecessary and practically harmful to the very causes it is supposed to serve. Even Mohammed Yunus calls for a re-labeling of nonprofits to nonloss enterprises. We would like to point out that all enterprises are de-facto nonloss for when they run out of positive cash flows, they, in fact, cease to exist.

But Professor Yunus' call for relabeling is not to be taken lightly. History often pivots on a single word or phrase--slavery, kismet, God, royalty, government--battles are waged and debates seem endless--until another word turns the pivot in another direction altogether--equality, choice, reason, evolution, democracy, market. It appears to us we are stuck for the moment on profit--for and against. May we suggest an easier pivot? The word is investment.

Issue to be Considered for Entrepreneurship -4

2011-06-02T21:48:00.001+06:00

How Does Entrepreneurship Go Beyond Technology Commercialization and Economic Development to Driving Social Innovation and Human Development?

One could argue that Bill Gates and Pierre Omidyar have done as much if not more for social change and human development than Turing, von Neumann, Mother Teresa, or Nelson Mandela. Yet there is an important difference. The latter are necessary but insufficient, the former sufficient but unnecessary. Turing and von Neumann were necessary to create computers, but neither computers nor electronic auction sites were necessary for human development. Yet sweeping social changes resulting in a variety of new possibilities for human development resulted from the products of eBay and Microsoft. Similarly, one cannot imagine the end of apartheid or the care of lepers without Mandela and Mother Teresa even if they could not have accomplished these alone. But one can imagine climate change problems being resolved through a variety of commercially viable renewable energy products each of which may not be necessary in itself. Entrepreneurs operate in and continually create a world in which no particular set of conditions is necessary for success and progress. Their job is to implement sufficient even if unnecessary conditions instead. Each solution they implement may be local and temporary, but successful solutions are usually spatially and temporally stable enough and profitable enough for us to move the goalpost to a new threshold of human aspiration.

One might argue that whether one emphasized the role of necessary but insufficient causes such as those embodied in heroic individuals or the sufficient but unnecessary solutions offered by a method such as the entrepreneurial method is a matter of one's worldview. But the choice of worldview makes a real difference in the world. And therefore, which worldview we adopt in formulating policies and designing pedagogy is not something we can leave entirely to individual scholars' subjective viewpoints. It is necessary to build on the variety enabled by such subjectivity, but an intersubjective consensus is crucial and worth striving for if we are to build on the potential offered by the thesis we are advocating here--namely to move beyond entrepreneurship as a phenomenon to extracting the principles and techniques comprising its method and making them widely available as part of basic education.

In social science, it is customary to regret the difficulty of finding sufficient conditions that guarantee the achievement of valued objectives, even as we discover necessary conditions upon which we ought to build our solutions. Utopias are notoriously hard to come by and impossible to sustain once found. The optimal social choice problem in economics is a case in point. The Nobel prize winning economist, Kenneth Arrow proved the impossibility of creating a system that would guarantee optimal social choice (Arrow, 1951). One inference we can draw from the theorem is that that mysterious and elusive thing called human "judgment" is and will always be inevitable in our efforts to achieving better social choice. On the one hand, this is cause for dismay, but on the other, it may be cause for real hope. Another Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen, showed the feasibility of achieving local optima with a little bit of effort at getting sufficient numbers of people on the same page (Sen, 1999). Others have also contributed to the optimism. Lindblom, for example, provided a marginal mechanism that could lead (or in his words "muddle through") to better choices even in the face of overall disagreement on larger principles (Lindblom, 1959).

Studies of entrepreneurial action offer a procedural rationality for accomplishing such local coherences leading to spatially and temporally limited optima (Simon, 1978). Such optima provide sufficiently stable conditions that enable human progress. Progress can include building on past successes as well as tearing down and reshaping parts of the present that do not work well. Which to do when is decided through the kaleidic dance of evolving stakeholder networks of varying sizes that implement the entrepreneurial process we have been describing. Entrepreneurial action, our studies show, is above all, interaction--interaction over time, between stakeholders, and through local transformations of every kind of environment imaginable. The procedural rationality embodied in these interactions not only reshapes economic and social landscapes, it reconstitutes individual preferences and values, making over everything from utility functions to cultural identities. Only by conceptualizing entrepreneurship as a method can we hope to push its uses beyond technology commercialization and economic development and put it to work to build social innovations that make a positive difference in human development.

In the face of such a radical and transformative process such as the one propelled by this larger view of the entrepreneurial method, how can we distinguish a for-profit venture from other kinds of endeavors?

Issue to be Considered for Entrepreneurship -3

2011-06-02T21:47:00.001+06:00

Who Is Not a Potential Entrepreneur?

If the category we call entrepreneurs includes not only those who seek and find opportunities but also those who make them almost serendipitously from readily available bits and pieces, and moreover, if we include their self-selected stakeholders who help transform the amorphous vision into valuable new ends through commitments contingent on the unexpected, who could we exclude from the category of potential entrepreneurs? The answer simply is: no one. Therefore, in our efforts to educate, legislate, and acculturate an entrepreneurial society, we may want to follow the precedent offered by the scientific method, not treating science only as a profession although it can be; instead treating it as an essential part of basic education. That means starting in middle school or earlier and excluding no one. The appropriate arena for entrepreneurial education will then consist in a distinct set of reasoning and problem solving skills with or without specialized business tools of the kind found in formal business schools.

Entrepreneurship, in this view, becomes even more than a specific set of skills; it becomes a generalized method such as the scientific method--a form of reasoning and logic the exercise of which would be as useful a skill as arithmetic, reading, writing, and basic scientific reasoning (Sarasvathy, 2008). And at least as important as civic engagement, civil discourse and the critical development of moral and ethical judgment. Entrepreneurship, then, is not merely a career option or a fallback position in cases of employer downsizing or economic downturns; it comes to be seen as a widespread driver of social change (Weber, Heinze, & DeSoucey, 2008).

Issue to be Considered for Entrepreneurship -2

2011-06-02T21:46:00.001+06:00

How Are Markets Made?

Received wisdom in economics suggests that markets exist either as obvious or latent demand and market competition acts as a discovery procedure to develop technological and other forms of innovation to provide solutions to both (Hayek, 1984). Historical evidence does not always support this for demand does not always pre-exist even in a latent or dormant form (Lancaster, 1971). Moreover, a market is more than demand and supply (Fligstein, 2002). Markets are complex webs of relationships and logistics involving the entire spectrum of organizational challenges from individual initiative to collective action (Olson, 1996). Neither theories of free markets nor governmental and institutional theories are sufficient to explain the coming into being of new markets. According to Santos and Eisenhardt (2009), entrepreneurs use "soft power" strategies to co-construct organizational boundaries in order to dominate nascent markets. Histories of well-known ventures from Wedgwood to Estee Lauder suggest that creativity, wile, and chutzpah have to combine with serendipity and endless extended efforts in creating and sustaining new social networks (Koehn, 2001). That is why most new markets are surprises--highly improbable and hence difficult to predict before they actually come to be (Sarasvathy & Dew, 2005).

Two sets of evidence attest to this: Negative evidence provided by the sheer abundance of failed predictions (including those by entrepreneurs whose own endeavors helped falsify their own predictions) and positive evidence from unanticipated new markets. Here is a list in no particular order:

Even entrepreneurs celebrated as prescient and visionary after the fact often had to build their markets brick by brick, long after the proverbial light bulb of discovery went off over their unsuspecting heads. When Howard Schultz came back from Italy wanting to build his first coffee shop based on Starbucks, the original founders of Starbucks would have none of it. At the turn of the twentieth century in India the Kirloskar brothers could not sell their six metal plows even though they clearly increased productivity tenfold over wooden plows. Not until they worked with social reformers and the independence movement to educate a large swathe of farmers on the links between economics and patriotism could they grow their venture into the enduring firm it is today. Edison had to learn similar lessons in marketing the incandescent bulb in the United States. Preachers inveighed against its use as the work of the devil--how else could the abominable separation of heat from light have been accomplished? (Baldwin, 2001). And Grameen Bank was no exception in having to change the world before it could grow its market for what might seem the easiest product to sell--uncollateralized loans--because Bangladeshis had a taboo against women touching money--literally (Yunus, 2009).

In most cases, successful entrepreneurs appear like visionaries after the fact, persistent, almost pig-headed visionaries at that, steadfast in the single-minded pursuit of their vision in the face of skeptic naysayers and in the absence of resources within their control (Tellis, Golder, & Christensen, 2001). But a microscope on their early actions highlights another story--one of doing the doable and stitching together a variety of stakeholder commitments, many from folks who self-selected into the process (2) in return for a shot at shaping the vision (Sarasvathy & Dew, 2005). Often neither entrepreneurs nor their stakeholders had quite articulated a coherent vision of the market until after it came to be. In fact, it is the co-creation of the vision, a vision that concurrently gets embodied into the components of the new market emerging from the process that is the primary result of the entrepreneurial process. Here the familiar story of uncommitted prospects haggling over a mouthwatering pie is replaced by the reality of self-selected stakeholders actively engaged in shaping committed ingredients into unanticipated new confections. So who is actually the "entrepreneur" in this process of market creation, if not the prescient, persistent visionary hero who makes it all happen against incredible odds?

Issue to be Considered for Entrepreneurship -1

2011-06-02T21:44:00.001+06:00

What Do Entrepreneurs Do?

Over twenty years ago, Gartner (1988) made a compelling case for studying what entrepreneurs do rather than who they are--namely that they undertake activities leading to the creation of organizations. Since then, the field of entrepreneurship research has come to consider "opportunity" as the central construct of its distinctive domain (Venkataraman, 1997). For now, we can begin our exposition of the entrepreneurial method with the provisional assertion that entrepreneurs recognize, find and make opportunities (Alvarez & Barney, 2007; Sarasvathy, Dew, Velamuri, & Venkataraman, 2003). Conventional wisdom as well as a large portion of academic research has focused on how good entrepreneurs are at searching for opportunities and finding and exploiting them (Baron & Ensley, 2006; Erikson, 2001; Shane & Venkataraman, 2001; Singh, 2001). Which begs the question, of course, where all these opportunities come from in the first place? Who leaves the big bills on the sidewalk for the alert entrepreneur to find and cash in? Answers range from new developments in science and technology to the dynamics of the socio-economic environment including demographic, regulatory, and institutional changes (Shane, 2004). These answers, while quite correct in some cases, are far from complete. For (a) not all entrepreneurial opportunities are created through demographic, regulatory, and institutional changes--some are co-created through the entrepreneurial process itself; (b) in fact, some of those demographic, regulatory, and institutional changes themselves result from entrepreneurial drivers, conscious or unconscious, intentional or unintended; and (c) even when opportunities may originate in demographic, regulatory, and technological changes, they are subject to the Panglossian fallacy--namely that they can be claimed to pre-exist the process and deemed "discoverable" precisely because the process discovered them. Counterfactually, it is virtually impossible to prove the existence of opportunities that did not come to be. Finally, it is also possible to conceptualize opportunities in different ways so that what appears as discovered at one point in time may be shown to have been co-created at another

For example, there is mounting empirical evidence that opportunities are often created by the entrepreneurial process itself--in other words, entrepreneurs and their stakeholders often end up co-creating new opportunities that neither they nor those of us in their immediate periphery could or did anticipate (Read et al., 2009; Sarasvathy, 2008). What is more interesting is that the most experienced entrepreneurs explicitly implement such a co-creation process--that is, they act and behave in ways that generate and power this virtuous cycle (Read et al.). Entrepreneurial efforts thus generate a perpetual motion machine, as it were, that moves Adam Smith's invisible hand beyond static efficiency into an endless dynamic of new opportunities. But there is a kicker to this cornucopian process--namely, that the nature of these new opportunities is inherently unpredictable--even what counts as an "opportunity" becomes in a way difficult to define before it actually comes to be.

For example, what was the elevator pitch for Starbucks? Coffee consumption in the United States had been on a steady downward trend for almost two decades before Starbucks was created. Could one really argue that this was a market waiting to be tapped by an alert visionary? Nor was it an act of heroic individual creativity--Howard Schultz did not found the original Starbucks company nor was Starbucks the first specialty coffee shop. Peets Coffee was already a niche business in California. The tapestry of the Starbucks we know so well today was painstakingly stitched together from a variety of stakeholder inputs including those from customers, commercial artists, and community leaders who knowingly or unknowingly participated in a co-creation process that has transformed urban landscapes from Seattle to Ankara (Koehn, 2001).

How about Google? Clearly not the first commercially viable search engine--and certainly not the magnitude of success envisioned even by its own founders who were at one time eager to sell it for a million dollars. Luckily for them, there were no takers (Battelle, 2006; Vise, 2005). If we are to twist the Google story to fit our theories of latent demand, then we would be hard put to describe what is not a potential market. Our sidewalks will be strewn with big bills, or even constructed entirely out of stacks of currency that we only need pick up as we go (Kirzner, 1973, 2009; Olson, 1996). Surely we need a way out of this absurdity.

Future trends of Entrepreneurship

2011-06-02T21:43:00.001+06:00

Introduction

Scientific progress often occurs through phenomena that do not "fit" dominant wisdom--be it the kink in the orbit of Mars that led to Kepler's laws or the Galapagos islands that necessitated The Origin of Species. Entrepreneurship, in our considered opinion, is proving to be such a beast. Over four decades of research have almost always led either to "mixed" results in terms of theories from other disciplines or have actually raised challenges to dominant wisdom in both the disciplines and the functional areas. Take for example, the evidence for and against psychological traits such as risk-propensity (Miner & Raju, 2004; Stewart & Roth, 2001) or the liability of newness, adolescence, and obsolescence (Bruderl & Schussler, 1990). Or the uneasy need for the notion of "institutional entrepreneur" in sociological approaches that otherwise seek to privilege structure over agency (Battilana, Leca, & Boxenbaum, 2009; Dimaggio, 1988). Or the futile struggles of economists to create a place for "The Prince of Denmark" in their otherwise powerful and persuasive morality play (Baumol, 1968; Schumpeter, 1942). Combine this with the growing trends in pedagogy and practice that have moved beyond for-profit firms into social, sustainable, and even public entrepreneurship. All of these cry out for us to confront the possibility that we might have made what philosophers call a "category error"--namely, putting a thing into a class to which it does not belong, or mistaking a larger set or meta-category for one of its constituent subsets (Ryle, 1949). (1)

What if we have been thinking about entrepreneurship the wrong way? What if we temporarily suspend our thinking of it as a sub-discipline of economics or management, or a subset of courses taught in business schools, and recast it as something as large as a social force--somewhat like democracy in the eighteenth century or the scientific method in the seventeenth? In fact, when we examine the history of the scientific method and its incorporation into basic education, the parallels are uncanny. Without getting mired in the philosophical debates surrounding the existence and usefulness of the scientific method, we simply use the name "scientific method" to capture the notion that the world can be systematically studied and understood in terms that do not include divine revelation or special mystical abilities. As the eminent cosmologist and science educator Carl Sagan explained it, key elements of this notion can be traced back to the craftsmen and merchants of Greece, prominent among them being Democritus (Sagan, 1983). However, it was only as recently as the sixteenth century that Francis Bacon urged the idea that the work of navigators, inventors, and craftsmen can be a model for scholars (Bacon, 2004). Eventually, through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the scientific method developed into the predominant and most reliable way to harness Nature's potential for the achievement of human purposes.

The Analogy Between the Scientific Method and the Entrepreneurial Method

For the analogy between the scientific method and the burgeoning notion of the entrepreneurial method to work, we do not particularly need to get into the details of what exactly constitutes each method, although we do not hesitate to outline certain possibilities in Table 1. The point of imminent importance is the realization that such methods can and do exist. Putting this realization to work does not require us to accept a utopian view of either science or entrepreneurship in terms of the outcomes they engender. Nor does it dismiss the role of other ways to achieve positive social impact. Again the point of immediate relevance is not that entrepreneurship or entrepreneurs are universally good or that other methods are to be discarded, but that this new(er) instrument--the entrepreneurial method--is of considerable value worthy of packing in our rucksack as we move forward as a species.

The specification of teachable and learnable principles of scientific approaches to understanding nature and then putting that understanding to work in the pursuit of individual and societal objectives took several centuries. Yet today the scientific method is taught not only to potential scientists in professional schools at graduate or postgraduate levels, but to everyone, starting at an early age, as an essential mindset and skill that forms the core of all education--in line with reading and writing and arithmetic. Such broad and early dissemination has propelled a democratization of what was originally accessible only to a few who were endowed with divine revelation, inborn genius, or the wealth and status that allowed science be pursued as a "gentleman's pastime." The democratization begun in the seventeenth century by Bacon and others, moreover, has now led to millions of "ordinary" scientists working in systematic ways to make possible the amazing industrial, technological, and subsequent social revolutions of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. As Shamoo and Resnik (2009) point out, "it is estimated that there are more scientists alive today than all of the scientists who have lived during the past 2,500 years of human history (Weaver & Dickson, 1988)."

We believe a similar path of revolutions is waiting in the wings with entrepreneurship. Based on about four decades of rigorous research into the phenomenon of entrepreneurship, we are beginning to realize that the phenomenon may hide a generalized method capable of changing the way we live, work, and play, and transforming the courses of the careers we build, the shapes of the communities we live in, and the evolution of the socio-political and economic systems we are a part of. That is why delving a little deeper into the history of the development of the scientific method may be a useful task here. Let us begin with Francis Bacon, usually recognized as the earliest of modern philosophers of science to spell out the key elements of what we now know as the scientific method. In the preface to his treatise on the subject, Novum Organum, Bacon states as one of the aphorisms: "The sole cause and root of almost every defect in the sciences is this; that whilst we falsely admire and extol the powers of the human mind, we do not search for its real helps." There are two laments here--the first, that the dominant wisdom of his day overemphasized the traits and abilities of individual scientists and the second, that the philosophers of his day did not search for the codifiable principles and techniques that lay beneath what masqueraded as special abilities a very few people were endowed with. Both laments evoke conversations in entrepreneurship research today.

The first lament is not unusual. Early explanations for science, like those for most endeavors resulting in valuable contributions to human and social welfare, tend to hinge on the observation that these accomplishments can be attributed to a few selected people. Only as we study and understand what these people actually do that a more accessible pattern emerges that can then be codified and taught and propagated widely enough to become a viable tool of value creation writ large. Thus pre-scientific explanations of knowledge creation consisted in the notion that some special people are able to (are even born to) "read the signs"--from the True Book (of God or Nature). In other words, scientific ability was largely an inborn trait or an accident of birth and circumstance, and not a matter of systematic study or training. This strikes us as an interesting parallel to the traits literature in entrepreneurship. It was natural for our field too to begin trying to describe entrepreneurs in terms of their traits (McClelland, 1961) and also to try to isolate what made entrepreneurs different from non-entrepreneurs (Brockhaus, 1982; Stanworth, Blythe, Granger, & Stanworth, 1989; Woo, Cooper, & Dunkelberg, 1991). And even though some believe that this stream of work has been discredited, it appears to resurface in new ways (Baron & Ensley, 2006; Baum, Frese, & Baron, 2007; Gartner, 1988; McClelland; Zhao & Seibert, 2006).

Of course the argument is more nuanced in recent studies and goes beyond simply differentiating entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs in general or trying to identify certain traits as predictors of startup and success. Even strong proponents of the importance of personality traits tend to aver that "... a model of the effects of personality traits on business creation and business success must include other individual differences variables as well as nonpersonality variables, such as action strategies, cognitive ability, and environment, which are additional predictors of performance" (Rauch & Frese, 2007).

The second of Bacon's laments is not as usual, and was especially radical for his time. The idea that scholars should observe in detail and actually learn from "craftsmen and tradespeople," however talented, was not easily palatable. Yet, that was indeed the source of the "real helps" that Bacon sought to codify into the principles of the scientific method and techniques such as the "crucial experiment." In articulating these, Bacon had to do two things: on the one hand he had to struggle against the traditions of the times, especially with regard to what counted as "evidence"; and on the other, he had to draw together fragments of ideas from his contemporaries that held the seeds of a new way of thinking about basic concepts such as "evidence." What counted as evidence in his day consisted primarily of testimony and authority. Both of these could involve religious sources such as the scriptures as well as secular ones such as human witnesses and opinions. The idea of evidence as independent of any person or divine revelation, in other words empirical evidence of the kind familiar to us, was just beginning to be spelled out around the time Bacon wrote his thesis on the scientific method (Hacking, 1975).

We believe we too are beginning to grapple with Bacon's second lament as applied to entrepreneurship, namely the central tenets of how to do entrepreneurship as opposed to key traits that differentiate entrepreneurs from other presumably "normal" or mundane human beings. Here too the historical parallels are evocative. In a study of the social origins of the scientific method, Zilsel (2000) showed that real science was born when the experimental method of the craftsmen was adopted by the university-scholar and the humanistic literati. A similar trend can be found in entrepreneurship where in-depth case studies and qualitative research combined with larger empirical tests are beginning to provide details of how actual entrepreneurs make decisions and take action (Baker & Nelson, 2005; Eisenhardt, 1989; Ozcan & Eisenhardt, 2009; Santos & Eisenhardt, 2004; Sarasvathy, 2008). The movement here has the potential to go beyond a purely scholarly one of formulating and testing hypotheses to active interactions between research and pedagogy and practice that can inform and transform one another. If we pursue this potential, the result will be a method of thought and action whose efficacy is established as much through actual applications and the resultant outcomes in the world (i.e., technologies) as through their verisimilitude established through statistical or other types of evidentiary analyses (i.e., theories, models, and laws).

The next stage in this historical progression, from fascinating achievements attributed to individual ability or chance circumstance to the study and codification of a systematic method, is the realization and acceptance that the codification can (and arguably should) be made available to all. This stage is not yet a fait accompli even in the case of the scientific method. As recently as the second half of the twentieth century, Simon (1979), for example, was driven to take the time and effort to argue that there is no qualitative difference between the processes of revolutionary science and journeyman science--i.e., anyone can learn to do science and do it well. In other words, extraordinary scientists are neither a separate species of scientists, nor is the way they do science mystical and beyond the comprehension of more "ordinary" scientists. Furthermore, he had to shore up this argument with a series of experimental and historical studies that laid bare the basic elements of scientific discovery as it actually happens, rather than as it is supposed to happen according to armchair theorists and philosophers of science (Klahr & Simon, 2001). This raises a central issue for entrepreneurship researchers: Can key elements of the entrepreneurial method be the same for the extraordinarily successful entrepreneurs as well as the ordinary entrepreneur (who may or may not ever succeed in terms of standard measures of performance such as return on investment)? In other words, can anyone who wants to learn it be taught to do entrepreneurship well? We believe the answer is yes.

As Feyerabend (1993) and others have provocatively argued, there may be serious holes in the notion of an ironclad scientific "method"--be it the one embraced by Carnap or Popper or others before and after (Hacking, 1983). Yet the notion of a scientific approach to solving problems, especially those related to discoveries about physical and material reality is a meaningful and useful one. We usually know what we mean when say, "Let us approach this scientifically"--as opposed to say, biblically, or politically or any other way. Similarly, the notion of tackling problems in the human realm using an entrepreneurial as opposed to sociological, spiritual, or even an economic approach is a meaningful and useful distinction. Take, for example, effectual logic--a logic of thought and action that has been empirically shown to be an important component of entrepreneurial expertise (Read, Dew, Sarasvathy, & Wiltbank, 2009). This logic, like the logic of experimentation in science, is actionable and consists of mechanisms that specify how to work with readily available means to co-create local transformations through self-selected stakeholder commitments. Yet it is distinguishable both from the logic of collective action and from the spontaneous order of free markets (Sarasvathy, 2008). Therefore, our claim for entrepreneurship as a method akin to the scientific method rests both on the historical parallels and recent empirical findings that feed the possibility of a Novum Artificium, as it were.

With a view to populating this claim with actual content, we pose a series of open questions that involve both a reinterpretation of what we have already learned through past research and a reformulation of existing and future research agendas in the spirit of confronting and overcoming the category error we mentioned earlier. In other words, the questions we pose below are aimed at moving us beyond a view of entrepreneurship as a sub-discipline or "merely" a phenomenon or setting for testing high theory, toward a new view of it as a powerful social force analogous to the scientific method.

Toward the Specification of the Entrepreneurial Method: Three Suggestions for Future Research

To summarize our arguments so far, there exists a distinct method of human problem solving that we can categorize as entrepreneurial. The method can be evidenced empirically, is teachable to anyone who cares to learn it, and may be applied in practice to a wide variety of issues central to human well-being and social improvement. These arguments imply that it could be a useful and valuable enterprise for scholars of entrepreneurship to begin researching entrepreneurship as a method as well as a phenomenon or setting for testing theories from other disciplines. We believe that researching entrepreneurship as a method will entail (1) making the inter-subjective a key unit of analysis, (2) seeing heterogeneity as a basis for the design of human artifacts, and (3) specifying the role of the entrepreneurial method and the mechanisms that embody it.

Making the Inter-Subjective a Key Unit of Analysis

Currently, the dominant convention with regard to psychological and sociological approaches to entrepreneurship research consists in using either the individual or the team as the unit of analysis (Packalen, 2007; Ruef, 2003). An exhaustive search of the literature turned up virtually no journal article on details of the numerous relationships and deals that entrepreneurs routinely negotiate with a wide variety of stakeholders. Even a rare exception such as Rea (1989) used survey methods that call for individual responses from one party to the relationship--venture capitals in this particular case. It is rather surprising that over four decades of empirical work has not even scratched the surface of intersubjective interactions between entrepreneurs and their stakeholders, be they early partners, customers, suppliers, professional advisors, employees, or the local communities within which the fledgling new venture is located. Considerable work has been done on alliances and social networks. But the bulk of these studies seek to identify characteristics of alliances and networks that contribute to firm performance.

Almost the entirety of social networks research takes networks as mostly given and outside the control of human action, hence not a source of valuable input into developing a method of doing entrepreneurship. In a recent and rare exception that examined qualitative case studies of alliances in the wireless gaming industry, Ozcan and Eisenhardt (2009) asserts this: Extant research addresses attributes of high-performing alliance portfolios but not how executives originate such portfolios ... and then goes on to develop an inductive model that seeks to take the literature beyond a deterministic account of dyadic interdependence and social embeddedness. Even scarcer are studies that actually look into the structures of deals and the processes through which the deals came to be structured the way they are. In our considered opinion, an entire unexplored terrain of possibilities lies dormant in the area of how entrepreneurs transform bits and pieces of current realities into valuable new opportunities through productive interaction with others.

Even the literature that is directly focused on negotiations has mostly neglected new venture creation processes. Consider for example, that Bazerman, Curhan, Moore, and Valley's (2000) classic and comprehensive review of the growing literature on negotiations does not include the words "venture" or "entrepreneur" at all. Also, the very idea of "transformation" or "design" or "co-creation" as opposed to "bargaining" is new to the literature on negotiations. Linda Putnam's (2004) exhortation to negotiation scholars to incorporate transformative notions is a case

On the one hand, negotiation research has shown that people often fail to reach mutually beneficial agreements even when they may be readily available (e.g., Bazerman & Neale, 1992; Thompson, Gentner, & Loewenstein, 2000). On the other hand, research has also begun to show that such agreements are reached and even new and unanticipated ones forged through repeated exchanges between the same negotiators (Pruitt & Rubin, 1986; Thompson et al., 2000). Indeed, Lawler and his collaborators have shown that commitment leading to stable group formation occurs through a process of repeated negotiated exchanges:

The development of relational cohesion and commitment is an endogenous process that emerges from the interaction between actors. (Lawler & Yoon, 1996, p. 90)

All these examples from sociological and psychological literatures on relational exchanges and interpersonal negotiations point to fertile untapped resources for future entrepreneurship research. Furthermore, fully embracing the proposition that "Most of our approaches to the world are mediated through negotiation with others," (Bruner, 1986) has important implications not only for new research, but also for re-examining and challenging existing dogma in our field. Furthermore, we believe that a deeper understanding of stakeholder relationships in entrepreneurship can both challenge and contribute to the literature on negotiations and relational sociology.

Seeing Heterogeneity as a Basis for the Design of Human Artifacts

More recently, Davidsson (2008) has argued in some detail that the phenomenon of entrepreneurship exhibits heterogeneity along several dimensions and across every aspect of research including design, sampling, operationalization of variables, and analysis. The study not only catalogs the various types of heterogeneity problems that arise in the context of entrepreneurial/venture performance, but also suggests strategies for dealing with these problems. Several of these fixes have to do with taxonomizing the phenomenon, strictly bounding samples to particular industries or other dimensions of the taxonomy, developing comparable metrics, and seeking to find natural experiments or designing controlled laboratory experiments.

Davidsson's arguments about heterogeneity are also applicable at the level of the entrepreneur. As we pointed out in the beginning of this article, the vast literature on the role of individual traits and personality variables has produced mixed results at best. One reason could be that "entrepreneur" is not a monolithic category. Instead it may be that we need a taxonomy of entrepreneurs (whether organized around motivations, skills, industry, opportunity, or other relevant dimensions) and look for differences between subcategories in the taxonomy. However, we would like to contend that the problem of heterogeneity in entrepreneurial behavior goes deeper than the need to taxonomize entrepreneurial phenomena, that it is a more fundamental characteristic of human beings and human action in general--a peculiar triple helix of heterogeneity at that. Studies ranging from genetics (Lewontin, 1972) to meta-analyses of industry histories (Mairess & Griliches, 1990) all point to a possible fallacy in trying to categorize human behavior according to a priori traits or formal models. In other words, the evidence seems to suggest that heterogeneity is amazingly persistent and continues to appear at every level of analysis. Sarasvathy (2008) described three sources of unpredictability in human behavior as follows:

Whereas heterogeneity as defined here appears to be a species trait that shows up in behavior in spite of institutions that nudge, push, and even compel people toward conformity and coherence, liability and conceptuality appear to be just as likely to be driven through interactions with other individuals as being something innate and individual--i.e., inter-subjective, not merely subjective. Instead of starting with the assumption that human beings can a priori be grouped into stable categories in one way or another, what if we began our theorizing with the opposite assumption--that there are no stable categories; what matters is difference and change, continual flux of one sort or another? At first glance, this seems to make the problem of entrepreneurial (even all behavioral) research intractable and futile. But a second look suggests a productive opportunity for exciting new research. And that is the possibility that all categories are artificial--not in the sense of unreal and useless, but in the sense of carefully, yet interactively and iteratively designed (consider, for example, the U.S. Constitution) and/or emergent through patterned and path-dependent processes (such as technology ventures and standards bodies).

Another way to capture this argument is to begin researching entrepreneurship not only as a social science, but as a science of the artificial (Simon, 1996). Some specific lines of future research along these lines could include: attributing coherence in risk-taking behavior not only to innate traits but also to learned experience and deliberate practice; or, taking traditional conceptions of team building as finding members with shared interests who buy into the leader's vision, and adding to that a conceptualization of leadership as a process of designing goals from partially articulated and partially vague and inchoate preferences of a growing stakeholder network. The latter would be consistent with Geroski's (2003) argument that new markets come not only from well-articulated but unfulfilled demand, but also from inchoate demand that can be shaped through particular product offerings that allow them to coalesce into new preferences, needs, and wants.

Specifying the Role of the Entrepreneurial Method and the Mechanisms that Embody It

If we accept the thesis that entrepreneurship is a method such as the scientific method and/or a social force such as democracy, there is an enormous task ahead of us in specifying when and where exactly the method can be applied, not to mention considering in great detail the mechanisms that constitute the method and how they can be applied. We have argued in this article that the entrepreneurial method can tackle a wide range of problems in the human social realm. It is necessary, however, to investigate and explicate the problem space in more concrete terms. For example, when and how does the entrepreneurial method compete with other approaches such as scientific, regulatory, sociopolitical, etc.? More interestingly, perhaps, how can the entrepreneurial method complement and leverage other approaches, say, in the alleviation of poverty or in the achievement of social justice? We believe recent history is rife with natural experiments that can help tackle the task of greater specification of the problem space. Take the case of climate change, for example. Both nonprofit and for-profit entrepreneurial ventures compete with as well as leverage regulatory reform, R&D initiatives, corporate philanthropy, and international aid in this arena. It would be interesting, not to say impactful, to develop empirically grounded as well as a priori and formal theoretical frameworks that allow us to specify how exactly to mix and match synergistic strategies across different approaches and when and where to allow the methods to compete to let better solutions evolve.

The types of scholarly endeavors called forth by the task described above are also necessary at a more micro-level--namely in the case of particular mechanisms that embody the entrepreneurial method. With the historical advent of democracy as a form of political action, for example, voting mechanisms became a new area of research. Over decades of cumulative research, political scientists, economists, sociologists, legal scholars, and others have developed a vast body of work relating to a variety of voting-related phenomena (Riker & Ordeshook, 1968; Saari, 1989; Schuessler, 2000). We believe a similar fount of intellectual possibilities awaits us in connection with the entrepreneurial method. The mechanism of affordable loss in contrast with techniques such as DCF and real options (Dew, Sarasvathy, Read, & Wiltbank, 2009) provides a glimpse of one such mechanism. Bricolage is another such mechanism (Baker & Nelson, 2005). By mechanism therefore we mean specific learnable and teachable techniques such as those available in accounting, finance, and supply chain management. To be useful for becoming a building block of the entrepreneurial method, such mechanisms have to "hang together" logically--i.e., they have to be internally consistent with each other and "make sense" in terms of the overall purpose of the method, namely to unleash the potential of human nature to achieve desired ends and to generate viable and valuable new ends.

There exist several sources of data for building such mechanisms. Often these are data collected for other purposes. Take for instance the various types of stakeholder contracts that entrepreneurs enter into in building and growing their ventures. Several empirical studies in entrepreneurship use contracts as the basis for analyzing specific aspects of entrepreneurial performance. To cite but a few: Using alliance contracts as primary data, Weaver and Dickson (1998) challenged the importance of resource-based and environment-based factors in alliance performance and Reuer, Arino, and Mellewigt (2006) deepened our understanding of antecedents to governance choices. Franchisor-franchisee contracts have also proved useful in understanding how entrepreneurs create and manage relationships in trying to grow their ventures (Jambulingam & Nevin, 1999; Leblebici & Shalley, 1996). Other studies have looked into research (Deeds & Hill, 1999) and customer (Yli-Renko, Sapienza, & Hay, 2001) relationships and yet others have investigated the VC-entrepreneurial venture relationships through the design and ongoing management of "deals" and term sheets (Cumming, Schmidt, & Walz, 2010; Petty & Gruber, 2009). The relevant fact here is that a wide variety of contracts exist as potential data to examine how entrepreneurs craft and manage relationships with a wide variety of stakeholders. While these have mostly been used to understand performance of particular aspects of venturing, they could also be used as data to begin inductive theorizing about specific mechanisms (say equity versus debt) or particular relational preferences (say control rights over certain types of decisions and not others) that constitute the entrepreneurial method.

Why and how would these mechanisms matter? Until now, for the most part, we have focused on entrepreneurship as a phenomenon and we have tried to understand how to create the conditions for good entrepreneurial performance whether at the firm level or at the societal level. That is akin to asking "What explains the discovery of penicillin or plate tectonics?" or trying to understand the role of government funding in the nature and magnitude of scientific output. To specify the method of science or of entrepreneurship, however, we have to roll up our sleeves and actually observe experienced entrepreneurs in action, read their diaries, examine their documents and sit in on negotiations--as did the scholarly and humanistic literati of Bacon's time. And as we extract and codify the "real helps" of entrepreneurial thought and action, we need to figure out ways to embody them in particular techniques and mechanisms that we refine in the laboratory and the classroom with a view to carefully determining the logical relationships both between these mechanisms and how they connect to the unleashing of human potential. In short, we have an exciting time of hard work ahead of us.

Conclusion

In sum, we have argued here that by thinking of entrepreneurship as a subset of other disciplines such as economics or treating it as a setting for testing theories from these disciplines, we may be in danger of falling into a category error. One way out of this error is to reformulate entrepreneurship as a method of human action, comparable to social forces such democracy and the scientific method, namely, a powerful way of tackling large and abiding problems at the heart of advancing our species. This reformulation puts us on the brink of an exciting new endeavor encompassing pedagogy, policy, and practice in ways that are yet to be invented. Only if we choose to embark on this endeavor may we actively participate in and help shape a revolution that is already tiptoeing into the twenty-first century.

Entrepreneurship education in Bangladesh

2011-06-02T21:40:00.001+06:00

During the 1970s the population of Bangladesh grew at an annual rate of nearly 3 percent while its food supply grew at an annual rate of only 1 to 2 percent. The country kept getting poorer and poorer as a result. By 1980, as the population approached 90 million, it was one of the poorest countries and the largest recipient of foreign aid--in the world. The World Bank was the largest donor of this aid. By 1980, however, the Bank concluded that its $200 million per year or more of aid to Bangladesh was being very inefficiently used, and that all economic units in the country had very low productivity--to a large extent because of a lack of sound management. The Bank further decided that the expenditure of several million dollars to improve management education would have a very high ROI.

The author had worked in Bangladesh (then known as East Pakistan) from 1969 to 1971 on a Ford Foundation project to create an Institute of Business Administration within the University of Dhaka. That university, along with two others, offered a three-year Bachelor of Commerce (B-Comm) degree and a one-year Master of Commerce (M-Comm) degree. The new Institute was to offer an American-style, two-year MBA. Believing that one of the critical needs of developing countries is the fostering of both entrepreneurs and an environment within which entrepreneurship can flourish, the author designed and introduced a course in entrepreneurship. He was able to teach this course only once, however, for in the middle of the second year the revolution started and he and his family were evacuated from the country.

In 1980, the author was asked by the World Bank to return to Bangladesh to design a project to improve management education in the three universities mentioned above and in a Management Development Center (a subdivision of the Ministry of Industry) which ran management seminars and offered non-degree courses. The result was a five-year, $8 million project which would bring 80 Bangladeshi professors to the U.S. for additional degrees, and bring 12 to 15 U.S. professors to Bangladesh as short-term advisors. (The project also contained a number of other components.)

As part of the project, the author again returned to Bangladesh in 1983 as an advisor to curriculum revision and, in the ensuing discussions, the three Faculties of Commerce agreed (as one of many changes) that they should introduce two courses in entrepreneurship: a required course for all undergraduates and an elective course for all master's degree students. The idea was that all of the undergraduate students should be exposed to the theories of entrepreneurship, the role of the entrepreneur in history, and the role of the entrepreneur in the industrial development of Bangladesh; and then study some cases of successful Bangladeshi entrepreneurs who might serve as role models for the students. It was hoped that, as a result of exposure to such a course, the potential entrepreneurs in the senior class would identify themselves and take the elective entreprenurship course during their M-Comm program. (It should be noted that over 90 percent of those who complete the B-Comm go on to study for the M-Comm.)

A year later, the author was asked to return for one month to Bangladesh as the Advisor on Entrepreneurship. The question in his mind at this point was, "What can be done in such a short period of time that will be of lasting value?"

Until independence, classes in most elementary schools, and in all secondary schools and universities in Bangladesh were taught in English. Since 1971 all of these schools have switched to the Bengali language. Consequently, the students have not been able to read U.S. texts, which most of them would be unable to afford in any event. The author felt that suitable textbooks should be developed for these courses and that these should be published locally and in paperback, so that the students could afford them. (The estimated appropriate price was $3.) It was also believed essential that the textbooks be written in Bengali by the professors who would be teaching the courses and that they be based on the realities of the political, economic, social, and administrative climate in Bangladesh.

The first three weeks of the author's visit were devoted, a week at each university, to identifying the professors who would probably teach the entrepreneurship courses which were to become part of a revised curriculum, and to include these professors, the department chairmen and the deans in a series of discussions on the importance of entrepreneurship for the development of Bangladesh and the importance of having this subject taught at their institutions. Meanwhile, arrangements were made for the organization of a workshop in Dhaka, during the fourth week, to be attended by the five or six professors from each university who might eventually teach the course.

The workshop had four objectives. First, all of the future professors of entrepreneurship were to become acquainted with the literature in this field, including textbooks which had been developed in the U.S. Second, all were to participate in designing the two courses to be offered in Bangladesh. Third, all were to be involved in designing the textbooks which would form the basis of their two courses. Fourth, all were to be involved eventually in writing these textbooks, and hence be committed to using them in their classes.

To help achieve the first objective, the author brought to Bangladesh a suitcase filled with relevant books and articles. HE lectured about these writings at the workshop and made them available for perusal by the participants.

To aid in achieving the second objective, a guided discussion was held which included all workshop participants and resulted in general agreement concerning the objectives, content, and teaching approach for the two courses. The participants were then divided into smaller, working groups to design the syllabi. Drafts were assembled and distributed, and further discussion resulted in a meeting of minds on this score as well.

For the third objective, another general discussion resulted in a consensus as to the broad outlines for the two textbooks. The participants were again divided into working groups, with each group assigned to draft a detailed outline of a section of a text, indicating possible source material. These segments were later assembled, reproduced, and distributed for additional group discussion, during which agreement was reached concerning the textbook outlines.

Topics covered in the undergraduate text include entrepreneurship theory and history, development programs and sources of assistance, and case studies. The graduate text covers some of these same topics, but also includes discussions of the business environment, planning and creating an enterprise, developing a comprehensive business plan, and capital budgeting.

To make a start toward achieving the fourth objective, the participants were asked to indicate which chapters they could best write, given their special areas of expertise. This procedure resulted in specific chapters being assigned to specific professors.

It was recognized that a follow-up organization was needed. As part of this structure, a campus coordinator was selected for each university, the role of whom was to assure completion of each co-author's task and to provide for quality control. An editorial board was also selected, consisting of the three campus coordinators plus a senior editor. It was agreed that the texts would be drafted in English and, after being assembled and reviewed by the editorial board, would be sent to the present author in the U.S. for review. Upon completion of this review and any necessary revision, the manuscripts would be translated into Bengali by the chapter co-authors, reassembled and reviewed by the editorial board, and published in Dhaka.

All participants at the workshop agreed on a time schedule. All that was now lacking was a budget to provide financial incentive for the co-authors and editorial board, and to pay expenses for typing, reproduction, travel, etc. The editorial board agreed on a budget, which totaled only about five thousand dollars per book for the final draft in Bengali, ready for printing. These present writer was able to get the government and the World Bank to revise the project budget to finance the preparation of these two texts.

At the time of the writing of this article, the English language drafts of the two textbooks are enroute to the U.S. to be reviewed. The chapter authors and editorial board have kept to their schedule and budget. (It appears that the entire process just might work! In any case, the workshop organized in Dhaka by this author may be thought of as educational entrepreneurship.)

In the opinion of the author, courses in entrepreneurship are important, but not critical offerings, for U.S. business schools. In less developed countries (LDCs), however, they are critical elements of the curriculum because of the pressing need to foster entrepreneurship as a motor for economic development. Yet such courses are rarely found in LDC business schools because such schools were modeled after U.S. business schools where, until quite recently, one rarely found entrepreneurship courses. Not only have LDC business schools designed their curricula after those of U.S. business schools, they also use American textbooks--usually in English, but sometimes in direct translation. All of this has usually been done on the advice of American business professors--who apparently have known very little about LDCs.

It is vital that we recognized that the culture, the economic infrastructure, the business climate and the role of government in LDCs are far different from what is found in the U.S. The educational curricula of these countries should be tailor-made to their needs. Their textbooks can be based on U.S. texts, but should be significantly adapted to fit the national environments of particular LDCs.

Entrepreneurship development in Bangladesh

2011-06-02T17:52:00.002+06:00

AN entrepreneur is one who always searches for change, responds to it, and exploits it as an opportunity. Can anyone be an entrepreneur? The answer is no. But with access to capital, minimum education facility and own creativity, many intelligent, energetic youth can be turned into a decent business people.

In our country, the term for an entrepreneur is a 'businessman,' which carries with it a set of negative connotations. The assumption is that one goes into business if one cannot be a banker, doctor, engineer, lawyer, professor or a corporate worker. In movies, businessmen are portrayed as crude, immoral people. In day-to-day life, a businessman is only considered successful if he can achieve conspicuous display of wealth.

Despite our negative views of 'business', the private sector has a crucial role to play in growing the economy and providing employment opportunities. The private sector is the engine of innovation in all sectors of the economy. Entrepreneurship in Bangladesh currently thrives in two sectors of the economy -- among the poorest of the poor (14 million households) and among the well-off (about 2.5 million households). The reason for this is that both of these sectors have access to institutional financing.

The change in mindset can perhaps be attributed to the realisation that notwithstanding advances in scientific, social, political and economic systems, the gap between rich and poor is widening. With many social problems continuing to plague societies and some even worsening, concern regarding the effectiveness and sustainability of governmental and welfare-based approaches to social problems has increased. This in turn has directed greater attention to the work of entrepreneurs.

Economic Development through Entrepreneurship Initiatives: No developing country can achieve sustained economic or social development without engaging effectively in the broader trade dependent economic environment. The role of such innovative entrepreneurial efforts greatly influences country's overall GDP, productivity, economic reform and social growth in the context of global economy.

The long-term goal of entrepreneurial efforts aims to ensure that poor can contribute and share the benefits of growth through enhancing their purchasing power. It will in turn encourage economies to specialise in, and concentrate on, areas where these will add relative cost advantage over other economies. Eventually, this will become a strong tool for poverty alleviation.

Entrepreneurship; A tool for Empowerment: "Entrepreneurship" has become a very significant factor for ensuring development in the least developed countries (LDCs). Entrepreneurship leads towards a broad range of aspects including financial and decision-making capacities of individual persons which ultimately results in "Empowerment". "An Empowered Nation" is absolutely necessary for the overall development of a country which can efficiently rid of the curse of poverty.

"Entrepreneurship" has a crucial role to play in low income economies. It has the power to foster growth and generate rapid and lasting reductions in poverty. For a Least Developed Country like Bangladesh, effective entrepreneurial efforts and initiatives can play an enormous, significant role in influencing social and economic policy reform and development outcomes. Bangladesh, with its high population density, widespread poverty, and susceptibility to natural disasters, is a challenging environment for development initiatives. Although government and other non-government organisations (NGOs) have initiated several developmental schemes but the progress is not that noteworthy. But this huge human resource can be turned towards a revolutionary device for effective economic growth through exploring entrepreneurial opportunities.

Around eighty per cent (80%) of our population lives in regional areas and most of them are poor. If this population can effectively be promoted with entrepreneurial skill, they can actively involve themselves in, and contribute towards, the economic development process. It is a must that this collective effort will lead the country to move forward. Necessarily it indicates that to alleviate poverty, exploring the entrepreneurial opportunities is a must. To summarise, economic situation of Bangladesh can not really improve without entrepreneurship efforts.

Fight against poverty: Entrepreneurship is often considered one of the most effective and flexible strategies in the fight against global poverty. Bangladesh has a population of more than 140 million with almost half of the population living below the poverty line. Sustainable entrepreneurial development programmes can be implemented on a massive scale that is necessary to respond to the urgent needs of those living on less than $1.0 a day, the World's poorest.

The Progress out of Poverty Index (PPI) is an assessment tool for measuring the poverty level of a country. For Bangladesh, It estimates the likelihood that a participant has income below the $1.0/Day/ Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) international benchmark. Such poor PPI can never indicate progressive development emerging in a country. Thus, there is a great need to think out of the box to enhance economic advancement.

The most important fact behind entrepreneurship is economic freedom and self dependency. Bangladesh is a lower income country which is deprived of enjoying the essence of global economic benefits and left far behind the financially viable scenario. There should be effective proposals designed to provide suggestions how to improve present socio-economic picture with strategic advising in decision-making to excel in positive economic impact. In this situation, these proposals can be a critical catalyst to strengthen entire development process that most developing countries are grappling with.

What should be our approach? We must initiate to explore the potential excellence and open scopes for people of all classes across the country and exploit these for the constructive development of the society and country. The government also needs to ensure that people of small means should have access to facilities to undertake economic activities at appropriate scales throughout the country. Once the overall framework is in place, mobilisation of more resources and more effective utilisation of the available resources will be facilitated. If all these factors work together under one umbrella, only then economic progress and development, along with poverty alleviation target, can be achieved.

Family Based Capitalization (FBC): Family Enterprise for Enterprsing

2011-06-01T01:48:00.000+06:00

Family Based Capitalization (FBC): Family Enterprise for Enterprsing: "Enterprising through Promoting Familipreneurship for Sustainable Poverty Reduction, Employment Generation and Economic Growth. Abstract:..."

Family Enterprise for Enterprsing

2011-06-01T01:31:00.000+06:00

Enterprising through Promoting Familipreneurship for Sustainable Poverty Reduction, Employment Generation and Economic Growth.

Abstract: This paper proposes Family Enterprise as a means of Enterprising through promoting Familipreneurship for sustainable Poverty Reduction, Employment Generation and Economic Growth. Familipreneurship means entrepreneurship of a family gained through Family Environment; it’s a way of life lived through as a Family. Family is the ultimate institution of mankind and is always sustainable as an economic unit. History started from the family, we have to go back to the family to go back to the future. This paper proposes Familipreneurship Education for Enterprising and urges continuous study on Familipreneurship to capture its salient features and dimensionalities for replication.

Key Words: Family Enterprise, Familipreneurship, Enterprising, Poverty reduction, Economic Growth.

Introduction

This paper is a conceptual argument based on real-life experiences for using enterprising as a means of poverty reduction which affects directly on employment generation and economic growth. It urges to promote Familipreneurship as a tool for enterprising. Familipreneurship means entrepreneurship of a Family gained through family environment; it’s a way of life to be a Family. Family is the ultimate institution of mankind. It is always a profitable institution as an economic unit itself which probably made it sustainable throughout the history. Families are largely based on emotional and moral obligations which are the largest social capital of mankind as well. History started from the family, we have to go back to the family to go back to the future.

Available information shows that about a century ago most of the enterprises were Family Enterprise, still on an average 70 percent of total enterprises are Family Enterprise, in USA its about ninety percent, in Europe about eighty percent, similar picture is prevailing in other parts of the globe. Familipreneurship enable us creating Family Enterprise from a little capital, especially finance capital. Promoting Familipreneurship may the best way for enterprising. This paper proposes Familipreneurship Education for Enterprising and urges continuous empirical study on Familipreneurship from the perspective of a family as an entrepreneurial unit, not the lone individual hero, and through this way bridges the knowledge gap in entrepreneurship literature in context of creating Family Enterprise.

Poverty reduction, employment generation and economic growth

Despite vigorous multidimensional efforts worldwide poverty is still the biggest enemy of mankind. Existence of poverty paves the way for several consequent problems which affect all sphere of life. In many countries like Bangladesh prevalence of poverty is increasingly alarming. Ensuring poverty reduction will enhance all other development process and eliminate many other problems. Our experience of overall poverty reduction is very depressing. Dream of sending poverty to museum begin to shrink; especially after starting contemporary controversy of microcredit, recognized as most powerful tool to fight against poverty, is deepening this desolation. Poverty, unemployment and economic growth are integrated and interdependent socio-economic phenomenon.

Promotion of enterprise is one of the tested and trusted ways for sustainable poverty reduction, employment generation and economic growth as well as wealth creation for the future generation. Many countries are doing well adopting this policy in their national economic development agenda. Post-war Europe and some emerging Asian countries may be the best example. Many developing countries are adopted this policy. But most of the efforts are towards existing, promising and profitable enterprise, distinguishing as SMEs. Institutional effort of creating new enterprise is very poor; there is no standardized system of creating new enterprise. Seemingly finance capital is the key element of creating enterprise but this view does not agree with our experiences. Our experience shows that finance capital alone can’t create enterprise, even it is not the most important element for enterprising yet our financial investment towards new enterprise creation is very little. There are common understanding that inadequacy of land, labor, capital, technology, knowledge and entrepreneurship are the obstructs for enterprising. Familipreneurship reduces these obstructs.

Family enterprise as a form of enterprise

Family enterprises, irrespective of scale of operation, legal form, industrial activity, have been the backbone of socio-economic growth. Historically, family firms are, for the most part, enduring institutions and families and business have always existed to a large extent in tandem (Morck and Yeung, 2002; Narva, 2001). Their importance parallels socio-cultural advances and technological advances. In market economies family businesses are a fundamental source of job creation. Globally percentage of enterprises owned or controlled by families is an average around seventy percent.

Probably the secret of family firms’ long lasting resides exactly in the capability of transforming weak points into strong points, by investing in human capital, developing distinctive competences, encouraging long-term investments, following with persistence the mission. The reciprocal relationship between families and business often evolves from the natural dynamics of both entities being in close proximity to each other, particularly in the case of the home-based business (Heck et al., 1995). Families and the family home, in fact, often serve as transparent incubators for the germination of business ideas and endeavors both in and out of the home as well as the storefront or factory. The birthplace of entrepreneurial ventures is often in the home. Families and businesses tend to move in parallel, with success in one leading to success in the other.

So as an enterprise, strength of family enterprise is proven. Recent studies on family entrepreneurship have only addressed the traditional issues of individual entrepreneurs in the family. Family enterprise will flourish in future for its inherent qualities. If we can create a family enterprise it will be continued or diversified by next generation. Creating family enterprise could be an effective strategy for sustainable poverty reduction, employment generation and economic growth. And this process could be institutionalized through formal Familipreneurship Education.

Family enterprise and entrepreneurship in existing literature

Though Family businesses predate recorded history (Colli, 2003), formal educational and research programs on family-owned firms are recent phenomena (Hoy and Verser, 1994; Wortman, 1994). Recent growing awareness, made family business studies growing at a rapid pace (Hoy and Sharma, 2006).

Family business research draws attention to better understand continuity and succession as well as expansion of existing business, particularly investigates resource shedding and reconfiguration. Entrepreneurship literature has focused on the creation of new venture/enterprises, especially through new endeavor and innovation. But perspectives, features and forms of entrepreneurship in context of creating new venture/enterprise/venture by family in an economy where inadequacy of resources is strongly prevalent are not well studied or missed or ignored. Especially in the case of using family enterprise as a tool of poverty reduction is remained untested.

While sociologists and political scientists have paid some attention to this question, this is an issue vastly ignored by the economists. Even though the latter do recognize the role of the family in economic decisions, there is not systematic empirical evidence isolating the importance of culture, as measured by the strength of family ties, on economic outcomes (Alesina and Giuliano 2007). In small, isolated primitive societies, the kinship system in itself can meet most of the basic individual and social needs (Martinson 1970). Family firm pursues both economic and noneconomic outcomes to sustain the business across future generations (Pearson, Carr, and Shaw 2008). Family businesses are the engine that drives socio-economic development and wealth creation around the world, and entrepreneurship is a key driver of family businesses and entrepreneurial family businesses are a primary source of job creation (Pistrui et al., 2006).

Evidence suggests that over time family firms are often more successful than nonfamily firms (Anderson & Reeb, 2003; Miller & Le-Breton-Miller, 2005). However, the mechanisms by which family firms outperform nonfamily firms are still unknown (Stanley 2010).

Few researchers have noted the connections between entrepreneurship and the family (Gartner, 2001; Upton and Heck, 1997) and have been entirely omitted by most entrepreneurship researchers (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003; Rogoff and Heck, 2003). Moreover, entrepreneurship research literature has given little attention to the interrelatedness of families and businesses (Davidsson and Wiklund, 2001; Shane and Venkataraman, 2000; Timmons, 1999). Entrepreneurship research, in particular, rarely acknowledges the underlying family dynamics. Some recent attention has been given to family ownership and its relationship to the ongoing performance (Anderson and Reeb, 2003). Both entrepreneurship and family business researchers view the business system as important and examine traditional topics such as strategy, management, production, labor, performance at business stages such as start-up, growth, maturity and exit (Rogoff and Heck, 2003). Moreover, family business research uses family systems theory while entrepreneurship is rooted in economics, management, strategy, finance, psychology and sociology.

Family as an agent of enterprising

Family as an entity is the oldest, largest in number, longest in existence organization of human history. Families are unique among social systems in that they are permanent, based more on obligation than contractual agreement, and membership is often determined by biology (Giudice,Peruta, and Carayannis 2011). Future generations carry on their ancestor’s knowledge and experience of togetherness both culturally and arguably, genetically. Familiness, especially in southern part of the world, is so powerful, effective and long lasting that family as an organization throughout the history exists without any oral or written constitution or standard norms. Matrix relations among the family members enable them to combine and best utilize their personal and collective financial, human, physical, social, knowledge, cultural, natural and intangible capital.

Anterprise skills are not fixed personality traits but can be learned and developed through experience. Relationships should be a source of considerable strength in family businesses (Milton, 2008). Relationships play an important role within most organizations. Within family firms, relationships may be a pivotal, insufficiently recognized, source of unique competitive resources (Sirmon & Hitt, 2003). In essence, “entrepreneurs are family products.”

The family is now seen as the competitive advantage in long run business success because it facilitates the development of future leadership and enhances annual shareholder return, return on assets, annual revenue growth and income growth. Despite these logical keys to superior performance, surprising little study has been made of the family’s role. (Heck et al., 2006). More recent entrepreneurship research places the entrepreneur(s) within a social context that is, in part, the family (Aldrich and Cliff, 2003) and has more equally focused on both the family and business (Stafford et al., 1999). The family is a critical element in the mix of resources that the entrepreneur needs at every stage of a venture (Rogoff and Heck, 2003).

Therefore, families are not just simply a group of individuals, but these individuals through family interactions and transactions create unique system or group attributes that are more than the sum of individuals and their attributes (Heck et al., 2006). These unique interactions make family businesses different. Both the family and the business are social systems which are purposive and rational. These two social systems transform available resources and constraints via interpersonal and resource transactions into achievements. The importance and powerful influence of family in all aspects of entrepreneurship and business has recently been highlighted (Rogoff and Heck, 2003). Families provide a sense of personal identity and a basis for a well developed community (Miller, 2001; Shepherd and Patzelt 2011). Families can be a source of resiliency, adaptability, trust, creativity and stress buffer. The household can serve as opportunity platform and incubator (Morris H. et. al. 2010).

Elaboration of research questions

In these sections of literature discussed above we examine the relationship among enterprising and the potentialities of family enterprise as a tool of poverty reduction, employment generation and economic growth and then assert the dynamics of family and family enterprise. We bring forward our research keeping in mind two hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1

Enterprising is the best way of poverty reduction, employment generation and economic growth.

Hypothesis 2

Family Enterprise is the best form of enterprise in context of resource constrain.

To summarize the intentions of the paper we seek to unpack the underlying dimensionalities of family in the establishment of family enterprise by addressing a research questions:

What is the best way of creating Family Enterprise?

Methodology

The family business is a context that enables unscripted temporal performances by founders. Characteristics of the venture creation experience are examined, and underlying dimensions are analyzed and empirically investigated. Building on social capital theory, experiences of founders of family businesses are explored.

This study has been conducted as additional task of professional responsibilities as a banker during the period of 2003 to 2010 at Dhaka and Chittagong, Bangladesh. Primary data and information collected as part of professional responsibilities for various purposes and then it is shorted according to our study needs. Around 5 hundreds new enterprise creation and 1 thousand existing enterprises are observed in multiple levels as real-life experiences. In-depth interviews were held with the founders of family enterprise and other members of that family with subsequent follow-up visits. Collected subjective experiences and data were analyzed objectively and closely monitored enterprise creation process as part of the process. Long discussion and interaction were held to capture the experiences of family enterprise creation. A large number of cases were studied. Existing literatures on family, family enterprise and entrepreneurship reviewed extensively to generate conception in line with the practices.

Given the lack of any comprehensive entrepreneurship theory (Venkataraman, 1997), proximity to the phenomenon of interest is a way to enrich the field of entrepreneurship (Zahra, 2007). Thus, rather than using deductive reasoning to formulate hypotheses, our explicit aim was to develop insights from proximity to the entrepreneurs behind creation of enterprises. Indeed, our realization of Familipreneurship emerged inductively through our data collection and analysis process. This confirms the appropriateness of qualitative research for revealing substantive issues that have rarely been addressed in entrepreneurship (Gartner & Birley, 2002).

Our paper employs a multiple case studies approach which is suitable for “how and why” questions and for research that involves observations over time (Yin, 1994). To identify appropriate participants we conducted searches within diverse socio-economic setting for start-up and existing enterprises for long time. Whilst initial data was gathered from official documents of Bangladesh Krishi Bank we selected a large numbers of case studies. According to theoretical sampling, “extreme” cases enable easier observation of the phenomenon and facilitate pattern recognition (Eisenhardt & Graebner, 2007). As the paper seeks to portray the details of the rich and complex setting, a few cases are deemed adequate (Langley, 1999). These cases where developed by a further round of interviews with the founders and other family members. Our analysis follows an iterative ‘back and forth’ approach between data and existing theories (Van Maanen et al. 2007). This method of comparison (Eisenhardt, 1989) permits inductive theory building as evidence is accumulated overtime to achieve theoretical replication (Yin, 1994). In line with Charmaz’s (2006) explanation of the social constructionist approach to theorizing reality is not considered as singular and concrete, thus insights into what the entrepreneurs believe is real for them were sought. By focusing on these few cases it becomes possible to provide enough evidence using both “power and proof” quotes (Pratt, 2008) so the reader can envisage the real-life experiences of the entrepreneurs in context of family enterprise creation.

Results and discussions

In Bangladesh, Chak Bazar, and Khatunganj, is the two largest wholesale markets in dominated by ‘Kuttis’ and ‘Sowdagors’. Define ‘Kutti’ and Sawdagar in brief. They are mostly illiterate but uphold strong entrepreneurial knowledge and skills inherited from their families/ancestors. So they are dominating the context from generation to generation. Most of them do not have any formal entrepreneurial education or training; only reason behind their success is Familipreneurship; entrepreneurship gained through family environment. Their practical knowledge of enterprise is gathered through ‘doing’, although even the exceptions do not complete their secondary level education, and then starts enterprise or venture with other family members. In most cases they are successful. In many cases founder of a family enterprise did not have any formal education let alone enterprise education, but they did very well in their job. Once a family enterprise is created, the next generation carries this on because of inherent Familipreneurship. If next generation fails to carry on, then easily they can start their alternatives because of their entrepreneurial qualities created through Familipreneurship.

Knowledge of Familipreneurship could be captured through study on Enterprise Families. We have to chalk out those special features of those families that made them successful. Context of Familipreneurship is unique in nature since it is live and continuous and interactive. It involves the whole family as a business organisation. Once it is started, it goes on for ever. Knowledge on Familipreneurship gathered is mostly transferable.

Through Familipreneurship Education an every single individual of a family achieves the power and capacity to combine, transform and utilize personal and family wealth and scattered resources into capitals. Knowledge and skills of Familipreneurship is transferable through generation to generation. Familipreneurship creates a natural environment of generating and transferring indigenous knowledge and skill to reach their personal and collective goal which will accelerate the whole enterprising process as well as economic development. Promoting Familipreneurship could be the best solution to create new family venture/enterprise in a less or under or least developed economy where inadequacy of resources is strongly prevalent.

Limitations of this paper

This paper does not use any structured method rather it implies a set of methods to capture the dilemma of enterprise creation in context of Bangladesh. Information was collected from diverse socio-economic and demographic setup but not tested in multiple countries. A number of enterprise creation processes were observed for a long time but did not analyze aggregated data. To gain insight and be able to offer an explanatory model, a qualitative research approach was used because creation of enterprise is a temporal experience.

Recommendation for Future research and Study

One may have different social, economical or occupational identity, but all are belonging to a family. If the families are addressed as an intervening point it not only ensure the benefit it will continuously and increasingly add value to society. As an institution family is contributing maximum benefit to the society, which is commonly remaining uncounted. Family bonding is highly define and explicit than any other forms of organization. Family is the first place to learn for individuals and the fundamental unit of our social construct. Our learning begins from family first. The lessons, learnt from family, are most influencing and effective for individuals. Our basic life skill and mind set grows from family culture which have ever lasting and enormous effects on rest of life. Culture of a society mostly depends on them families' culture of that society, individual characteristics of a person drastically influenced by other family members’ character.

If we take the family as a level of analysis and intervention, it would open a new horizon of our entrepreneurship knowledge. Continuous empirical study is needed to encode and theorize the dimensionalities of Familipreneurship. It will enhance our understanding to help the practices of family enterprise. Our study shows that Familipreneurship not only contributes during the process of family enterprise creation but also contributes later process also. Exploring Familipreneurship may describe the reasons behind outperforming of family enterprise which is still unknown in a theoretical basis.

Our work on individual-level drivers of creating enterprise suggests possible interesting insights for several areas of literature. Our research also moves to expand discussions on the role of family in entrepreneurship literature more broadly. We believe this finding opens opportunities for further research into the role of family in creating enterprise. Our paper has only looked at the process during the pre-launch and in the early days of new ventures, it would therefore, be valuable to probe the way in which they maintain and expand their enterprises in diverse socio-economic contexts.

Conclusions & implications

Creating family enterprise as a means of enterprising for sustainable poverty reduction, employment generation and economic growth is largely untested. Our reviews reveal that family enterprise as a form of enterprise bears immense potentials which remained unexplored. We propose to use family enterprise as a tool for enterprising which directly affect employment generation and economic growth of a developing country.

Morris H., et. al. (2010) shows that the venture creation experience involves the interplay among affective, cognitive, and physiological responses as events are "lived through". Surprisingly little is known about the early stages of family firms. Our study found that knowledge of Familipreneurship is generated and transferred through family by family. Family members learn enterprising education by ‘doing’ in family environment. One or more individuals take the lead but all other family members are integral part of it. Familipreneurship enables them to utilize their social capital in enterprising, as a result they are able to establish and run their enterprise profitably. If we can capture the features of Familipreneurship it will help us to use it in creating new family enterprise. Familipreneurship knowledge does not derive from any formal system rather it’s a indigenous system of learning. It is completely consistent with Sophocles’ (400 BC) observation “One must learn by doing the thing, for though you think you know it – you have no certainty, until you try.”

References:

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Alesina and Giuliano (2007), in “The Power of the Family”, Harvard Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 2132 , IZA Discussion Paper No. 2750

Anderson, R. & Reeb, D. (2003). Founding-family ownership and firm performance: Evidence from the S&P 500. Journal of Finance, 58(3), 1301–1327.

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Colli, A. (2003), The History of Family Business: 1850–2000, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Davidsson, P and J.Wiklund (2001), ‘Levels of analysis in entrepreneurship research: current research practice and suggestions for the future’, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, 25(3), 81–99.

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Family Enterprise

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Enterprising through Promoting Familipreneurship for Sustainable Poverty Reduction, Employment Generation and Economic Growth.

Family as an entity is the oldest, largest in number, longest in existence organization of human history. Families are unique and fundamental unit of our social systems and they are permanent, based more on moral obligation than contractual agreement. Future generations will carry on their ancestor’s knowledge and experience of togetherness both culturally and arguably, genetically. Familiness, especially in southern part of the world, is so powerful, effective and long lasting that family as an organization throughout the history exists without any oral or written constitution or standard norms. Matrix relations among the family members enable them to combine and best utilize their personal and collective financial, human, physical, social, knowledge, cultural, natural and intangible capital.

Considering this, family as an organization of one or more individuals is more capable rather than an individual to create a new venture/enterprise. Just as individuals have brains and beliefs, families (organizations) have “cognitive systems and memories . . . world views and ideologies” (Hedberg, 1981). In many cases founder of a family enterprise did not have any formal education let alone enterprise education, but they did very well in their job. Once a family enterprise is created, the next generation carries this on because of inherent Familipreneurship, which has barely been highlighted in entrepreneurship literatures. If next generation fails to carry on, then easily they can start their alternatives because of their entrepreneurial qualities created through Familipreneurship. Alone with many other instances, Chak Bazar and Khatunganj, two largest wholesale market in Bangladesh are dominated by ‘Kuttis’ and ‘Sowdagors’ who are mostly illiterate but upholds strong entrepreneurial knowledge and skills inherited from their families. So they are dominating the context from generation to generation. Most of them do not have any formal entrepreneurial education or training; only reason behind their success is Familipreneurship-entrepreneurship of a family gained through family environment. Practical knowledge of enterprise is gathered through ‘doing’, usually have very little formal education, even the exceptions do not complete their secondary level education, then starts enterprise or venture with other family members. In most cases they are successful.

Globally percentage of enterprises owned or controlled by families is an average around 70 percents. So as an enterprise, strength of family enterprise is proven. Recent studies on family entrepreneurship have only addressed the traditional issues of individual entrepreneurs in the family. Family enterprise will flourish in future for its inherent qualities. If we can create a family enterprise it will be continued or diversified by next generation. Creating micro and small family enterprise could be an effective strategy for sustainable poverty reduction. And this process could be institutionalized through formal Familipreneurship education. Knowledge of Familipreneurship could be gathered from study and research on those successful family enterprises. We have to chalk out those special features of those families that made them successful. Context of Familipreneurship is unique in nature since it is a live and continuous and interactive. It involves the whole family as a business organisation. Once it is started, it goes on for ever. Knowledge on Familipreneurship gathered could be transferred to potential/interested families.

Through Familipreneurship an every single individual of a family achieves the power and capacity to combine, transform and utilize personal and family wealth and scattered resources into capitals. Knowledge and skills of Familipreneurship is transferable through generation to generation. Familipreneurship creates a natural environment of generating and transferring indigenous knowledge and skill to reach their personal and collective goal which will accelerate the whole enterprising process as well as economic development. Promoting Familipreneurship could be the best solution to create new family venture/enterprise in a less or under or least developed economy where inadequacy of resources is strongly prevalent.

Family Based Capitalization (FBC)™

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Making the Future by Shaping the Present™

Family Based Capitalization (FBC)™: Restoring family as an entrepreneurial unit towards an entrepreneurial society by using Familipreneurship as a tool for interactive and evolving movement for the change to be ONE™;Virtually boundary/borderless An entrepreneurial world to build an equitable and just human civilization. FAMILIPRENEURSHIP™; entrepreneurship of a family as an entrepreneurial unit which enables them to utilize optimum opportunity and resources to activate as performing capitals ((Financial capital, Human capital, Physical capital, Social capital, Knowledge capital, Cultural capital and Intangible capital and natural capital)) Familipreneurship determines and architects matrix relationships of individuals with Family, community, society, nation and the world as an entrepreneurial village.

Bondage Linkage and Network in various forms are the largest social capital of mankind which remains mostly unused and undetected. Utilization of social capitals maximize wealth and optimize performing capitals by accumulating scattered, unused and undetected resources for making the future by shaping the present. FBC envisions an entrepreneurial society of healthy and just families. A family is a miniature of our society, even it is prototype of a country in terms of its functionalities.

Family is the most primitive and trusted institutions of human history. Still today its role and importance is pivotal. As an institution family is contributing maximum benefit to the society, which is commonly remaining unrecognized and uncounted. Family bonding is highly define and explicit than any other forms of organization. Familiness is a unique and irreversible relationship. Family is the first place to learn for individuals. The lessons learnt from family, are most influencing and effective for individuals. Family is the fundamental unit of our social construct. Irrespective of all other we identity we all belong to a common identity i.e. family identity. We may have different social, economical or occupational identity, but we are belonging to a family.

Our learning begins from family first. Our basic life skill and mind set grows from family culture which have ever lasting and enormous effects on rest of life. Culture of a society mostly depends on families' culture of that society, individual characteristics of a person drastically influenced by other family members’ character. So it can be argued that Just family is the precondition of a just society, for ensuring a just society where all sorts of discrimination and violence will be diminished, we have to ensure healthy and just family.

Communities do not exist in isolation but in relationship with others, as well as their natural and institutional environment. The strengths of them lie in their internal relationships (bonding), relations with other communities (bridging) and relations with their natural and institutional environment (linkage). This will enhance the process of inclusion internally and resulting more opportunities to link with the holistic development approaches.

Vision and Mission

Ø Just and friendly society.

Ø Restoration of inherited but shrink tradition and indigenous knowledge, culture and practices.

Ø Establishing social norms and values through enriching Family values.

Ø Multidimensional role of family as a social catalyst to remove all sorts of discrimination and injustice towards an inclusive just society.

Ø Institutionalization of social educational system through family and Community.

Ø Improved reliability, function ability, transparency and structural improvement of Alternative dispute settlement process.

Ø Entrepreneurial community

Ø Converting family into Enterprise by counting its in-house nonmonetary activities in GDP

Ø Making scattered/unused/undetected resources into performing Capitals

Ø Integrating work and family

Ø Family reunion

Ø Optimum utilization of social capital

Ø Reduced reliance on Finance capital

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE OF FBC PROGRAM

INDIVIDUAL>Beneficiary

=>Family (INTERVENTION ACCESS POINT)

=>Family club=>Village/Para/Moholla

Family+Community=Faminity club=>Word>community level

Family+society=Famity club =>UP>local level

Familipreneur club=>Upazila/Thana/Pourosova>Gateway for upward linkage

Familiprise club=>District> Gateway for upward and/or downward linkage

Forum of familipreneurs=>National>Coordination and international collaboration

INTERVENTION STRATEGY of FBC program

National level

Coordination

Policy environment

Infrastructure

R&D

Community through family level

Developing/enhancing/functioning/activating Capitalization capabilities

Networking>Bridging>Linking

APPROACHES

Ø IDENTIFY all household members.>>>> From invisible to visible.

Ø MAKE family profile>>>Need assessment and SWOT analysis

Ø TRANSFER knowledge and skill>>>Empowerment to defend self

Ø COMBINE personal/individual choice opportunity and potentiality

Ø ENCASH of resources and opportunities

Ø FORM family groups.>>>> From segregation to confederation.

Ø CHANGE attitude and mind set.>>>> From ‘for the people’ to’ by the people’.

Ø DEVELOP local solutions for local problems.>>>>> From endogenous to indigenous knowledge.

Ø BUILD alliance with other stakeholders.>>>> From isolation to Networks, bondages, links.

Ø ACCUMULATE capital.>>>>> From scattered resource to valuable wealth.

EXPECTED OUTCOMES

Ø Family integrity > social integrity >> community wealth >>> familipreneur nation of enterprises

Ø Diverse and enriched society

Ø Sustainable and convertible Wealth and capital

Sample Program Overview for Economic Development and Employment Generation through Family Based Capitalization (FBC)™

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Developing/promoting/nurturing/constructing/advocating/popularizing FAMILIPRENEURSHIP to maximize wealth and optimize capital;

Ø INCREASING social capital by promoting/using/developing Familiness

Ø EXPLORING potentialities of individuals

Ø VALUING human, knowledge and social capital

Ø OPTIMIZING use of human, knowledge, social, natural capital

Ø MINIMIZING the roles/needs of finance capital

Ø ORGANIZING scattered resources into performing asset and capital

Ø UTULIZING financial opportunities

Ø FACILITATING Family Edutainment

PROMOTE socioeconomically and environment friendly sustainable Family Enterprise.

FOR

Ø RESTORING inherited but shrink tradition and indigenous knowledge, culture, practices and values

Ø INSTITUTIONALIZING social educational and learning system through family basedEdutainment.

Ø CREATING employment opportunities within the family and/or community to reduce internal labor migration.

Ø IMPROVING accessibility, reliability, function ability, transparency and structural improvement of Alternative Dispute Settlement Process in local and community level which will drastically reduce the burden of formal judicial and administrative system.

Ø ESTABLISHING multidimensional role of family as a social catalyst to remove all sorts of discrimination and injustice towards an inclusive just society with diversity.

IMPLEMENTATION TOOLS/STRATEGIES/RESOURCES

1. Family Profile

Ø Exploring Present venture

Ø Individual SOWT analysis

Ø Kinship

Ø Family/Social/professional Circle

2. Planning Exercise

3. Need Assessment

4. Action Plan with time frame

5. Support services

Short term supports

Ø Feasibility/Viability assessment

Ø Training and motivation through Edutainment

Long term supports

o Pre-incubation program

o Incubation program

o Transgeneration preparation program

o Access to finance

o Seed Capital

o Information

o Networking

o Incentive/ Insurance

o Crisis/Resource/Community centre

o Bonding>Bridging>Linking

6. Results/outcomes

o Immediate

§ Income & Employment generation

o Long term

§ Economic

· GDP & per capita income growth

· Poverty reduction

· Social stability & peace

· Social capital

§ Social

· Rights with Dignity

· Democracy with Justice

7. M & E

o Social audit

o RBM

o Social Rating

8. Sustainability

It will be owned, controlled and managed by the beneficiary for their own shake.

Pilot Program Structure for Entrepreneurial Orientation

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MCubator™

Do what you Enjoy

“Unlock your potentials..... Be your own BOSS”™

Ø ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Ø TRY it, KNOW it

Ø Explore yourself

o SWOT analysis

§ [Maximize] Strength

§ [Overcome] Weakness

§ [Optimize] Opportunity

§ [Bypass] Threat

Ø Set the GOAL

§ Expectations

§ Limitation

o Why you

§ Tuning

Ø Make PLAN

o Start action

§ Interpret

§ Innovate

o Make change

§ Be ENTREPRENEUR

Ø SUCCESS as an option not a destination

Ø Gateway

o Networking

o Sharing

§ Empowerment

· Rights with dignity

Entrepreneurial Orientation Program Details

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“Unlock your potentials..... Be your own BOSS”®

PRE-INCUBATION PROGRAM FOR THE POTENTIAL ENTREPRENEURS

PROGRAM title: “Unlock your potentials..... Be your own BOSS” ™

PROGRAM OBJECTIVE:

The overall objective of this course is to develop entrepreneurial mindset and enhancing basic applied knowledge necessary for creating an innovative earning venture.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:

Ø Exploring potentialities;

Ø Discovering opportunities;

Ø Dream Building;

Ø Believing own power;

Ø Making dream a reality.

The PROGRAM will concentrate on exploring key issues facing the entrepreneur such as:

Ø Entrepreneurship & “entrepreneurial process,”

Ø Forces to increase odds for success;

Ø Critical factors to the start-up and survival of an entrepreneurial venture;

Ø Distinction between a “good idea” and a “good opportunity”;

Ø Defining Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats;

Ø Setting up successful, well functioning management teams;

Ø Available resources and sources of funding;

Ø Legal, social, environmental, political and infrastructural context & policy frame work;

Ø Strategies and tactics for entrepreneurial success;

Ø Setting & harvesting goals for the new venture;

PROGRAM OUTCOMES:

This course will enable participants to:

Ø DEVELOP entrepreneurial skills;

Ø UNDERSTAND the process of starting new ventures;

Ø CREATE, identify, and evaluate new venture opportunities;

Ø TRANSFORM opportunity into success;

Ø OPTIMIZE strength to overcome threats & weakness;

Ø INTERPRET circumstances and quantify the value proposition;

Ø NAVIGATE the alternative resources option;

Ø USE social capital;

Ø ENHANCE and expand linkage & networks;

Ø INCREASE applied knowledge in solving personal and social problems;

Ø OBTAIN basic banking knowledge & funding options for credit/advance procedures;

Ø GAIN financial and professional support;

Ø CALCULATE creditworthiness before apply for funding;

Ø PREPARE an action plan with time frame;

Ø ASSESS the needs of resources for success;

Ø START to transform dreams/ideas into earning ventures;

Method of KNOWLEDGE TRANSFERING:

BLENDED MODE (Lectures & discussions, audio-visual presentations, group & individual consultation, workshops & exercises).

PROGRAM DELIVERY Language:

Bangla & English

Targeted participants:

Ø Any one who wants to be his/her own “BOSS”.

Ø People who are going to and/or preparing to start new ventures.

Ø People who are troubling to decide ‘what to DO’.

Ø People who are seeking self-reliance Income Generating Activities.

Ø People who aren’t satisfied with his present job and seeking new one.

Ø People who are going to and/or preparing to apply for funding from bank and/or other sources.

Ø People who want to increase earnings by utilizing leisure time.

Ø People who want to start any home ventures.