Main Aspects of Creating an Entrepreneurial Organisation - Essay Example

Creating an Entrepreneurial Organisation Introduction While every organization may seek to have individuals within the team who can act as entrepreneurs to present the company with new ideas and business opportunities, there are several requirements for a company which need to be met before the company can become entrepreneurial. Research, expert opinion and real world examples have shown that things such as the leadership of the company, the culture of the company and even the information systems used at the company can lead it to become more entrepreneurial. The Culture One of the best and most enterprising small companies in America was given as an example by Burlingham (2003) who shows that the culture of the management at Zingerman’s Community of Businesses makes the company more entrepreneurial than the competition. The culture includes everything from hippie sandals and casual clothes worn which are worn by everyone including the CEO to the charitable works that the company does for the community. Of course, it is their entrepreneurial nature which leads the company to have high sales and allows them entry into a variety of businesses across the board. Burlingham (2003) reports that the company has created a culture of generating new ideas; while it has established policies that have built a strong sense of belonging and personal project ownership for their employees. The trust based relationship with the owners owes itself to the excellent management practices which give all employees encouragement to come up with their own ideas from improving customer support to improving profitability. As discussed by Armstrong (1999) such practices can go a long way in helping to create complex employee relationships that evolve and improve with time. It is reported that throughout the history of the company, it was able to adapt and change as the business requirements forced them to simply because they had a human resource policy of earmarking and promoting entrepreneurial individuals that appreciated change and flexibility (Burlingham, 2003). In this manner, the company created a social environment as discussed by DeNisi and Griffin (2005) as well as Johnson et. al. (2005) where belonging to the group and being a part of an entrepreneurial team become a part of the regular work ethic. Since entrepreneurial activities are a part of the culture of the company, Zingerman actively seeks out entrepreneurs who wish to break into business. The company encourages people to come and work for the company by bringing their own ideas so that their ideas can be further developed, financially invested in and used to create new companies which follow the same guidelines as Zingerman. In fact, within the company, any employee who comes up with an idea for a product or a service can start selling it as their personal project; they can manage it on their own, develop it and make money for the collective organisation (Burlingham, 2003). This is the method by which one small company creates a culture of entrepreneurship by being entrepreneurial when it comes to taking risks on people and investing in them. However, their successful approach has been appreciated by experts and they believe that through these means, the company manages to keep itself fresh and young since it is constantly increasing in size due to the inflow of fresh ideas which have been created by the brightest entrepreneurs. Additionally, the communities where they operate are also quite happy with them since a tenth of their profits always go to charitable causes (Burlingham, 2003). Clearly, without the culture of the company guiding the organisation to be entrepreneurial, such success would be very difficult. The Leadership The impact of leadership on making a company more entrepreneurial becomes clear when we examine the case of a global company which has gained the admiration of business gurus around the world. Apple Inc. has had Steve Jobs at the helm for several years and one individual has managed to change the culture at apple and helped the company create breathtaking products which are a magnificent departure from the former failures (Beckman and Hirsch, 2001). By working in a method which can easily be described as anti-organisational in terms of management, Steve Jobs working methods have been discussed by Deutschman (2000) who says that: “He had total disregard for the hierarchical chain of command. He would remember what several hundred people did and call on whomever he needed, always bypassing their managers. It was as though everyone in the company reported directly to Steve himself (Deutschman, 2000, Pg. 1)”. Theory X and Theory Y dealing with human resource management within a company can lead to a better understanding of the methods of management used at Apple (Lee, 1982). In this instance, the relaxed nature regarding the corporate structure and the casual work environment may point towards a Theory Y management style but the tyrannical image given to the CEO of the organization suggest Theory X. The profits and financial results speak for themselves and the leadership of Jobs appears to be working when it comes to leading Apple (Beckman and Hirsch, 2001). As an entrepreneur himself, Steve maintains total control over everything the company does from introducing new products to creating the products themselves. His input and his insight into design, marketing and sales as well as every other department of the company mean that he touches everything Apple does with his entrepreneurial genius thus giving his leadership skills to make the company more entrepreneurial (Beckman and Hirsch, 2001). Cross Departmental Teams Innovation and the development of new products benefits tremendously from cross departmental teams and the perfect example of that comes from GM which needed a car running with alternative fuel to compete with the likes of the Toyota Prius (Carr and Acheson, 2007). As discussed by Motavalli (2008) GM used cross functional teams and created a program which had tighter deadlines than any of their projects in the last 20 years in order to accelerate the innovation process and allow their engineers to come up with a new car for the company. The engineers showed what can be done when different people from various departments can get together to form groups that have decision making powers and are aware of the overall situation of the company along with the relevant technical expertise. GM is on track to launch the Volt which is a car running entirely on electric power and is supposed to give better mileage and lower cost of ownership than anything which the competition has to offer. The primary innovation in this case is that this would be the first car from a major manufacturer to come with the ability to be charged from the house of the consumer while offering zero emissions and an extended range for its driving capacity as well as its road performance (Motavalli, 2008). It is certainly innovative and more than that, it is a sign that innovation can result when diverse groups come together to reach a given objective. Information Systems Chozich (2005) gives the example of Oriel Wines which is an international importer of wines selling more than two dozen varieties of wines from around the world. However, it is no less entrepreneurial since it manages to operate globally even thought it employs only a staff of six people. The brands the company deals with are luxury wine brands and the image present to their clients is that they are a lot larger and more established than they actually are. What they use to get this image is effective use of information systems which allow them to be entrepreneurial with regard to how they deal with customers and how they deal with getting into new markets. Information systems which run on email based services automatically make Amazon like recommendations to their clients and this makes the company appear more on top of things and larger in size. Similarly, distribution lists and related information which are generated automatically from databases or client usage reports of websites are also used by the company to create more opportunities for sales and for offering additional services to their clients (Chozich, 2005). In fact, even a team comprising of only one person can use several business tools such as PayPal, yahoo merchant accounts and eBay stores to become an entrepreneur using information system that make them a part of the business world. Therefore, a sales force or a business team equipped with the latest technology may have the potential to create their own entrepreneurial nexus which allows them to generate their own entrepreneurial tools. A modern business entrepreneur has to know how to use information systems as well as the business benefits of the information systems which can let a company compete against the bigger organizations who can call on more resources and means to be entrepreneurial. However, being entrepreneurial does not mean that the company should seek to deceive its customers. Even though deception may be a part of business for many entrepreneurs, good business practices and keeping the repute of the company become requirements for the entrepreneur to maintain a positive image and maintain business ethics. This is because customers also have access to information tools which can be easily used to get information about a given company up to and including other customer’s opinions. Entrepreneurs therefore have to be very careful regarding how they use the information they collect and how their entrepreneurial actions do not become unethical actions. Conclusions In conclusion, it becomes easy to see that the leadership of a company, the culture of the organization as well as the information systems used by the company can help a company become more entrepreneurial. However, without individuals working as entrepreneurs and without individuals working with information systems within the culture of the company, such tools may not lead to ideal entrepreneurial systems. Word Count: 1,801 Works Cited Armstrong, M. 1999, A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, Kogan Page. Beckman, D. and Hirsch, D. 2001, ‘Mac Is Back in Town’, ABA Journal, vol. 87, no. 8, pp. 70-72. Burlingham, B. 2003, ‘The Coolest Small Company in America’, Inc,. vol. 25, no. 1, p. 64-72. Carr, N and Acheson, J. 2007, ‘The Hybrid Phenomenon’, Futurist, vol. 41, no. 4, pp. 16-22. Chozich, A. 2005, ‘Managing Technology; Appearances Are Deceiving: Technology can make a small business seem a lot bigger than it actually is’, Wall Street Journal. 19 Sep, p. R7. DeNisi, A. and Griffin, R. 2005, Human Resource Management, Houghton Mifflin. Deutschman, A. 2000, ‘The once and future Steve Jobs’, Salon.com, [Online] Available at: http://archive.salon.com/tech/books/2000/10/11/jobs_excerpt/index.html Johnson, G. et. al. 2005, Exploring Corporate Strategy, Prentice Hall. Lee, J. 1982, The Gold and the Garbage in Management Theories and Prescriptions, Ohio University Press. Motavalli, J. 2008, ‘The plug-ins are coming’, E - The Environmental Magazine, vol. 19, no. 2, pp. 24. Read More