Technological Entrepreneurship - Essay Example

Name Course Instructor Date Technological Entrepreneurship The spirit of entrepreneurship manifests itself in various ways in the society, especially with innovative product and business ideas, in which there is internal development and adoption of a product, new to an organization or the society. Opportunities in entrepreneurship are evident when new products are developed, new markets are identified, new methods of production and management discovered, and new business models established. The trend of technology which has advanced in this era is viewed as the driving force of opportunities and opportunity recognition in entrepreneurship ventures. Entrepreneurial orientation Entrepreneurial orientation entails innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking which are seen from aggressive innovation, undertaking risky projects and being a pioneer in innovations that pre-empt competition (Kreiser et al. 960; Renko, Carsrud and Brannback 336). Innovativeness manifests the tendency to brace new ideas, novelty and creative practices, thereby drifting from established norms and conventional technologies (Kreiser et al. 960). Thus, innovativeness as grounded in entrepreneurial orientation corresponds to explorative learning (Hughes, Hughes and Morgan 360). Next, proactiveness is the position one takes in anticipating and acting on future wants and needs of the consumers or the marketplace (Kreiser et al. 960). There is a significant association between technological capability and product innovativeness (Renko, Carsrud and Brannback 337).Lastly, risk-taking is linked with the willingness to devote tremendous amount of resources to projects where it is still possible to experience high costs and chances of failure (Kreiser et al. 960). Entrepreneurship contributes significantly to economic development. Dimensions of entrepreneurship are: opportunity recognition stemming from an innovative idea and an individual’s belief that his or her own business offers the highest utility (Valdez et al. 148). The society perceives people or businesses with an entrepreneurship orientation to be ingenious because of their innovative capabilities (Kreiser et al. 967). Every time a technological entrepreneur such as the late Steve Jobs launched a product at Apple Inc., he was met with reactions resonating marvellous work. Apparently, most individual entrepreneurs founded their ventures because they did not fit in the mainstream wage employment system (Singh, Knox & Crump 60) but believed they have an opportunity of significant income arising from an entrepreneurial activity (Valdez et al. 148). Public policies are based on perceptions of work and development that conflict with that of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs-to-be (Brannback & Carsrud 58). With such uniqueness in identifying and creating opportunities that have never existed before, people have always debated whether entrepreneurs have inherent or learned skills that orient them to their choice of survival. Bird, a business school professor says that there are certain behaviours that are persistent among entrepreneurs compared to the rest of the population (2). Still, some economies believe that entrepreneurship can be adopted or created, and since technology is a driving force for innovativeness, such economies are using technology- push approaches to increase entrepreneurial orientation in firms (Brannback & Carsrud 56). However, such economies with policies seem to neglect important aspects related to entrepreneurial activity. We establish advanced engineering technologies but we exclude the entrepreneurs and their ideas in shaping the engineering efforts. Regardless the amount of technology, entrepreneurship activity will only be present if there are adequate opportunity recognition skills, and also the valuing of entrepreneurial behaviour by others in the society (Brannback & Carsrud 57-8). Opportunity and opportunity recognition in entrepreneurship In entrepreneurship, opportunity is created by external environmental changes such as advances in technology and changes in regulations (Webb et al. 540). An entrepreneur is an innovator, meaning that they identify opportunities and act upon ideas that were never apparent before. According to Brannback and Carsrud (56), what sets entrepreneurs apart from the rest is that they recognize an opportunity when they see it. Opportunity recognition is the critical initial step of the entrepreneurship venture (Singh, Knox & Crump 62). In entrepreneurship, performance in key idea development depends on the ability of a person to recognize and exploit an opportunity for the creation or modification of more effective or efficient ends, and/or means (Webb et al. 540). Antecedents to opportunity recognition include alertness or the motivation to create/design a prototype of the future which drives individuals to search knowledge, establish connections across knowledge stocks, and analyse new knowledge (Webb et al. 540). A research study by Baron and Ensley shows that people who recognize new business opportunities have a unique mind process that enables them to recognize patterns, or as people would commonly say, “connect the dots” (1331). Such individuals are able to notice links between seemingly independent trends or events and detect meaningful patterns in these links. When they see advances in technology, changes in government policies, or market shifts, they are able to know what they need to develop in order to suit these new demands. For example, Chester Carlson, credited with developing the modern copier machine took the opportunity presented with advanced technology, changing business patterns and changes in the field of education in which there was tremendous growth of college and university attendees (Baron and Ensley 1332). Usually, the future is uncertain and we find that not everyone is able to take risks in the face of uncertainty. You would not want to invest in the stock market when you are uncertain whether your investment will increase or decrease in shares. On the other hand, entrepreneurs show attributes of high risk-taking even in the face of uncertainty. Coupled with their ability to identify opportunities, entrepreneurs use cognition, a special intuitive ability apart from logic analysis, to infer how their projects would be of benefit to themselves and others (Valdez et al. 149). For instance, logical presentations may show that it is unnecessary to invest in irrigation technologies because adequate rainfall has been detected in the future. Whereas usual people would sigh in relief and consider other opportunities apart from the irrigation system, an entrepreneur, using his gut feeling, and connecting patterns of global warming, flooding, dramatic climatic changes may go ahead to develop technologies that would store water, or prevent drastic effects of flooding, something he will be thanked for in the future. Thus, in addition to cognitive process, opportunity recognition in entrepreneurship is facilitated by social interaction, in which the individual establishes s new knowledge to solve past events during anticipated future events (Webb et al. 540). The more experienced an entrepreneur is, the higher the ability for opportunity pattern recognition as compared to novice entrepreneurs (Baron and Ensley 1340). Experienced entrepreneurs in this case refer to those that have made more than one contributions in opportunity identifying and development. In regards to identifying business opportunities, experienced entrepreneurs have richer content than novice entrepreneurs. In regards to starting and running new ventures, experienced entrepreneurs have more focussed attention and immediately know how to convert the indentified opportunities into earned financial gain. They are also aware on the threats and opportunities that impact the new venture. On the other hand, novice entrepreneurs are usually focused on the novelty, newness, perceived superiority of their products and, or ideas, and their intuition on how to carry out their venture (Baron and Ensley 1340). Opportunity recognition and market recognition go hand-in-hand for a more rewarding entrepreneurial experience. Although they are different domains with different basic components, entrepreneurship and marketing are complementary in the sense that the entrepreneurs need consumers for their innovative products in order to achieve financial gain (Webb et al. 539). Variables dependent on entrepreneurship include opportunity recognition, survival or failure of the venture, profit and growth (Webb et al. 540). Opportunity is exploited in the event of creating a new organization to leverage on innovation with keenness on business models, resources management and founding effects. Although some critics emphasize that excellence in innovativeness go hand-in-hand with being market oriented (Kwak et al. 142), other research has shown that the two are totally different business approaches (Renko, Carsrud and Brannback 335). Firms that are market oriented with generate, disseminate, and respond to market intelligence in the effort to combat with conditions and challenges in the business environment (Kwak et al. 143). On the other hand, firms or persons that have entrepreneurial orientation will respond to and disseminate technological knowledge. Technological entrepreneurship Entrepreneurial orientation manifests the strategic direction implemented by a business to create innovations as well as superior performance (Kwak et al. 142). While committing resources to the development of entrepreneurial orientation, an organization should also develop its technology base in addition to establishing a culture that supports innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking. A business can establish concrete, direct investments in creating technological capabilities through investments in research and development (R&D), or through strategic technology alliances (Hughes, Hughes and Morgan 365). An entrepreneurial organization’s technological capability is its major component of its knowledge base. Researchers that have focused on resource-based view concept, knowledge-based view, and the approach of dynamic capabilities imply that an organization’s technological capability can be a source of its competitive advantage, and top notch performance. Superior technological capabilities are indicated by items such as patents and an organization’s extensive investments in R&D which stimulate both an investor’s willingness to invest in the business as well as the amount and quality of innovations from the business (Luigi, Gianmario and Salvio 311). Most if not all young R&D intensive enterprises in technology markets are expected to have most entrepreneurial features of risk-taking, innovativeness, and proactiveness. The levels of these skills may vary from one firm to the other, but better performance will always be anticipated from the more entrepreneurially and technologically oriented organizations (Hughes, Hughes & Morgan 364). In summary, entrepreneurship is unique in the sense that it is oriented towards ideas and activities out of the established norms and practices. Opportunities established by entrepreneurs are novel and first of their kind to exist, and usually aim at bringing about superior products or filling a gap regarding wants and needs in the market. Entrepreneurs have a sharp cognitive and intuitive ability for opportunity recognition and they surprise as by exploiting on opportunities that we would never have thought are possible. Businesses with an entrepreneurial orientation reflect massive technological capabilities and cultivate cultures that are proactive, innovative, risk-taking and devoted to research and development for newer, improved products. Works Cited Baron, Robert and Ensley, Michael. “Opportunity Recognition As The Detection Of Meaningful Patterns: Evidence From Comparisons Of Novice And Experienced Entrepreneurs.” Management Science 52.9 (2006):1331-1344. Bird, Barbara. Entrepreneur’s Behaviour. Kogod School of Business, American University. April 28, 2010. Brannback, Malin and Carsrud, Alan. “Do They See What We See? A Critical Nordic Tale About Perceptions of Entrepreneurial Opportunities, Goals and Growth.” Journal of Enterprising Culture 16.1 (2008):55-87. Hughes, Matthew, Hughes, Paul, and Morgan Robert. “Exploitative Learning And Entrepreneurial Orientation Alignment In Emerging Young Firms: Implications For Market And Response Performance.” British Journal of Management 18.4 (2007): 359-375. Kreiser, Patrick, Marino, Louis, Dickson, Pat, and Weaver, Mark. “Cultural Influences On Entrepreneurial Orientation: The Impact Of National Culture On Risk Taking And Proactiveness In SMEs.” Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice 34.5 (2010): 959-983. Kwak, Hyokjin, Jaju, Anupam, Puzakova, Marina, and Rocereto, Joseph. “The Connubial Relationship Between Market Orientation And Entrepreneurial Orientation.” Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 21.2 (2013): 141-162. Luigi, Luca, Gianmario, Verona, and Salvio, Vicari. “Market Orientation And R&D Effectiveness In High-Technology Firms: An Empirical Investigation In The Biotechnology Industry.” Journal of Product Innovation Management 27.3 (2010): 299-320. Renko, Maija, Carsrud, Alan, and Brannback, Malin. “The Effect Of A Market Orientation, Entrepreneurial Orientation, And Technological Capability On Innovativeness: A Study Of Young Biotechnology Ventures In The United States And In Scandinavia.” Journal of Small Business Management 47.3 (2009):331-369. Singh, Robert, Knox, Edwin and Crump, Micah. “Opportunity Recognition Differences Between Black and White Nascent Entrepreneurs: A Test of Bhave’s Model.” Journal of Developmental Entrepreneurship 13.1 (2008): 59-75. Valdez, Michael, Doktor, Robert, Singer, Alan and Dana, Leo-Paul. “Impact of Tolerance for Uncertainty Upon Opportunity and Necessity Entrepreneurship.” Human Systems Management 30.3 (2011):145-153. Webb, Justin., Ireland, Duane., Hitt, Michael., Kistruck, Geoffrey., & Tihanyi, Laszlo. “Where Is The Opportunity Without The Customer? An Integration Of Marketing Activities, The Entrepreneurship Process And Institutional Theory.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 39. 4 (2011): 537-554. Read More