Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneur
Domain 1: Entrepreneurship and the Entrepreneur. This domain tests precise definitions, the distinction between an entrepreneur and a manager or investor, entrepreneurial traits and skills, and the entrepreneur's contribution to Namibia's economy.
Definitions that earn marks
- Entrepreneurship: the process of identifying an opportunity, mobilising resources and bearing calculated risk to create value.
- Entrepreneur: the person who combines land, labour, capital and enterprise and carries the risk of loss. A manager is paid to run the business and does not bear ownership risk; an investor supplies funds without running operations.
- Intrapreneur: an employee who innovates inside an existing business. Social entrepreneur: reinvests surplus to serve a social mission.
- Opportunity entrepreneur starts by choice after spotting a gap; necessity entrepreneur starts because no wage job exists.
Traits and skills
Traits: need for achievement, internal locus of control, calculated risk-taking, perseverance, initiative. Skills, which are teachable: planning, costing, marketing, negotiation, leadership, networking. Argue that entrepreneurship can be learned, because traits can be strengthened and skills trained.
Worked example
Penehafo, 24, leaves a supermarket till job in Oshakati, borrows N$15 000, buys a second-hand freezer and sells cooked meat to taxi drivers, later employing two assistants. Reasoning: she identified an unmet need (opportunity, not necessity), combined the factors of production, risked savings and a loan (calculated, researched risk) and grew to create jobs and taxable turnover. That evidence makes her an entrepreneur rather than a survivalist trader.
Traps
- Claiming entrepreneurs are 'born, not made' or that profit is the only motive.
- Calling every tuck-shop owner an entrepreneur with no evidence of opportunity, risk and growth.
- Confusing calculated risk with gambling.