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Opportunities and Challenges for Social Entrepreneurs

Paper Type: Free Assignment Study Level: University / Undergraduate
Wordcount: 2054 words Published: 26th Feb 2020

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Introduction

This reflective essay would mainly reflect on the personal aspect of entrepreneurial teams and social entrepreneurial aspect that I had experience during the course. Also, I would link back to the question on what I learn from those two entrepreneur aspects, what knowledge did I acquired from this endeavour and the main challenges face. The main area this essay would focus on are as following: (1) progress within entrepreneurial teams and (2) social venture within entrepreneurial teams. The first reason, I chose these two areas since, when most people heard of the word entrepreneur people would always think about successful individual Cooney, (2009). Next, another reason I chose these two topics because I have a passion on it and since there were minimal amount of journal publish. According to (Ben-Hafaïedh and Cooney, 2017), I recently explore that entrepreneurs who works in an organisation, tends to have a mindset of more than gaining profit as their main goals. Thus, this study plays an important role for social ventures in terms of business culture. Finally, this reflective essay would reflect on the learning journey I accumulate and further analyse certain literature used in this essay.

Thesis Statement

The thesis statement reflects on the following: Since team based entrepreneurial venture have wider opportunities than social venture. Therefore, entrepreneurial venture would face more obstacle within the team during the advancement.

Team Theory and Entrepreneurial Teams

From the research I conducted, Tuckman (1965) is the theory and the model which develop on four stages of team creation. From the study of (Tuckman, 1965), his theory demonstrate how individual is form into a team and what team experience did the team create, so the stages are listed as following: 1) Forming 2) Storming 3) Norming and 4) Performing. After the team is being settle, every single member would tend to ask each other question on what skill set individual in the team have. By not knowing each member skills set, the teams would probably distribute the workload inefficiently. Since, certain members do not have certain expertise in the task they are given and even personality wise would also affect the team aspect as well (Tuckman,1965). Following from the research of team’s formation, (Belbin,2010) and Tuckman theories have a good combination with each other. This is because Belbin theories emphasise on the task and detail area of the skill sets. Thus, by using Belbin the chances that the team would become more successful is favourable, since role are dissected into eight different main areas. Even though, Belbin theories have been criticised by the study of (Driskell et al., 2017), there is minimal research information to criticise against the theory. During the start of the module, I did not realise that there are certain theories which is related to team creation in organisation. But, as the module progress further, the study of (Block, 2018), inspire my interest because the study explains how team development plays a role in organisation. In my opinion, I think that an entrepreneur develops their own idea and then an entrepreneur would then hire someone to work for them. During my research, the study of (Ben-Hafaïedh and Cooney,2017) shows me a different path of view, on how certain team develop themselves. So, in my opinion, I think this study brings an understanding on how each entrepreneurial background transform their team progress. As I research further, the study of (Berger et al., 2014) indicates that different types entrepreneurial business has certain ways team are transformed. Even though, I had not considered venture, which entrepreneur team are formed through the base of the family. I tend to think entrepreneur as someone who creates new innovation and then launch those ideas into the market. As I often see those on media showing successful people. While I am currently refining academic sources, I found it difficult to see how entrepreneurs would run as family-oriented team. But, at the end reflecting on myself I notice that this family-oriented model is very common in certain part of the world. In the context of entrepreneurial venture, team commitment is a thing that Belbin and Tuckman have as their main feature. The study of (Klotz et al., 2014) claims that manger who oversees the team are able to pick certain members into certain field of expertise, which the teams need. However, in social venture teams are likely to operate in a different setting. The example from (Tuckman, 1965) shows that, since members in the family know each other already, this theory is not plausible. Despite knowing each other, this does not mean they would be able to work with each other smoothly and successfully Cardon et al., (2017). Family enterprise members tends to trust each more because they have known each other for a long period. This is an interesting insight that I have learnt during the course period.

Social Entrepreneurs – Opportunities and Challenges

From the research that I have conducted on social entrepreneurship, study of Ben-Hafaïedh and Cooney, (2017) indicates that social enterprise would emphasise more on the social driver rather than profit. Currently, from the data that I have explored, there are minimal amount of extensive research on it. But, from the consideration I made I personally think that this study supports the study of family business. Family business tends to start itself from the level of trust made by family members. Even though, some family business team face frictional issues with some family member. But at the end, by facing those issues within the family venture, the social entrepreneurial team would have the chance to visualise a clear business operations procedure. The study of (del Mol et al., 2015), indicates that family business firms culture differs from other entrepreneurial venture. For instance, family business teams tend to be more flexible within the team culture and norms. Another narrative research from Shi et al., (2015) article reported that family business mostly possesses different kinds of team atmosphere, which is unique than other entrepreneurial teams.  The main consciousness that social venture employs are as following:  1) staff loyalty 2) work engagement 3) social value. The main plausibility that social venture setting brings are, as staff feels that they are a part of another family, they would become value and feel grateful to be working. Therefore, this would link to the justification on how staff became loyal. Next, as staff are more relax in a social venture setting, the opportunity they can engage in their work is higher. The other aspect that social venture would look at are the ways to sustain social value of an organisation, rather than profit. This is mainly because social venture, would engage in the perspective of sustainably running the business in a long-run with the enhancement of raising social value. Normally, I always think that both profit and growth of the business are always king, but as I discover during the learning journey it is the opposite discovery. Even though, social entrepreneurs are one of the focus of this essay, but the links between organisation dynamics and strategy of family business are slightly obscured. From the other research I conduct, I have included source which looks on areas like team dynamics and cultural setting within teams.  So, by using the source from Cherchem, (2017) would back up the statement above on the aspect of culture. Although, I never gain the time to acknowledge those reading, but now I can give certain examples. For instance, family business usually has more focus on social aspect, rather than profit incentive. From the two topic which I discuss which are social entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial teams, I found that entrepreneurial teams might face certain weakness because entrepreneurial team need to go through the formation stages of the team, while social enterprise had faced those challenges already, creating a high level of trust form.  The main challenges that most of the teams might face are as following: assertive members might not listen to others opinion, which therefore create a poor team engagement (Scuotto et al., 2017). The next possible issue might be bad personal habits of the individual, unequal distribution of power, overlap decision making within business decision and personal feelings, would disrupt the team functionality.

Conclusion

All in all, during my research for the team learning journey, I have encountered that private enterprise tends to socially praise on profit incentive as one of their top business goals. Which therefore, this aspect contains both positivity and negativity in the future business success. Also, by using entrepreneurial venture incentive, the roles are delegated quickly towards agreeing on mutual objective within the organisation. The main common obstacle that most of the team face are as following: 1. managing team progress, 2. fundamental background available, 3. personality and 4. cultural/ belief norms. This module provides me a clear understanding of team formation theory like Tuckman/ Belbin and then linking it back to the actual practical session. By using information on social value, I would be able to understand the business awareness from the side of social enterprise, where they are more responsible.

References

  • Belbin, R.M., 2010. Management teams. London: Routledge.
  • Ben-Hafaïedh, C. and Cooney, T.M. eds., 2017. Research handbook on entrepreneurial teams: Theory and practice. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Berger, K., Surovek, A., Jensen, D. and Dakota, S., 2014, October. Individual creativity and team engineering design: A taxonomy for team composition. In 2014 IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference (FIE) (pp. 1-4). IEEE.
  • Block, P., 2018. Team development. Work3, p.3.
  • Cardon, M.S., Post, C. and Forster, W.R., 2017. Team entrepreneurial passion: Its emergence and influence in new venture teams. Academy of Management Review42(2), pp.283-305.
  • Cherchem, N., 2017. The relationship between organizational culture and entrepreneurial orientation in family firms: Does generational involvement matter?. Journal of Family Business Strategy8(2), pp.87-98.
  • Cooney, T.M., 2009. Entrepreneurial teams: Comparing high-growth software firms through structure and strategy. Management Research News32(6), pp.580-591.
  • de Mol, E., Khapova, S.N. and Elfring, T., 2015. Entrepreneurial team cognition: A review. International Journal of Management Reviews17(2), pp.232-255.
  • Driskell, T., Driskell, J.E., Burke, C.S. and Salas, E., 2017. Team roles: A review and integration. Small Group Research48(4), pp.482-511.
  • Klotz, A.C., Hmieleski, K.M., Bradley, B.H. and Busenitz, L.W., 2014. New venture teams: A review of the literature and roadmap for future research. Journal of Management40(1), pp.226-255.
  • Scuotto, V., Giudice, M.D., Holden, N. and Mattiacci, A., 2017. Entrepreneurial settings within global family firms: research perspectives from cross-cultural knowledge management studies. European Journal of International Management11(4), pp.469-489.
  • Shi, H.X., Shepherd, D.M. and Schmidts, T., 2015. Social capital in entrepreneurial family businesses: the role of trust. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research21(6), pp.814-841.
  • Tuckman, B.W., 1965. Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin63(6), p.384.

 

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