Entrepreneurial Learning - Essay Example

? Entrepreneurial Learning and Section # of Literature review on entrepreneurial education Entrepreneurial learning is the study of effective entrepreneurship, particularly through a simulated learning environment and actual physical experience. Entrepreneurship in its basic definition is a person who controls a business venture or enterprise, normally being the source in control, thereby working for themselves and being accountable for the outcome of their venture, making it different from other management-based studies, or self-leadership accounts, both of which play an element in entrepreneurial learning, but do not necessarily constitute of solely these counts. Furthermore, entrepreneurial learning is a specific field where more than any theoretical knowledge, practical knowledge and experience is imperative and therefore most valued, but with the former playing an important role of its own. In theoretical-based entrepreneurial learning, with the same aims reflected and supported by the practical aspect, some of the key questions that are focused upon are what the essential skills to master are in order to become a successful entrepreneur, how those skills can be obtained, and indeed, whether they can be obtained or at all, or whether they, in a large part, are inherited and inherent in a person's personality. Entrepreneurial learning can be summed up as the outcome of a sequence of choices among many options, often directly contradicting each other, which over time, influence the pattern of choices and individual may take. The skills of deduction and analysis required to make these choices are inculcated and develop through entrepreneur learning (Harrison & Leitch 2008) . There are three specific aspects to entrepreneurial learning. Firstly, the personal and social development required in an individual, which will equip them to become a successful entrepreneur. Secondly, physical experience which allows that individual to experience real life scenarios where their entrepreneurial skills can be developed and tested. And thirdly, interaction with other people through their proposed enterprise, aimed again at providing physical experience and learning. The personal and social development aspect of entrepreneurial learning involves examining what roles an individual's personality and developing environment play in their role as an entrepreneur. This can include past experience, the lessons and conclusions drawn from them, and the effect that it will possibly have on future ventures, or it can include environmental factors that work towards inculcating certain thinking biases in an individual's perspective (Deakens 1998). It can also aim to educate the individual on how their current thinking and evaluation may affect future ventures, or whether and in what ways it should be challenged and developed, according to the goals and expectations of that individual as an entrepreneur. The aspect of entrepreneurial learning focused on learning through physical environment and experience is also called contextual learning. As evident from the name, it involves employing the individual in a scenario of certain context relevant to their position and development as an entrepreneur so that they may take actual decisions based on a variety of key choices, which ultimately go on to effect the outcome, in a positive or negative way. Experiencing the role of an entrepreneur and the situation where it's required leads an individual into applying skills and sense of practical experience, which comes into play where there's a need to make analytical decisions. It also allows expertise in the sense where an individual may logically predict to a certain accuracy the outcome that would result from a certain choice. This again leads to valuable experience, which comes into use where decisions need to be made in situations where there is a lack of common data to build choices upon and therefore make a decision from, and in which case past experience and future acumen will need to be employed. Furthermore, practical experience of contextual learning can allow an individual to gain opportunity recognition, that is to say, experience in the sense where they will be able to connect future ideas with what the practical implementation of them will be like, and the ability to draw ideas from situations and be able to spot enterprising opportunity. Contextual learning also aims to provide the acumen and experience of what factors will likely lead to success and what factors are likely to lead towards failure, and how these factors can be spotted and prevented or encouraged, according to the desired result. This works in allowing to reduce risk in entrepreneurial venture, and increase the probability of success, on a basis unique to that particular individual and their style and ideas of entrepreneurship. Contextual learning aims to develop that unique sense of entrepreneurship and inculcate a confidence and understanding that will in future aim to aid the entrepreneurial ventures of that individual. Negotiated Enterprise is the third aspect of entrepreneurial learning. Through negotiated enterprise it is aimed to allow the entrepreneur as an individual to interact with others in creating a joint venture, while maintaining that said individuality – that is to say that it focuses more on collaborating with another venture for example, rather than aiming to provide joint entrepreneurship to a single venture. This allows the individual to learn to benefit from others in a way which is beneficial to both them and their enterprise. It is beneficial to their enterprise depending on the sort of collaboration they aim to seek, and it is beneficial to the entrepreneur as an individual because it allows them to learn new skills, whether by observation, or whether through the opportunity of learning through joint venture, rather than alone, an experience naturally different to venturing in an enterprise as the sole entrepreneurial figure in charge. Negotiated enterprise also allows the entrepreneur in learning to question their own position as an entrepreneur relative to that of others and see how they are different and what gives them their own individual identity. Social relations and interaction is highly essential in any business venture but particularly for an entrepreneur as they are the sole basic body behind the direct success or failure of a venture (Minniti & Bygrave 2000), and therefore it is on them to have essentially in them all the required skills that may come to aid their purposes, which naturally includes social interaction and growth. In summary, entrepreneurial learning consists of three specific aspects: the personal and social development of the individual, the practical experience as an entrepreneur and the interaction required with other enterprises in terms of the individual and his entrepreneurial ventures. These three aspects include the effects of an individual's learning environment as well as inherent traits and factors, and how to develop these inherent aspects. It further includes providing experience and context so that familiar patterns can emerge and lessons of experience can be acquired which lead to a better acumen and understanding in terms of future ventures where blind decisions based on risk and experience need to be taken. Social interaction is developed through interaction with other ventures and enterprises so as to allow the individual to benefit from others and the experience they may offer as well as the physical benefits they may provide to a specific enterprise. Reflection based on evidence from Business Portfolio In our business venture, we aimed to create t-shirts, designed by the students, embellished with university insignia, so as to provide a hip, fashionable option for students through which they would acquire a sense of identity as well as souvenir with which to commemorate their university experience. We started off by analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of our product, i.e. the factors that would help it sell and the factors that would perhaps create difficulty in its sale, as well as analyzing the risks and opportunities the product would face in our demographic market. This allowed us to clearly map out the various factors that could be used to our benefit, as well as the factors that would need greater focus and developmental attention. We found the strengths of our product to be the fact that it was a new, innovative design, designed by a designer who kept the style of the product in mind, as well as the utility and practicality factor in mind. The product was also likely to be a success as there were not many other products of its kind that could provide competition, a key factor in a product's success (Kirzner 1973). Competition and entrepreneurship. As it was a t-shirt branded with the university insignia, it was basically aimed towards our fellow university students, and therefore it was likely that there was a large buyers' market, as it was a product that was of relevance and interest to almost everyone in our aimed demographic group. Furthermore, we aimed to keep our location of sale and prices such that the product would be easily available and easily bought, so that the factors of availability and cost were not likely to play a set-back role in the sale of the product. We also kept selling staff friendly, so as to encourage buyers to invest in our product. Nonetheless, we also recognized some weak factors that could create some difficulty in the successful sale and enterprise of our product. We identified these to be centered around the fact that since this was only a contextual product launch, we had limited time to sell our product, and for the same reason, delivery aspects were also limited. We also did not have a large number of staff that could sell the product extensively, nor other people that count invest in our enterprise, allowing it to be executed on a larger scale. We also identified certain market threats such as the fact that our product was of a new, unknown and unfamiliar brand, which would make buyers hesitant to invest their money, as they would not be sure of the quality and guarantee of the product they were going. Also, it is difficult to attract customers to a new venture which they do not already have a familiar level of trust and identification with. Furthermore, it was difficult to judge market demand, as again, the product was new and unfamiliar, as was the brand venture behind it. To allow our brand's product to be easily accessible, we ensured that it could be ordered through the phone, the internet and email. We chose the specific product that we did as it would be cost-effective and easy to create, since all it required was minimal resources and our own personal designing. We also ensured that we could provide a substantial benefit to the customer, which in this case was a personalized university shirt which they could keep as self-identity and memorabillia, as well as an attraction factor for investors, which was a large market of around 24,000 students who would be interested in the product. To ensure a certain level of probability of our product's success, we first analysed our target market, by taking a survey from 100 students, asking them whether they felt the need for a newly designed common outfit, and if they did, what sort of merchandise they would be interested in buying, and for how much. The results we got indicated that most of them did feel the need, and would be most willing to buy t-shirts at around 10 pounds. This was the information we kept in mind when designing and selling our product, and it allowed us to focus on the demand of the market, thereby ensuring a greater success rate for us, and satisfaction rate for out customers. Once our product was decided, we had to focus on how to market and sell our product. This included promotion of the product and publicity to allow people to find out about it. We did this through various forums and then took to selling them in easily accessible places where many of our target customers could be found and where they too could find our product with ease. The price was decided at 10 pounds as that is what most of our survey takers said they would pay, and we felt it was a price that indicated affordability as well as a certain level of competition. We recorded our sales in a journal and then plotted a graph to see our progress. The graph indicated that our maximum sales were in the months of September, October and November where we made most of the money of our final earnings. Conclusions on future entrepreneurial career' We concluded that we'd be able to market our product even better over the next 3 years if we managed to draw in investors willing to investigate around 2000 pounds, which would allow us to hire a designer for new designs, create a wider range of products, sell our products to an external company, as well as open services such as PayPal and an official website, which would marketing and purchases far easier and more convenient. Our business venture went remarkably well, which is mostly owing to the fact that there was considerable research before the product was created, marketed and launched. Good preparation in advance leads to better success rates later, which is a very important lesson to remember and which will no doubt help in future ventures. Furthermore, it helps to keep a specific targetted audience in mind, and take their input before creating the intended product, as this will no doubt give a clearer insight into what the target market requires. Good entrepreneurship lies in good planning and preparation, which is an imperative factor to consider before a product or venture is decided, rather than after the product is launched. References Deakens, D. (1998). Entrepreneurial learning and the growth process in SMEs. The Learning Organization, Vol 5, Issue 3 Harrison, R. & Leitch, C. (2008). Entrepreneurial Learning – Conceptual Frameworks and Applications. Routledge. Hisrich, R. & Peters, M. & Shepher, D. (2009), Entrepreneurship. McGraw-Hill. Kirzner, I.M. (1973). Competition and entrepreneurship. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Knight, F. (1921). Risk, uncertainty and profit. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Minniti, M., & Bygrave, W. (2000). The social dynamics of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice. McGrath, R. (2000) The Entrepreneurial Mindset: Strategies for Continuously Creating Opportunity in an Age of Uncertainty. Harvard Business Press. Various Authors (2010) Handbook of Entrepreneurship Research, New York: Springer. Read More