Barriers and Enablers of Entrepreneurship Essay Requirements
Research Question: What are the main barriers and enablers of entrepreneurship today?
Instructions:
The specific questionnaire should be included in the essay about a company. What are the barriers and enablers of this company through the questionnaire?
Procedure:
A. Read all of the literature materials, reviews, and related reading books.
B. Research: Creating a questionnaire or interviews or both of them based on step one.
C. Analyze the results according to your research critically.
D. how can the barriers be reduced.
E conclusion.
Solution
Barriers and Enablers of Entrepreneurship
Introduction
ClearlySo is a company headquartered in London, in the United Kingdom. It was founded in the year 2009 by Rodney Schwartz. It specializes in the business in the form of an online marketplace where it connects investors and social enterprises in the United Kingdom (Social Earth, 2009). Notably, ClearlySo is a social entrepreneurship business. Like every other form of entrepreneurship business, ClearlySo came to live after the founder recognized a social problem and employed the principles of entrepreneurship in the organizing, establishment, and management of a business venture aimed at solving the underlying problem. In this research report, the primary objective is establishing the barriers and enablers to entrepreneurship – using ClearlySo as the reference company. Therefore, this paper finds its basis upon answering the following research question: what are the main barriers and enablers of entrepreneurship today?
Literature Review
Notably, the entrepreneurship initiatives face quite some obstacles in their establishment that require substantial consideration (Azmat, 2013). There are quite some major entrepreneurial challenges and enablers, but they all revolve around four main areas. These barriers, which stand out as enablers in the reverse perspective, depend upon the cultural, economic, social and political characteristics different countries (Capelo, 2014).
First, there are the barriers and enablers of entrepreneurship relating to the cultural characteristics of the business environment. Ideally, the above relate to the aspects such as visions, attitude, and visions that form the foundation upon which the business culture in a given place finds its establishment (Kanniainen and Poutvaara, 2007). For example, the current society features a paradigm where job security is essential and thus there is the fear to venture into jobs that have not been tested or experienced by other people other the entrepreneurs themselves. More so, there is the cultural challenge existing in the form of what the society perceives as a failure. Notably, the general society tends to reject all forms of failure by classifying them as mistakes instead of embracing them as the stepping stones and integral parts of success.
Irrespective of the attitude and the desire to undertake every entrepreneurial endeavor, it is still overly important to have another key element of successful entrepreneurialism – education (Furchtgott-Roth, 2008). The essence of both fundamental and advanced education towards the success of entrepreneurship finds its basis in the fact that it is necessary for every entrepreneur to have a relatively significant understanding of all the aspects relating to the business environment upon which he or she looks forward to undertaking the entrepreneurial investment. There is quite some skills, knowledge base, and competencies that every entrepreneur is looking forward to a successful venture must learn (Hession, 2009). Unfortunately, such skills are rarely inborn thus one must develop them by way of formal education. Some of the necessary skills that call for formal education include the basics of teamwork, communication, leadership and negotiation.
Additionally, some of the barriers and enablers to entrepreneurial activities in various economies across the world relate to the manner of administrative policies in various countries. Ideally, the matters that come into play concerning the regulatory barriers and enablers relate to the bureaucratic measures and steps relating specifically to the governments or government agencies relating to the establishment of new business ventures in different countries (Capelo, 2014). There are some countries where support facilities concerning paperwork and other steps are readily available. In other countries, the support facilities are a barrier rather than an enabler of the process of establishing new business ventures.
Last but not least, the most common barrier or enabler to entrepreneurial activities relate to funds (Hession, 2009). Ideally, most entrepreneurship establishments have the main objective of income generation – and maximization. Fortunately, the current dynamics in most industrial sectors feature various sources and opportunities for funding entrepreneurial start-ups. However, it is overly important to have a basic knowledge of every funding possibility (Phan, 2014). That is, the critical analysis and deep evaluation of the various sources of funds for the business is a vital aspect of determining to what extent a barrier falls either as a barrier or an enabler of entrepreneur activities.
Methodology
In the pursuit of the establishing the facts about the barriers and enablers to entrepreneur activities, primary data stands out as the best source of the research data. The rationale for the above finds its basis in the fact that the field of entrepreneurship features robust dynamism and spans across the many sub-segments. For the purpose of this research study, therefore, the collection method for the primary data is in the form of questionnaires. The research study included the issuing and collecting of filled in questionnaires to a sample of 100 individuals affiliated with ClearlySo. The issued questionnaires included both closed and open-ended questions aimed at establishing the essential elements of entrepreneurialism from the perspective of barriers and enablers. The questionnaire form applied features in the Appendix below.
Data Analysis
Although the answering of the questionnaires provided quite a substantial insight on the barriers and enablers to entrepreneur activities, especially for social entrepreneurs in London, the aspect of featuring the stakeholders in the law drafting process did not feature. Additionally, some rather important aspects such as the true definition of entrepreneurship from the perspective of the sample participants stood out as rather limited. However, the respondents to the questionnaires in this research study helped in analyzing and evaluating the basic barriers as well as enablers of entrepreneur activities. The barriers and enablers are easily categorized underfunding, cultural or legislative. However, specific evaluation of each of the above basic categories may lead to more barriers or enablers.
According to the research findings, the funding of enterprises, especially social enterprises such as ClearlySo stands out as one of the biggest challenge relating to the establishment and the management of successful entrepreneur activities. Notably, the underlying laws governing the entrepreneurial establishments create a relatively challenging business environment. That is, they bring a burden in the form of additional financial responsibilities to the governing local authorities, who in turn pass the burden to the upcoming entrepreneurs. The best approach that should feature in the promotion of entrepreneur activities should favor funding from private investors and should find favor from the financial regulators. Therefore, the United Kingdom should ensure that it allocates more funds for pre-accession entrepreneurship – especially regarding social entrepreneurialism which is in a relatively high demand across the entire globe.
The other category, in this case, is the legislative framework within which the operations of the entrepreneur activities find their basis. Ideally, most legal frameworks in the employment regulations fail to embrace the essence significance of enterprises, especially social enterprises, in the employment sector. Notably, the legal framework, as well as the available permitted legal forms of enterprises, fails to feature the flexibility that is necessary for facilitating and promoting the ideal levels of entrepreneur activities. In light of the above, United Kingdom has the obligation to do more in the pursuit of ensuring that the legal framework upon which entrepreneur activities operate are more flexible to allow for the incorporation of all kind entrepreneur activities in the economy. That is, favoring the private enterprises especially those established as social entrepreneurship business initiatives. In so doing, it would help in creating room for the establishment of more entrepreneurship start-ups across all important industrial sectors.
Last but not the least, the evaluation of the data collected in this research study features the cultural heritage of the residents of the United Kingdom as a significant enabling factor. The rationale for the above finds its basis in the fact that the existence of successful entrepreneur activities in the past. In the light of the above, achieving the above potential calls for the authorities in the United Kingdom to follow the guidelines stipulated by the European Union or the other global bodies relating to the establishment of all the necessary skills required for the development of entrepreneurial activities. Ideally, the aspect of cultural heritage presents one of the best scopes upon which the every economy should apply to promoting the best practices in entrepreneur projects – such as the social entrepreneur activities by the ClearlySo Company in the United Kingdom.
Discussion (Ways to Reduce the Barriers)
Concerning the observation and analysis of the collected data relating to the responses of the sample population in this research study, the identified barriers to entrepreneur activities are not a dead end. There are some ideal strategies through which it is possible to overcome them – thereby changing the barriers to strong enabling factors.
To start with, it is overly important to correctly identify the necessary knowledge base and skills important for the purpose of operating entrepreneur activities successfully in a given industrial sector. In so doing, the challenge of educational barriers reduces (Furchtgott-Roth, 2008). The identification of all the important educational knowledge base helps an entrepreneur to coordinate various factors affecting entrepreneurialism in the best way possible in the pursuit of maximizing profits. Ideally, formal education incorporates many qualities that help an individual to stand way above an average entrepreneur who relies on experience and general observation.
It is also possible to overcome cultural barriers as well. As stipulated from the discussion in the data analysis and discussion above, most of the cultural barriers to entrepreneurialism are in the head – that is, the mentality of the entrepreneur as a result of being a member of a given community (Kanniainen and Poutvaara, 2007). In light of the above, one sure way to overcome the cultural barriers to entrepreneur activities features the changing of the attitude towards life as well as the thinking relating to the generalization by the society. The rationale of the above finds its basis in the fact that the motivation behind entrepreneurialism lies within a person and it is only he or she who stands the chance to awaken the entrepreneurialism within.
Last but not least, it is also possible to overcome the financial challenges facing the establishment of entrepreneurial activities across various industrial sectors (Phan, 2014). The best strategy in the pursuit of overcoming financial barriers is finding out and taking advantage of the upcoming offers. For instance, technological advancements in the field of finance have made it easy to use the online platform for sourcing the initial outlay of entrepreneurial activities at relatively lower costs.
Conclusion
Irrespective of the industrial sector upon which an entrepreneurial
enterprise is established and operates, every entrepreneur must be aware of the
fact that the decision to venture into a business idea that has not been priory
tested means that he or she must expect to face several barriers in the
process. As stipulated in the discussion above, culture, education, and finance
are the main categories upon which most of the barriers to entrepreneur
activities feature. However, the most important aspect to remember is the fact
that it is upon the individual entrepreneurs to surrender to the barriers or
work their way out into turning them into enablers of their entrepreneurial
activities.
References
Azmat, F. (2013). Opportunities or obstacles? understanding the challenges faced by migrant women entrepreneurs. International journal of gender and entrepreneurship, 5(2), pp.198-215.
Capelo, J. (2014). Main obstacles and barriers when starting a business. [online] Business-Entrepreneurial News. Available at: http://www.marketingquery.com/main-obstacles-barriers-starting-business/ [Accessed 25 Jan. 2016].
Furchtgott-Roth, D. (2008). Overcoming barriers to entrepreneurship in the United States. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Hession, J. (2009). Women in the modern workplace. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.
Kanniainen, V. and Poutvaara, P. (2007). Imperfect transmission of tacit knowledge and other barriers to entrepreneurship. Munich: CesIfo.
Phan, P. (2014). Theory and empirical research in social entrepreneurship. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Pub. Ltd.
Social Earth, (2009). ClearlySo: New Online Marketplace for Social Businesses. [online] Social Earth. Available at: http://socialearth.org/clearlyso-new-online-marketplace-for-social-businesses [Accessed 25 Jan. 2016].
Appendix
Barriers and Enablers of Entrepreneurship Questionnaire Form
| # | Question |
| 1 | How do you rate the entrepreneurial activity of your company? Very Positive Somewhat Positive Neutral Somewhat Negative Very Negative |
| 2 | How would you rate the entrepreneurial progress of your company? Very Fast Somewhat Fast Neither Fast Nor Slow Somewhat Slow Very Slow |
| 3 | How innovative are the services of your company? Overly Innovative Very Innovative Somewhat Innovative Slightly Innovative Not Innovative |
| 4 | How often does your company feature new services/products? Every Time Very Often Relatively Often Not so Often Never |
| 5 | If you were in charge of decision making, how often would you feature new services/products in your company? Every Time Very Often Relatively Often Not so Often Never |
| 6 | Do you think that the growth of your company is affected by external barriers? Very True Somewhat True Neutral Somewhat False Very False |
| 7 | When considering barriers to the growth of your company, what are the top two aspects you consider? [check just two] Cultural Heritage Educational Background Financial Exposure Administrative/Legal Environment Other, Specify Here: |
| 8 | In your own words, why did you choose the barriers in [7] above? |
| 9 | In your own words, do you believe in the possibility to overcome the above barriers? [Please indicate how] |
| 10 | On a scale of 0 – 10 [where 0 means “Not Important At All” and 10 means “Extremely Important”] how would you rate the significance of entrepreneur activities in the economy? |
