Inability to Make the Entrepreneurial Transition

making it over the "entrepreneurial start-up hump" is no guarantee of business

success. After the start-up, growth usually requires a radically different style of
management. The very abilities that make an entrepreneur successful often lead to
managerial ineffectiveness. Growth requires entrepreneurs to delegate authority and to
relinquish hands-on control of daily operations-something many entrepreneurs simply
can't do. Growth pushes them into areas in which they are not capable, yet they
continue to make decisions rather than involve others.
ENTREPRENEURIAL MOBILITY

Factors Influencing Mobility.

Occupational Mobility.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

On completion of this chapter, you should be able to:

Enumerate the factors that influence entrepreneurs to move from one location to another or from some
occupation to the entrepreneurial career

List the factors that make entrepreneurs to move from one occupation to another.

Know the factors influencing entrepreneurs to migrate from previous place to a new place to set up their
enterprises.

Movement and mobility have been an integral part of much of human history all over the world. In fact,
human life swings between two poles - movement and settlement. History is witness that human
movement is caused by social, economic, political and cultural factors. In present time, the flow of the
skilled personnel from under-developed and developing countries to developed countries baptized as
"brain drain" has been a common feature of human movement caused by economic reasons.
Entrepreneurs, being human beings, do also move from one location to another and also from one
occupation to another. Influx of multinational companies (MNC s) in India and increasing
entrepreneurship are the examples of locational mobility and occupational mobility of entrepreneurs
respectively. Movement of entrepreneurs from and into each location and occupation has certain distinct
features of its own kind which affect the pace and pattern of entrepreneurship development. It is towards
this aspect of entrepreneurship development, we now try to answer some pertinent questions: What
factors influence the entrepreneurial mobility? What are the characteristics of the entrepreneurial mobility
across the locations and occupations? These issues are dealt with in seriatim.

FACTORS INFLUENCING MOBILITY

What makes the entrepreneurs mobile? There cannot be a common factor influencing all the
entrepreneurs to move from one location to another and similarly from one occupation to another. In fact,
different factors influence the entrepreneurial mobility differently. These factors may serve as 'pull' and
'push' factors. Following are some important factors which generally influence the entrepreneurial
mobility in a given situation and time: 1.

Education:

Education enlarges one's thinking and understanding horizons. It enables one to comprehend conditions
more easily and clearly and in a better manner. An educated person can also easily adjust with the
changed environment, hold better discussion and communicate in a more convincing manner. That an
educated entrepreneur tends to be more mobile than an uneducated one is supported by empirical
evidences also. 2.

Experience:

An entrepreneur's past experience in business and industry also increases his/her propensity to move. The
reason is not difficult to seek. An experienced entrepreneur better perceives the available opportunities,
better analyses his/her strengths and weaknesses and also better understands the complexities involved in
running an enter-prise. That the technical experience influences the entrepreneurial mobility is indicated
by an increasing number of persons with technical knowledge and experience assuming to the
entrepreneurial roles at distant places away from their native ones.

Availability of Facilities:

A tendency is noticed among the entrepreneurs to move from the areas with no or less facilities to the
areas with more and better facilities. Heavy concentration of industries in Okhla, Ghaziabad and
Faridabad near Delhi represent such examples. The reason lies in the fact that these areas have proximity
to various agencies, facilities like transport, communication, power, market, etc. 3.

Political Conditions:

Evidences are available to cite that the entrepreneurial mobility is influenced by the political factors also.
For examples, the well-known enterprising Punjabi community, lost almost everything during the
partition and were compelled to move to every nook and corner of the country in the pursuit of profit
opportunities and shaped their lucks. Similarly, the Marwari’s known as the most 'footloose' community
in India also left their home and hearth long ago compelled by the historical circumstances. 5.

Size of Enterprise:

Larger business houses are found more mobile than smaller ones. Initially, the entrepreneurs try to
consolidate their business position at a place, scale the commanding heights in the area, attain the
dominating position and thereafter try to successfully seize the business opportunities elsewhere. The
Indian business giants /houses like Tata, Birla, Dalmia etc. represent such examples. Although one may
add more factors to this list, yet they said factors seem to be the common ones influencing the
entrepreneurial mobility. Having known the factors influencing the entrepreneurial mobility, it seems in
the fitness of the context to look at the dimensions of the entrepreneurial mobility. Hence, in what follows
is the occupational and locational mobility of the entrepreneurs.

OCCUPATIONAL MOBILITY
This section tries to address an interesting aspect of entrepreneurship. Was that occupation the same of
occupation of the entrepreneurs’ families, i.e., the occupational mobility? In simple words, the
occupational mobility denotes movement or changes in occupation. This may take place in two forms. It
may be a movement of a son/daughter from the principal occupation of his/her father or it may be a drift
in one’s own occupation during his/her occupational career. The first type of movement is called as 'inter-
generation movement' and the latter type of change as ‘intra-generation occupational movement’. The
mobility is called ‘horizontal’ when it takes place between the occupational classes of the equal rank or
vertical when it occurs between classes of unequal rank.

Several factors like one’s freedom of choice, motivation, efforts of an individual and opportunities
available in the society determine one's occupational mobility. Till the nineteenth century, the
occupational structure in India was mainly influenced and determined by one’s birth in a particular family
or caste. But in the present times, the multifarious activities created by the application of modem
technology require specific skills to man them. It is now widely realized that particularly in the case of
urban occupations, the required skills cannot be acquired by giving mere traditional training defined by
castes, traditions and customs. In consequence, the occupational structure has tended to drift from the
caste structure to the technology structure. Keeping this fact in view, an attempt has been made to trace
the empirical evidences on the occupational mobility from grandfathers to the fathers of the entrepreneurs
in a study of 50 entrepreneurs conducted by the author in the Kumaun Division of Uttar Pradesh.