Risk-Taking as an Entrepreneur in Business - Essay Example

Even though there are some people who would think that risk taking could endanger the stability of a business, most successful entrepreneurs had to take a risk before they were able to become successful in their chosen line of business. Since there are a lot of writing about entrepreneurs in terms of advice and analysis, it is useful to compare some of this writing in conducting a linguistic analysis and comparison of three texts. Therefore, this essay will seek to comment about the differences in the target audiences, writing structure and format, flow of sentences, and the use of vocabulary of business journals, textbook, and a news report. Although the authors of textbook, business journal and business news report are using the same language in writing, there are quite a lot of differences in their written structure. The target readers of the journal article are the members of the academe which includes not only the school teachers but also the students. Specifically the journal article that was written by Mills and Pawson (2012) is entitled “Integrating motivation, risk-taking and self-identity: A typology of ICT enterprise development narratives”. Published on the International Small Business Journal in 2011, this article was written in New Zealand. To explain the typology behind the development of enterprises in relation to the study of risk taking, motivation, and self-identity of the growing numbers of ICT entrepreneurs, this article Mills and Pawson (2012) conducted a qualitative research study to be able to come up with a new framework behind the psychology of entrepreneurship. The second text is taken from the third chapter of a business textbook written by Rauch and Frese (2007, p. 47) entitled “Born to be an Entrepreneur? Revisiting the Personality Approach to Entrepreneurship”. Similar to the journal article, the target readers of the textbook are the school teachers but also the students. In this particular text, Rauch and Frese mentioned that the broad personality traits such as extraversion, emotional stability, openness to experience, agreeableness, and consciousness when combined with the specific personality traits like the need for achievement, risk taking, innovativeness, autonomy, locus of control, and self-efficacy will increase the chances wherein the entrepreneurs will be able to successfully achieve their personal and organizational goals. Officially published by the Business Insider, the third text which is a news article was written by Northrop (2012) under the title of “LEADERSHIP 2012: Business leaders plot the path to economic success”. Unlike the journal article and the textbook, the target readers of a news report are the general public. In this particular text, the authors reported the individual qualities of Afzal and Akmal Khushi and why these two entrepreneurs were chosen to be the winners of the Insider’s Scottish Leaders of the Year title. The first text follows a typical research report structure. For instance, Mills and Pawson (2012, p. 585) mentioned that the main purpose of their study is to “describe the four-narrative typology, its genesis, and how it provides a framework for appreciating an entrepreneur’s quest to achieve a self-enterprise fit”. To make the intended audiences gain better understanding behind the research study, Mills and Pawson (2012) purposely defined the research study aims. Eventually, the authors shifted the discussion by describing who the entrepreneurs are and discussing reasons why entrepreneurs tend to take risk taking decisions when innovating a product or services. After the research method section is the description of the research results. For example, after requesting each of the 8 research participants to define the term “entrepreneur”, Mills and Pawson (2012, pp. 595 – 596) mentioned that the research participants defined entrepreneur as “an action-taking person and, with one exception, someone who generates or identifies a new idea that prompts them to start a business”. Basically, the main reason why the authors asked each of the research participants to define the term entrepreneur is to test each one of them on how they perceive entrepreneurs as business people. After the discussion section is the research conclusion. In this study, Mills and Pawson (2012, p. 600) concludes that one of the main reasons why new entrepreneurs in New Zealand have a higher rate of business success is because of their desire to take risks combined with their high expectations of new venture success. Subheadings can be a part of writing a business report. In the first text, Mills and Pawson (2012, p. 586) decided to use subheadings like “who is an entrepreneur?” under the heading “literature review”. Here, Mills and Pawson (2012) discussed the qualities of what makes entrepreneurs competitive in the real business world. In the second text, Rauch and Frese (2007, p. 49) used the subheading “risk taking" before finally defining risk taking as “a probability function or as an individual disposition towards risk”. Aside from pointing out that risk takers are people who are willing to pursue a business plan even when the probability of succeeding is very low, the authors also discussed the relationship between risk taking and business success. Specifically the flow of thoughts and writing structure in Mills and Pawson (2012) writing is logical and beneficial on the part of the readers. Similar to a book, the journal article is not complete without a clear introduction. In other words, writing a good introduction is important since the target audiences can easily determine not only why they had decided to conduct the study but also what the target audiences will be expected to read throughout the entire text. Under the introduction part, the writers of the first text took the opportunity to clearly state the research problem and the rationale behind the research problem. By introducing the idea that there is a strong relationship between the “business start-up motivation and approach to risk”, the readers will have a clear and better picture on why and how the entrepreneurs were able to start-up their businesses (Mills and Pawson, 2012, p. 2). Likewise, the process of describing who the entrepreneurs are is good because it gives the readers the opportunity to gain better understanding about factors that makes entrepreneurs successful (i.e. risk taking, motivation, and self-identity). The same can be noted in the second text. In line with this, Rauch and Frese started writing the text by introducing the concept of entrepreneurship based on the socio-economic perspective of entrepreneurship and its psychological implications. Under chapter III of the second text, Rauch and Frese (2007, pp. 47 – 48) clearly discussed about the significance of broad and specific personality traits of entrepreneurs. It means that entrepreneurs’ broad and specific personality traits are important in terms of allowing them to meet the organizational goals. Specifically the writing structure and format of the second text is also good because the authors adapted the use of headings and subheadings. Under the subheading “Broad Personality Traits of Entrepreneurs”, the authors were able to use clear and simple language and proper in-line references to identify and explain that part of the broad personality traits which could affect their individual knowledge, skills, and ability include extraversion, emotional stability, openness to experience, agreeableness, and consciousness (Rauch and Frese, p. 47 – 48). In the third text, the authors used an entirely different writing style. To capture the interests or curiosity of the authors’ target audiences, Northrop (2012) came up with one paragraph introduction that will give the readers a clue on what the writer intends to discuss. For example, in the first paragraph of Northrop’s news report, he mentioned that “The owners of retail chain Trespass, Afzal and Akmal Khushi, have been chosen as the joint winners of Insider’s Scottish Leaders of the Year title. The brothers were praised for “quietly getting on with running one of Scotland’s best retailing businesses””. After reading this paragraph, the readers would automatically think about who Afzal and Akmal Khushi are and why were they considered one of the best retailers in Scotland? After catching the interest of the readers, there is a strong possibility that the writer’s intended audiences would continue reading the entire news report. Furthermore, the author in the third text did not use headings or subheadings in his report. Instead, Northrop (2012) he decided to write his own personal observation and thoughts in a series of paragraphs. The use of subheadings will make the readers easily understand the facts being presented by the authors. Therefore, the writing structure and framework of the first and second text is better than the third text. The authors of the first, second, and third texts used simple language in expressing their thoughts and opinions about the relevance of risk taking in entrepreneurship. Despite the use of simple language, business writers may find it difficult to avoid using business or academic terms to express their research findings into a written context. For example, the authors of the second text mentioned that “One of the most frequently used broad trait taxonomies is the “Big Five” personality taxonomy” (Rauch and Frese, p. 47). In the study of psychology, the term “taxonomy” is all about grouping whereas the term “personality” is referring to mental and behavioural characteristics of a person. Lastly, the “Big Five” is just an example of personality taxonomy. Therefore, there are no other effective words that will make the authors clearly express what they intend to say to their target audiences expect for the use of these terms. In all three texts, the writers did not use jargons. This is good since the use of jargons will only make the writers lose their credibility as a good business writer. Read More