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THE INDIVIDUAL ENTREPRENEUR

THE INDIVIDUAL ENTREPRENEUR

1. To identify some key entrepreneurial feelings and motivations.
2. To identify key elements in an entrepreneur’s background.
3. To discuss the importance of role models and support systems.
4. To identify the similarities and differences between male and female entrepreneurs.
5. To explain the differences between inventors and entrepreneurs.

ENTREPR E NEURIAL FEELINGS

There is no "true entrepreneurial profile"- entrepreneurs come from many educational backgrounds, family situations, and work experiences. A potential entrepreneur may presently be a nurse, secretary, assembly line worker, sales person, mechanic, home maker, manager or engineer. A potential entrepreneur can be male or female and of any race or nationality.

Locus of Control

One concern people have when forming is whether they will be able to sustain the drive and energy required to form something new and to manage the new enterprise and make it grow. While research results are inconsistent, internal control seems to be a characteristic of entrepreneurs.
Internal beliefs appear to differentiate entrepreneurs from the general public, but not from managers. Managers and entrepreneurs both have an internality tendency.

Read more: MGT602 - Entrepreneurship - Lecture Handout 08

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Related Content: MGT604 - VU Lectures, Handouts, PPT Slides, Assignments, Quizzes, Papers & Books of Management of Financial Institutions

The Collapse of ENRON

Only months before Enron Corporations bankruptcy filing in December 2001, the firm was widely regarded as one of the most innovative, fastest growing, and best managed businesses in the United States. With the swift collapse, shareholders, including thousands of Enron workers who held company stock in their 401(k) retirement accounts, lost tens of billions of dollars. Investigations of wrongdoing may take years to conclude, but Enron’s failure already raises financial oversight issues with wider applications. This lecture briefly examines the accounting system that failed to provide a clear picture of the firm’s true condition, the independent auditors and board members who were unwilling to challenge Enron’s management, the Wall Street stock analysts and bond raters who missed the trouble ahead, the rules governing employer stock in company pension plans, and the unregulated energy derivatives trading that was the core of Enron’s business. Formed in 1985 from a merger of Houston Natural Gas and Inter-north, Enron Corporation was the first nationwide natural gas pipeline network. Over time, the firm’s business focus shifted from the regulated
transportation of natural gas to unregulated energy trading markets. The guiding principle seems to have been that there was more money to be made in buying and selling financial contracts linked to the value of energy assets (and to other economic variables) than in actual ownership of physical assets. Until late 2001, nearly all observers – including
professional Wall Street analysts – regarded this transformation as an outstanding success. Enron’s reported annual revenues grew from under $10 billion in the early 1990s to $101 billion in 2000, ranking it seventh on the Fortune 500. Several committees in the House and Senate have held or plan to hold hearings related to Enron’s fall. The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation. The challenge for financial oversight, however, does not depend on findings of wrongdoing. Even if no one at Enron did anything improper, the swift and unanticipated collapse of such a large corporation suggests basic problems with the U.S. system of securities regulation, which is based on the full and accurate disclosure of all financial information that market participants need to make informed investment
decisions.

Read more: MGT604 - Management of Financial Institutions - Lecture Handout 43