创业与创新之间的关系(2)

Theories giving traits of entrepreneurs, however, is a generalisation of all entrepreneurs and can be easily criticised as there are so many different types and individual entrepreneurs that cannot be segmented and categorised. The studies give traits of entrepreneurs and do not take into account the background. For example, one entrepreneur may be a university graduate, whilst another could be a middle aged worker who has found a way doing what their business is doing more efficiently. Therefore it is likely that the traits they portray are not all identical to each other. If all the traits an entrepreneur is said to portray in journals and articles are true then entrepreneurs would be close to perfectly efficient and functioning human beings.

People can also be innovative but cannot make the step up to become entrepreneurial, the BBC television programme (2. The Age of Plenty, The Foods that make Billions 2010) it shows us the story of how business has turned grain into one of the biggest success stories of the modern food industry. In the beginning it was one of the Kellogg brothers who invented the product; however it was the other one of the brothers that took it forward as a business. The person who created the idea is the brother of the entrepreneur and he could be seen as innovative. His brother was the one who took the idea further, by increasing the product range and adding sugar to it where his brother chose not to. Therefore a differentiation is shown here between the two thought processes of simply just an inventor and then an entrepreneurial mind that has increased the size of the company, and its profits, significantly.

Apple, in recent times, is a great example to use when referring to both entrepreneurial expertise and new innovative products. Before the IPod was launched on October 23rd 2001, there were there means of personal media players which people were satisfied with. However the idea of '1000 songs in your pocket' came by surprise and nobody could have predicted it. People used portable CD players and walkmans without realising the potential and they were later deemed 'clunky and useless'. However, The IPod has become a household name, and despite not being the first mp3 player they revolutionised the MP3 and now people call them IPods rather than mp3 players. Here the iPod can be seen to be in line with Schumpeter's idea of creative destruction (1934) because it is an example of how a new introduction (of the iPod) effectively destroyed the ideas that came before it, e.g. people don't use walkman anymore, due to the intro of the iPod. The reason Apple is a near perfect example of a complementary relationship between both innovation and entrepreneurship is because of their actions after the initial introduction, and the way in which they continued to use innovative strategies and keep up the level of innovation and did not settle on the idea. Further developments on the IPod were brought to the market, for example the mini, shuffle, nano and the touch were all further innovations, and then they continued to create other products under the Apple brand. They made the new Mac books, the air and the pro, Apple Macs which further competed with other computer companies than they did in the past. Then more recently they have made the I Phone, which has 4 different models, and potentially more, iPad and in the future they are also looking into moving into a new (for them) form of media, TV. These innovative ideas, along with the fact that they are becoming a market leader in electronics and making huge profits year on year, whilst 'banging nails' into past leader of the portable media industry (with the walkman) Sony's 'coffin' (Naughton, 2010). They demonstrate perfectly why innovation has such a relationship with entrepreneurship. The reality of it is, however, one day there will be innovation, not by apple, and perhaps not by any of the current firms in the electronics market, that will kill off apple and lead to a new market leader. Due to the nature of innovation, however much Apple prepare they will not be able to prevent this happening.

Drucker's source of opportunity (1985) is a model in which the opportunities for an entrepreneur come about both internally and externally. Internally through inadequacy, changes in market or coming about through chance; or externally through perception and mood, demographic changes and new knowledge, from individuals or chance revelations.

'Small firms are more innovative than their large firm counterparts, being less bound by convention and more flexible' (Carter & Jones-Evans 2006) This suggests that in large firms which have set policy and running to it, would be more ridged, and therefore less reactive to a change in the market and could be pushed out of the market due to new innovative firms taking over. Therefore for a business to succeed in the long term they may need innovative ideas to survive and prevent being overtaken by the more innovative smaller firms.

To sum up the relationship between innovation and entrepreneurship is not a simple thing to do with a single sentence answer. What I can conclude is that there is a differing relationship between the two in different fields of study. A common idea of the relationship is that it is a dependant one, in which both are needed in an economy to stimulate economic growth. The idea that innovation is a part of the entrepreneurial process is one that I agree with, there can be innovation without an entrepreneur involved; however there cannot be a successful entrepreneurial venture without the input of innovation. This is because innovation is what will be the distinction between ideas, without innovation there may be change or progression and this could lead to a stagnant economy. The examples I have given of entrepreneurs are ones that I believe show a differing amount of innovation, but similar amounts of success, Stelios had merely a change in the pricing and strategy of airline firms which when compared to the example of apple is only a small change, however, innovation is still shown and is still important. Overall in most cases it is not just an individual entrepreneur people may be inspired by an individual innovative idea and create entrepreneurial flow of a business over time as a team which can lead to great success with the right mix of both innovation and entrepreneurial processes.