Category Archives: Blog

Blog, Enterprise Education, Social Entrepreneurship

Finding a Social Entrepreneur

The development of social enterprise over the last few years has lead to a wider appeal and also an increase in students looking at enterprise as a career option. These students are looking at the problems within their society and developing innovative solutions to the problems of today. This will be one of the core legacies of this recession as the young have seen how corporate greed can and does lead to a range of social and ethical issues.

We can not rely on bankers to mess up the economy so we can create greater social entrepreneurs.

So what are the core characteristics and triggers for social enterprise and entrepreneurs ?

Social enterprise is not new, so there is much evidence into its impact and development.  (Zahra et al). So reviewing some of the literature we essential have three types of social entrepreneur.

  1. Social Bricoleur : who is focused on small scale local social needs
  2. Social Constructionist : who exploits opportunities and market failures in order to introduce reforms in “broader” social system
  3. Social Engineer : who recognizes systemic failures and addresses them by introducing revolutionary change

Once we understand these three types, the development of the civic, social system and revolutionary change means we can identify a number of personal characteristics or attributes which the social entrepreneurs should hold, (Brooks pp12)

  • Innovativeness
  • Achievement Orientation
  • Independence
  • Sense of control over destiny
  • Low risk-aversion
  • Tolerance for ambiguity
  • Community awareness and social concerns

The first six are standard entrepreneurial attributes which you can find in the majority of literature and also entrepreneur tests, with the the seven being the community  aspect which introduces the social aspect of the entrepreneur.

These characteristics allow a level of entrepreneurship to exists when triggered. These trigger points are important (e.g. Banking Crisis). There are five entrepreneur trigger points which (Brooks, pp9).

  • Environment
  • Resources
  • Perturbation / Displacement
  • Personal Traits
  • Preparation

The majority of universities now have greater support for social enterprise, through partnerships with UnLtd and charitable organizations. These help create the right environment and provide the much needed resources to develop the idea. The education preparation for social entrepreneurship has been embedded into our education system for many years. Within the HE sector, we can see great examples from RAG, ENACTUS to formal Volunteering.

The social entrepreneur provides an opportunity to work with a real local issue and develop an eco system which ensures  real role models and local engagement for a wider set of students throughout their degrees. This is important in developing and maintaining our local economies.

By understanding the trigger points for social enterprise, we can help develop the skills and personal characteristics within our education system for successful social entrepreneurs.

Blog, Enterprise Education

New term, New version of Enterprise

For the student entrepreneur there is a great amount of support out there. However, this support is not well co-ordinated by the suppliers or by the university or college. Of course if you google “enterprise support” you get (Enterprise Support Services UK Ltd are a cleaning company based in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire)

However is a great list all students should take a look at:

9 stages, Blog, Enterprise Education, Entrepreneurship Theory, Inclusive Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship – In Context

Enterprise and entrepreneurship is a key driver in economic growth and can be a huge part of the solution to unemployment. Its impact also affects the whole of civilization because of the advancement in innovation technology as well as the creation of jobs that in consequence reduce poverty, according to Ernst and Young’s (2011).

“Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with less than 250 employees make up two-thirds of total employment in OECD countries. The European Commission showed in its SME Performance Review that the number of jobs in SMEs had increased at an average annual rate of 1.9%, while the number of jobs in larger enterprises increased by only 0.8% between 2002 and 2008” Ernst and Young (2011).

Ideally, governments should take an all-inclusive approach, which promotes the strengthening of the entire entrepreneurship environment. However, doing this first requires accurately measuring the multi-layered phenomenon that is entrepreneurship, as well as understanding the impact of a host of different factors on the level of entrepreneurship in a country. “These include the quality of the physical infrastructure, the health of the population, the level of education, the pace of adoption of new technologies and many other macro and micro factors” Ernst and Young (2011).

Therefore, is it essential that a ‘framework’ that can measure entrepreneurship accurately whilst analysing KPI’s (key performance indicators).

Among the key findings in Ernst and Young’s (2011) report:

1. Self-confidence is key
Our overall analysis provides a clear overview of where the G20 member countries stand with respect to fostering entrepreneurship. Combining two of our key findings — entrepreneurs’ confidence in their own country, and new business density

2. Entrepreneurship culture
The culture of a country can affect entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship on many levels. Our perceptions survey was central to our analysis of whether the culture of a country is conducive to Entrepreneurship.

3. Education and training
We go beyond looking at the overall performance of the educational system, to take a closer look at entrepreneurship specific education and assess how important this is for encouraging entrepreneurship.

4. Access to funding
Securing access to funding, both at the start-up phase and at later stages of enterprise development, is one of the biggest challenges for young entrepreneurs. We analyze the experiences of entrepreneurs in accessing funding across the G20 countries, and find some dramatic differences and valuable lessons.

5. Regulation and taxation
The regulatory and taxation environment is one of the areas in which governments have a key role in providing an enabling environment for entrepreneurial growth.

6. Coordinated support
There are typically a number of different agencies involved in facilitating and supporting entrepreneurship within a country. The level of support these agencies provide — and the extent to which they coordinate with one another — can make a crucial difference to the entrepreneurship Environment.

This increasing entrepreneurship and recognition of small enterprises in the health of the economy is also highlighted in recent reports.

According to the UK National Statistics (Nation. Stats 2012), the actual increase in the total business population between the start of 2011 and the start of 2012 will lie between 200,000 (4.4 per cent) and 253,000 (5.6 per cent).

The 4.8 million private sector businesses employed an estimated 23.9 million people, and had an estimated combined annual turnover of £3,100 billion.

The majority (62.7 per cent) of private sector businesses were sole proprietorships, 28.0 per cent were companies and 9.3 per cent were partnerships. At the start of 2012, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)3 accounted for 99.9 per cent of all private sector businesses, representing no change since 2011 and almost unchanged since 2000. SMEs also accounted for 59.1 per cent of private sector employment and 48.8 per cent of private sector turnover at the start of 2012.

For (Heseltine 2012), the prize is potentially huge. There are about 3.6 million self-employed people and sole traders in the UK, and 1.2 million businesses with at least one employee. That is 4.8 million in total. It is a fact, often noted, that if just one in 10 of these businesses took on an employee, or an additional employee, that would increase employment by 480,000.

In (Young 2012), it is estimated that if the UK had the same rate of entrepreneurship as the US, there would be approximately 900,000 additional businesses in the UK and that’s the real context for our stakeholders.

Blog, Motivation Techniques

The real question is, IS the probability of failure is greater than the probability of success?

Having studied statistics and quantum mechanics back in the late 80s at university (It has changed a little bit since then). I understand this life dimension runs between a number of statistic probabilities which in general provide a limited set of outcomes that on average can be determined. Thus having been born in the rural West Midlands(UK), living in a  village for the last 15 years, I will live until I’m 82 years old, as most of the street which I live on have. Job done!!

I don’t believe in enterprise because I want to keep the status quo!! Everything must change, change is the only option,change is good, so how do I change the probability in the favor of enterprise?

So should I even think about this?

I was walking in the forest with my wife, its was during the snow fall last February on a Saturday afternoon. A big forest which leads no where and goes no where, its just a big forest. So what is the probability that we three sets of people meet at the same time(yes same time, same place, all within one metre of each other) these people…

One man warring a three piece suite with two children, also carrying a pink bike
One man caring two plastic shopping bags full of shopping
A woman with two dogs talking on her mobile phone

OK, I think its about 170 million to one.

But if I could bottle it and give this to entrepreneurs who are starting a business, they would pay, being able to fix a 170 million one chance, just pure gold. Every day in my life I see these amazingly high probability opportunities come forward. I am sure I should say serendipity but  …

The real question is, IS the probability of failure is greater than the probability of success?

Given tomorrow, I will sit in a train carriage with a three other random people, who will never have meet, never meet again and spend a brief moment in time which will change the complete history of our galaxy.

Those who fail are not recorded in history. Thus the probability of success is just equal to 1. (Which means the probability of failure is just zero which is why we where we are, right now)

Given we will succeed, what path will you take in this?

Blog, Enterprise Education, Skills Development

Experience , Employability, Enterprise

Having worked with a number of universities over the last five years, the motivation for providing any sort of entrepreneurial development is coming down to three core KPIs.

When we consider the student within a university, they seek these three important indicators.

Experience

This aspect some years ago was the key reputation of the university. Now its about the enjoyment provided by the student’s union and the quality of the lecturing staff in providing an educational service. When you analysis the recent survey, the clear winners are those regional city universities which have professional on campus student services. The bottom of the table are those in major cities whose can not compete with the volume of other activities which the city offers.

However, the table shows interesting deviations which when you compare with enterprise support at that university. For an increasing number of students the size of the student bar or the availability of a 24/7 hockey pitch are not on their radar.

Employability

The curriculum and the offered courses are sliding against the sledge hammer of change to accommodate the holy grail of employability and the consequential Destination of Leavers survey. Promoting and recruiting students which have less than a 50% chance of employability is an impossible task for the majority of universities.

So embedding the opportunities to engage with business, gain valued experience and create a dialogue with employers which seek your students has to start, as always at fresher week and progress to the milk round and end with the much valued but of of reach alumni.

Enterprise

Everyone who goes to university should work in an enterprise. It may be government, social, charity, self employment, startup, SME or even a FTSE 250. In every case our students should know where they provide the value, which pays them their wages. Around this concept we develop our students with enterprise awareness and skills.

I was listening to BIS minster who stated when Warwick University started their business school and student and staff tried to stop this, stating that universities and business should be separate.

  • Education and Business should always be aligned.
  • Research and Business should not always be aligned.

Enterprise in education should accommodate the student requirements to service their desire to fulfill their career ambitions.This may be to work in business, government, freelancing or starting a business. Every single one of them should be entrepreneurial in their outlook to ensure they seek the opportunities available to them and the country.