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Assignment II : Descriptive Questions

Deadline of Submission: 22nd May, 2021

 Attempt all the questions. All questions carry equal marks.

 Be original and use illustrations/ examples wherever relevant.

1. Peter Baskerville, Founder of 30 retail and hospitality businesses, writes:

When I first discovered Saras D. Sarasvathy's research into the different reasoning used by
entrepreneurs, it was a real 'aha' moment for me.

See, I was never really comfortable with teaching entrepreneurship as a process that followed
the traditional planning norm of conducting market research to find or develop an idea/goal
and then diligently selecting and organizing the resources needed to best achieve that pre-
determined idea or goal  ... because in the many businesses that I had successfully started, I
have never followed this path.

I have always started my business with … Thankfully, Saras D. Sarasvathy's research

legitimized my flipped and non-traditional approach to business development, which she
titled the 'effectual reasoning' of entrepreneurs: i.e. imagining new ends, using a given set of
means"

Causal reasoning on the other hand is typically used by managers and is the 1-2-3 of
corporate management.
 Other researchers have discovered that while many different types of people create economic
value in a society, the way entrepreneurs do it is quite unique, and it is this unique mindset
that earns them the tag of being entrepreneurial.

(The passage above is an excerpt from an article published in Forbes on November 5, 2013
titled “How do Entrepreneurs Think?”)

Question: Continuing on Peter Baskerville’s train of thoughts, explain your understanding of

this Unique Entrepreneurial Mindset, what makes the Entrepreneurial mindset different from
the “traditional approach to business development”. Assist your explanation with an artful
compare and contrast between the effectual logic and causal logic. Use examples where
relevant.

2. The field of Entrepreneurship is riddled with myths around and among the youths
specifically, few of them are:
a. To be an entrepreneur you must invent something truly novel
b. Entrepreneurs are introverted loners
c. Entrepreneurs are risk-taking gamblers
d. You hate bosses. That is reason enough to become an entrepreneur
e. With a great idea and enthusiasm, anyone can achieve entrepreneurial success

Question: Explain each of these myths elaborately justifying the reasons for them being cited
as myth.

3. The word “startup” and “Small Business” seems interchangeable enough- Startups often start
out small, after all- except they are not.

For years investors treated startups as smaller versions of large companies; this was
problematic because there is a vast ideological (and organizational) difference between a
start-up, a small business and a large corporation.

For startups, the primary goal is to achieve growth potential and high- end revenue, while for
small businesses the main objective is immediate profit and stable long-term value.
According to serial entrepreneur and Silicon Valley Legend Steve Blank, a startup is a
“temporary organization designed to search for a repeatable and scalable business model.” A
start up, which he argues should be short for “scalable startup” which searches to not only
prove their business model, but to do so quickly, in a way that will have a significant impact
on the current market.

In essence the driving force behind the two business model is different: The Intent of the
Startup founder is to disrupt the market with a scalable and impactful business model;
whereas the intent of the small business owner is to be her own boss and secure a place in the
local market.
 Question: Do you agree that startups and small businesses are indeed different ventures with
vastly different goals and that they need different things? In that case do you think there
should be different approaches to managing a startup and a small business? Explain the
difference with proper reasoning for each.

4. On March 12, 2014, Jesse Lipson wrote for Forbes, “Intrapreneurship is a Myth”. He
elaborated the reason behind large companies having much difficulty fostering
entrepreneurship with a graphic image as follows:

In his words, “its funny and sad that the story in the illustration tells is so instantly
recognizable. You’ve probably experience it: you take a new job, join a new team, offer ideas
about what you did at your last job or new perspectives on how things might be done better
or differently. And your new ideas are ignored, dismissed, or outright squashed. Soon you
find you’ve given in to the way things are done — and then you find yourself shooting down
the next new guy’s ideas.

As a company grows it naturally develops procedures and policies. Often they are created
after someone has abused a privilege or made a bad decision, and executives decide a policy
is needed to prevent someone else from repeating the mistake. That logic is reasonable and
natural. But with more employees and history, the policies begin to pile up — and suffocate
the creativity that might otherwise flourish. ‘We can’t do that,’ or ‘That’ll get us in trouble’
are the sorts of excuses people start using for not doing something different.
 This doesn’t happen by design. I’ve never seen a vision statement or strategic plan with
bureaucracy as a goal. Instead, bureaucracy drowns a company subtly and slowly, one rule at
a time.”

Again in June 26, 2018, Andrew Corbett wrote, “Intrapreneurs are supposed to be rebels,
breaking the rules and swimming against the corporate tide. While this vision of the
intrapreneurial maverick is certainly alluring, in truth it’s an ineffective way to drive
innovation. After more than 20 years of researching innovation in large companies, it’s clear
to me that the successful intrapreneur is often more myth than reality.

[…] Sasson’s experience at Kodak demonstrates that no single individual, no matter how
brilliant, can take a game-changing innovation all the way from idea to reality. Innovation
has to be a company-wide endeavor, supported from top to bottom by systems, structures,
and a company culture that nurtures transformative ideas and products. 

Question What is your take on the opinions of the authors that “Intrapreneurship is a myth”.
Do you believe that bureaucracy is indeed the source of all-evil that deters large companies
from adopting intrapreneurship effectively and therefore company’s should rid of all policies
and procedures that hinder entrepreneurial tendencies in employees? In such case, what do
you prescribe organizations to do who want to enhance their innovative capacity by incuding,
developing and retaining intrapreneurship?

5. Clay Christensen is best known for formulating “the innovator’s dilemma”: the observation
that the same behaviors that sustains a company—listening to customers and investing in
innovations to meet those customers’ needs—can ultimately lead to failure. Focusing too
heavily on current customers’ needs can blind the company to a disruptive innovation, one
that starts in new markets and changes the way customers perceive the current product. Since
he articulated the problem in The Innovator’s Dilemma and described how well-managed
companies fail precisely because they do what rational analysis would dictate, Christensen
has worked with many companies confronting disruptive change.

As those responsible for innovation in our organizations, we’re very interested in how people
get close to their customers, understand what their customers’ needs are, and then innovate
into them. Christensen studied this in great depth, and he cautions people that “you can get
too close to your customers or listen too much to your customers”. Explain with illustration,
how doing so can cause big and established companies to fail and what his caution means
against the disruptive innovation.

Evaluation Criteria:

1. Structure and Standard:

 Clarity; Logical Flow; Coherence of the structure – Introduction, Body and Conclusion;
Clarity of plan of coverage, clarity of line of argument/ viewpoint/ conclusions; Reference
citations; Sentence and Paragraph composition – a standard that is appropriate to the
postgraduate level of study.

2. Converge:

Demonstrates good knowledge and understanding of the principle areas, features, boundaries,
terminologies, theories, concepts and principles of the topic – enough discussions around the
given topic.

3. Critical Analysis/ Engagement:

Has critically analyzed and engaged around the established thoughts, theories and concepts
around the topic of essay.