1)

Just like any other economic activity, the entrepreneurial process is embedded in several social
layers, which influence the individual behaviour of the entrepreneur, and respectively of the firm.
The fact that every venture is situated within a regional setting, which may be interpreted as an
entrepreneurial system. What is important at this point is the fact that the entrepreneur is situated
in a social domain. For that reason we concur with the view that entrepreneurship and thus
entrepreneurial behaviour as well is a social act that generates social structure and order. This
essay will explain what determines entrepreneurial orientation and explain what is Beatha
Shitemba’s entrepreneurial orientation is.

Entrepreneurial orientation is what drives entrepreneurial action, which is typically modelled in

the form of processes. While there might in fact be a universal process, researchers in most cases
split the entrepreneurial process into several sub-processes for analytical reasons; for instance,
the process of opportunity recognition, the process of obtaining legitimacy for the venture, which
has to be accomplished owing to the liabilities of the newness of the firm or the process of
acquiring resources, especially financial capital (Ward, 2004),

Storey, (1994) has proven that the personal networks of the entrepreneur, and, in particular, the
information gained from these networks, have a positive impact on entrepreneurial orientation
and, with this, on new firm growth. Furthermore, Nystrom, (1999) in their research determined
that entrepreneurial orientation, along with the dynamic capabilities of a firm, has a positive
impact on international performance. This implies that entrepreneurial firms applying their
resources and capabilities to seize opportunities abroad perform better than firms without
entrepreneurial orientation attributes. They argue that it is entrepreneurial orientation, which also
enable firms to reconfigure their existing assets and processes in order to exploit international
activities.

Entrepreneurial orientation can be differentiated into five key aspects: first, it may be assumed
that an individual striving for a high degree of autonomy in his life is more likely to act
entrepreneurially. Second, an individual’s attitude towards innovation determines entrepreneurial
behaviour as well, while third, the propensity towards risk is likely to affect entrepreneurial
orientation (Ward, 2004). Rather than letting opportunities lie idle, entrepreneurs aim at
exploiting business opportunities, which is why pro-activeness constitutes the fourth aspect of

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entrepreneurial orientation. And last, competitive aggressiveness an aspect that is to some extent
comparable to well-known need for achievement also influences an individual’s entrepreneurial
orientation (Nystrom, 1999).

Beatha Shitemba’s entrepreneurial orientation is the need to fill a market, competitive

aggressiveness and innovation. Beatha Shitemba saw a gap in the market and exploited this
opportunity in the Namibian market and this has worked well for her business. In addition
Beatha Shitemba’s idea of innovation as helped shaped her entrepreneurial orientation and
enabled her to penetrate into the market based on the market gap she noticed, she saw that
African parents were struggling with finding fashionable baby curtains and beddings but without
innovation this would not have enabled her business to strive. Furthermore Beatha Shitemba
posses competitive aggressiveness in her approach to how her business entered the ,market and
sustains its activities that help retain its market share.

2)

A change in the economy has been identified recently, moving from knowledge based activities
to creativity, innovation, entrepreneurship and imagination. Increasing globalization and
technology effects have resulted in more business opportunities but the marketplace has also
become more crowded and competition has increased. Creativity enables the entrepreneur to act
on these opportunities in ways which can result in competitive advantage for the organisation. It
can provide the basis for innovation and business growth, as well as impacting positively on
society generally. This essay will discuss how creativity as an entrepreneur skill assisted Beatha
Shiemba in establishing and growing her business.

Creativity has been viewed as the construction of ideas or products which are new and
potentially useful (Ward, 2004), although in an entrepreneurial sense there should also be a
subsequent link to innovation and profitability in monetary and social terms. These ideas can be
internally or externally located, although the entrepreneur will tend to search and identify
potential solutions shaped in part by internal competencies for example even though they were
already baby beddings and curtains, the lacked fashionable ones that were made in Africa and
Beaha’s creativity helped her to spot this gap and innovate a solution. Creativity allowed Beatha
Shitemba to take advantage of opportunities which develop as the result of changing
environmental conditions (Nystrom, 1999).

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Furthermore creativity involves a perceptual response to the environment which may induce a
high or low frequency of creative endeavor. The term creative intensity is used by Storey, (1994)
to illustrate the combined effects of the degree and frequency of creative behaviour at the
individual, organisational or societal levels. The individual creativity within Beatha’s rganisation
contributed to overall competitive advantage and organisational innovation, for instance she saw
a market gap, created an innovate solution and then made the products readily available online
meaning the company can serve not only Namibia but the entire Africa. The contribution of
creativity to today’s changing economies makes it central to business endeavor.

Creativity, problem solving and intuition interacted in order for Beatha Shitemba to produce an
appropriate strategic vision for business. Intuition can be viewed as a core business competency
which is influenced by the ability to be creative. Creativity is a competitive strength and a key
competency in small and medium sized enterprises thus an important attribute that help the
business to grow. It is thus worth stating that creativity played a vital role in the establishment
and growth of the business started by Beatha Shitemba.

3)

The concept of sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) was introduced in 1984 when Day was
explaining the competitive advantage maintenance strategies. The term sustainable competitive
advantage was seriously developed in 1985 by Porter and in terms of a variety of competitive
strategies (cost leadership, differentiation, and focus) to achieve long-term competitive
advantage. Nevertheless, Porter did not provide a formal definition for sustainable competitive
advantage. Rasekhi, (2008) has provided the closest definition of sustainable competitive
advantage as the continuity of benefits and application of unique value creation strategies
asynchronously with potential competitors that are not able to copy such benefits.

In recent years, the concept of competitive advantage has been a hot issue in the field of
competitive strategies and much controversy has been raised in relation to competitive
advantage. Nevertheless, providing a precise definition of competitive advantage is a difficult
task. On the one hand, the competitive advantage has been defined as too much returns, and on
the other hand, it has been linked to the performance of capital markets and expectations.
However, the most common definition of competitive advantage in the field of competitive

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strategy and in the context of value creation is whatever cause revenues increase over expenses
(Storey, 1994).

On the other hand, Porter (1985) deals with the competitive advantage in the context of
competitive strategy. He sees the competitive strategy as the determination of a firm's position in
a competitive environment. The purpose of competitive strategy is to gain insights about the
market through understanding and predicting the economic factors, especially other competitor’s
behavior. The competitive strategy causes a firm to produce a product that is not producible by
the competitors. Therefore, the competitive strategy is a strategy for creating an imperfectly
competitive market (Kay, 1995).

The strategy that gave Beatha Shitemba competitive advantage is that she innovated and
marketed her product as an African made product which was different from what her competitors
where doing, most were ordering from over seasons and then reselling in Africa but she makes
the products in Africa. In addition she added a variety or sections of the baby beddings and
curtains such as male, female and gender neutral colors there by appealing to all customer bases ,
this gave her competitive advantage in the aspect that her products are unique and different from
what others are selling. In addition Beatha used selling her products online as a strategy, in the
sense that other stores or suppliers within Africa where physical stores but these are hard to get
to especially by expecting mothers thus the choice to shop from the comfort of their homes
become another unique service which translated into a competitive advantage for Beatha
Shitemba.

4)

Entrepreneurs are frequently thought of as national assets to be cultivated, motivated, and

remunerated to the greatest possible extent. Great entrepreneurs have the ability to change the
way we live and work. If successful, their innovations may improve standards of living, and in
addition to creating wealth with entrepreneurial ventures, they also create jobs and contribute to
a growing economy. This essay will discuss the impetus of entrepreneurship to the economy and
how Covid 19 is affecting the Namibian economy.

Entrepreneurs are by nature and definition job creators, as opposed to job seekers. The simple
translation is that when you become an entrepreneur, there is one less job seeker in the economy,

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and then you provide employment for multiple other job seekers. This kind of job creation by
new and existing businesses is again is one of the basic goals of economic development (Stewart,
1989).

Entrepreneurs setting up new businesses and industrial units help with regional development by
locating in less developed and backward areas. The growth of industries and business in these
areas leads to infrastructure improvements like better roads and rail links, airports, stable
electricity and water supply, schools, hospitals, shopping malls and other public and private
services that would not otherwise be available (Rasekhi, 2008). Every new business that locates
in a less developed area will create both direct and indirect jobs, helping lift regional economies
in many different ways. The combined spending by all the new employees of the new businesses
and the supporting jobs in other businesses adds to the local and regional economic output. Both
central and state governments promote this kind of regional development by providing registered
private businesses various benefits and concessions.

Increase in the standard of living of people in a community is yet another key goal of economic
development. Entrepreneurs again play a key role in increasing the standard of living in a
community. They do this not just by creating jobs, but also by developing and adopting
innovations that lead to improvements in the quality of life of their employees, customers, and
other stakeholders in the community. For example, automation that reduces production costs and
enables faster production will make a business unit more productive, while also providing its
customers with the same goods at lower prices (Warren, 2001).

The impact of the corona virus is felt in the various sectors of the Namibian economy. The
informal sector, although not formally recorded as a contributor to GDP, it has established that
there are significant impacts on this sector emanating from the daily loss of income due to
lockdown measures. The loss of income directly affect employment in the country since these
people become temporarily unemployed, thus a reduction in domestic consumption. Other
sectors established to have been severely affected are tourism and transport, since the travel bans
and closure of the boarders, ports and airports. The construction sector is also among those
severely affected by the lockdown and the ripple effects from limited supply of construction
materials from China. There were, however, some sectors regarded as winners during this period

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of the outbreak, and these are communication and technology, e-commerce and, partly,
manufacturing (Mohan, 2020).

It has been estimated that Namibia could lose between N$5.1 billion and N$7.5 billion in gross
domestic produce (GDP) due to the Covid-19 outbreak. An estimated loss in private demand of
N$6 billion to N$12 billion was also estimated emanating from the lost business hours for non-
essential retail shops, reduced demand due to loss of income and disrupted supply chains.
Although the government has already started implementing the fiscal stimulus aimed to cushion
the impact of the pandemic. Overall, the economic impact of Covid-19 may continue for
reminder of 2020. In addition economic recoveries may be slower until the time that entire
domestic economy normalizes and the rest of the world return to normal operations (Mohan,
2020).

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 References

Kay, J., (1995). Why firms succeed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mohan, D (2020). What Will Be the Economic Consequences of COVID-19 for India and
the World? India: Global University.

Nystrom, H. (1999). Creativity and Innovation, Chichester: John Wiley and Sons.

Porter, M., (1985). Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance.
New York: Free Press.

Rasekhi, S. (2008). Firm-level competitive advantage: Concept and theory. Journal of

Humanities and Political and Social Sciences, 8(28): 31-54.

Stewart, A. (1989). Team Entrepreneurship. Newbury Park: Sage.

Storey, D. J. (1994). Understanding the Small Business Sector. London: Thomson Learning.

Venturing, Vol.19, pp.173-188.

Ward, T.B. (2004). Cognition, creativity and entrepreneurship, Journal of Business

Warren, J.K., (2001). Global marketing management. Ebrahimi, A.H (Translated). Tehran:
Publications Office of Cultural Research.

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