Innate characteristics of the entrepreneur and its functions as they contribute to economic growth and development.

CHARACTERISTICS OF
THE ENTREPRENEUR
The innate qualities that contribute to that confidence needed to step
out.
Some of these characteristics include;
1.     
Hard work: Willingness to work distinguishes a successful entrepreneur
from unsuccessful one.
2.     
High optimistic: The successful entrepreneur is not disturbed by present
problems, they are optimistic for the future that the situations become
favourable business in future.

3.     
Independence: The entrepreneur does not want to be guided by others and
follow their doctrine.
4.     
Desire for high achievement: The entrepreneur has strong desire to
achieve high business empire.
5.     
Foresight: The entrepreneur has a good foresight to know about the
future of the business environment.
6.     
Good organisation: It is the duties of the entrepreneur to bring
together all resources required for starting from start-up business
environment.
7.     
Initiation: It is ingenious and alert to opportunities.
8.     
Attitude: The entrepreneur must have a positive outlook towards people
showing a friendly interest in a pleasant and polite manner
9.     
Responsibility: An entrepreneur should be willing and capable of
assuming complete responsibilities for the operation and success of the
entrepreneur.
10. Leadership: He/she should not only be acceptable
but also be able to inspire confidence and loyalty among his employees and
business associates.
11. Organisation ability: An entrepreneur must be
capable of perceiving and arranging fundamental issues in logical orders.
12. Industriousness: Entrepreneur must be able to work
hard for the long hours required in an independence business.
13. Perseverance: He/she must remain steadfast in
working towards his goals and not be easily discouraged by obstacles.
14. Decisiveness:  Be able to react quickly and accurately when
decisions are required.
At this time, the characteristics can be classified which are as
follows;
Psychological
characteristics
1.           
He/she has a high need for achievement and success.
2.           
Strong desire for responsibility and independence.
3.           
He has a high degree of confidence
4.           
Does not like routine work, doing the same job every day.
5.           
Has the ability to tolerate failure
6.           
Has internal focus of control
Sociological
characteristics
1.     
They are goal oriented
2.     
They have capacity to adapt to changing conditions
3.     
They have the ability to organise men and other resources to achieve
their goals.
4.     
They should know how to lead the people so that they do not run the
business anyhow.
Economic characteristics
1.     
They are profit oriented
2.     
They have talking ability
3.     
They have the ability to innovate and speculate.
The
entire above characteristics are basic feature that determine entrepreneur
personality.
Skills of entrepreneur
For
an entrepreneur to succeed, he/she must possess some skills for the effective
and efficient operation of the venture.
According
to Henri Fayol, the father of administrative management, three skills are
considered as very basic to the good management of any business. These skills
are;
1.     
Technical skill: This show the competence and proficiency in the
knowledge of the business. It is the possession of knowledge and understanding
methods, possession, procedures and techniques required to run the business
successfully.
2.     
Human relations skills: These enable the entrepreneur to work
effectively building team working among subordinates. It enhance the
entrepreneur’s interactions with his employees, customers, clients, suppliers,
competitors and regulatory authorities.
3.     
Administrative/conceptual skill: This skill enables the entrepreneur to
see the business organisation as an integral unit and perceive the entire
relation of the various functions and activities.
Furthermore,
we can classify the skill required by the entrepreneur into four main areas;
technical skills, interpersonal skills, business management skill and personal
entrepreneur skills.
Technical skills
·     
Writing
·     
Oral communication/presentation.
·     
Coaching
·     
Monitoring
·     
Technical experience
·     
Technology
·     
Being a team player
·     
Organisation
Interpersonal Skill
·     
Ability to organise
·     
Network building
·     
Management style
·     
Coaching
·     
Being a team player
·     
Leadership style
·     
Listening
Business management skills
This
skill involves those areas in starting, development and managing any enterprise
such as;
·     
Decision making
·     
Human relation
·     
Marketing
·     
Finance
Personal entrepreneurial skills
These
are skills that differentiate entrepreneur from the manager.
·     
Inner/control discipline
·     
Risk taking
·     
Innovation
·     
Change oriented
·     
Visionary leader
·     
Ability to manage change.
Function of the entrepreneur as they contribute to
economic growth and development
The
entrepreneur plays strategic role and functions in the economy as a prime mover
of change. We will try and know the concept of development and economy before
going into the functions.
·        
Economy: An economy can be seen as any specified collection of
interrelated set of marketed and non marketed productive activities. (Lipsy,
1953). Thus, the Nigerian economy should refer to all such economic activities
taking place in the domain of Nigeria (the domestic economy) or all such
economy activities of Nigerian resident whenever in the world they happen to
perform or that activity (The National Economy).
·        
Economic development: It means more than mere growth in the economy (in
terms of increased output, it is the process of positive transformation in
various sections of the economy. With economic development, there are
transformations in the different sections of the economy as well as general
improvement in various aspect of the economic activities and in different areas
of the country leading to increased in economy welfare of the citizen.
·        
Economic growth: This is a process whereby national income or output is
increased. Growth is also when there sustained increased in actual output of
goods and services per-head. Economic growth therefore measures increase in
real national income.
An
entrepreneur does perform all the function necessary right from the genesis of
any idea up to the establishment of an enterprise. These can be listed to the
following sequential manner.
This
can be listed in the following sequential manner.
1.   Idea generation and scanning of the best suitable
idea.
2.    Determination of the business objectives.
3.   Product of analysis and market research
4.   Determination of firm’s ownership
5.   Completion of promotion formalities
6.   Raising necessary funds
7.   Procuring machine and materials
8.   Recruitment and section of workforce
9.   Undertake business operation
It
is undoubtedly accepted that small scale business forms the bedrock of many
nations’ industrial takeoff especially in a typical development country like
Nigeria in the following ways.
1.     
Entrepreneur ventures provide more than employment per unit of capital
invested because they are generally more than labour intensive.
2.     
The entrepreneur identifies business opportunities, mobilises and
organise the resources to tap into the opportunities.
3.     
Entrepreneur venture and large industries by the manufacturer raw
material input and general act as catalyst to larger industries.
4.     
Entrepreneur venture encourage indigenous entrepreneurship which will
help to develop manpower technique
5.     
The entrepreneur market his products, services and ideas and ensure
active performance of the finance and production.
6.     
The entrepreneur monitors and responds to the environment by keeping
abreast of what is happening in the environment.
7.     
The entrepreneur takes perception of marketing opportunities.
8.     
The entrepreneur gain command over scarce resources like raw materials.
9.     
The entrepreneur make purchases of inputs, which include the type of
technology the organisation, choose to use, raw materials and all the overall
management of such company.
10. The entrepreneur markets the product and responds
to competitions by arranging or initiating sale promotion. This may includes
reduction of prices or give it out freely to marketing.
11. The entrepreneur ensure that the management
relation with firm for instance, the management of the conflict or crisis to
ensure industrial harmony.
12. The entrepreneur must be involved in production
management by written records, adequate supervision and proper coordination of
input flows and should be involved in maintenance.
Overall look at the small and medium enterprise sector would reveal
macro-economic facts pointing to development that should enhance more income
parity to capacity that would enhance more income parity, raise capacity
utilization of industries, lower inflation by producing more creating
competition. Further development of the sector would also increase gross
Domestic Product and will raise the overall standard of living.

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