LECTURE 2:

ENTREPRENEURIAL CHARACTERISTICS,
DISTINCTION BETWEEN AN ENTREPRENEUR AND A MANAGER,
AGRI-ENTREPRENEURSHIP- CONCEPT, NEED AND SCOPE

CHARACTERISTICS OF ENTREPRENEUR
Entrepreneur is a key figure in economic progress. He is the person who
introduces new things in the economy. He is considered as the business leader and not
as simple owner of capital. He is a person with telescopic faculty, drive and talent who
perceives business opportunities and promptly seizes them for exploitation. M.M.P.
Akhouri, formerly Executive Director, National Institute for Entrepreneurship and Small
Business Development (NIESBUD), New Delhi, describes entrepreneur “as a character
who combines innovativeness, readiness to take risk, sensing opportunities, identifying
and mobilizing potential resources, concerns for excellence and who is persistent in
achieving the goal.” To be successful, an entrepreneur should have the following
characteristic features.
1. Need to achieve: Entrepreneurs have got strong desire to achieve higher goals.
Their inner self motivates their behaviour towards high achievement: most of the people
dream of success but do not take any action towards achieving these dreams.
Entrepreneurs with high n-Ach factor act continuously to achieve the goal and make
their dreams come true. For them, winning is achievement.
2. Independence: Most of the entrepreneurs start on their own because they dislike to
work for others. They prefer to be their own boss and want to be responsible for their
own decisions.
3. Risk-bearing: Entrepreneurs are the persons who take decisions under uncertainty
and thus they are willing to take risk, but they never gamble with the results. They
choose moderate risk rather than play wild gamble. They, therefore, undertake calculated
risk which is high enough to be exciting, but with a fairly reasonable chance to win.
4. Locus of control: According to Rotter’s locus of control theory, an individual
perceives the outcome of an event as being either within or beyond his personal control.
Entrepreneurs believe in their own ability to control the consequences of their
endeavour by influencing their socio-economic environment rather than leave
everything to luck.
5. Perseverance: Entrepreneur has got the quality of sticking to job he decides to
undertake. Once committed to a specific goal and course of action, entrepreneurs
become absorbed to it. They personally solve the problems that come across their way
while setting up the project. They also work sincerely until the whole project is
successfully implemented.
6. Positive self-concept: Entrepreneurs are always positive in their action. Being an
achiever, he directs his fantasies and dreams towards achievement of worthwhile goals
and sets extraordinary standard of excellence in what he is doing. This is based upon
his awareness of SWOT analysis, i.e. his strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and

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threats. He utilizes his positive knowledge to support his thinking. He never exhibits
any negative attitude.
7. Ability to find and explore opportunities: Entrepreneurs are always alert to
opportunities. They are very much quick to see and grab opportunities. They exhibit
an innovative turn of mind and convert the problems into viable opportunities. They
plan intellectually and anticipate carefully how to achieve their goals in realizing an
opportunity.
8. Hope of success: Hope of success is a significant quality of entrepreneurial
personality. Entrepreneurs set their goals with a hope of success rather than fear of
failure. This is because they set their goals on the basis of facts and their ability to
maneuver them to their advantage.
9. Flexibility: Most of the successful entrepreneurs measure the pros and cons of a
decision and tend to change if the situation demands. They never feel reluctant to
revise their decisions. They are the persons with open mind without rigidity.
10. Analytical ability of mind: Entrepreneurs are unaffected by personal likes and
dislikes. They stand beyond these types of prejudices as they are realistic in their
approach. At the time of their need they select experts rather than friends and relatives
to assist them. They usually avoid emotional and sensitive attitude towards their
business or problem.
11. Sense of efficacy: Entrepreneurs are always oriented towards action for
accomplishment of their goals. Being confident of their abilities, they find themselves as
problem solvers rather than problem avoiders. They chalk out their goals for future and
make planning to achieve them.
12. Openness to feedback and learning from experience: Successful entrepreneurs
like to have immediate feedback of their performance. They modify their plans on the
basis of the feedback they receive from the environment around them. They learn from
their experience and never get discouraged having received unfavorable information.
On the contrary, they are stimulated by unfavorable information to involve themselves
sincerely in their own tasks to reach their desired goals.
13. Confronting uncertainty: Successful entrepreneurs are always optimistic and
take every odd as the opportunity. They maneuver their environment in such a way that
the works get accomplished rationally. Thus, they win by the application of their
extraordinary insight and skill.
14. Interpersonal skills: Entrepreneurs are always comfortable while dealing with
people at all levels. They interact with raw material suppliers, customers, bankers, etc..
for different activities. As successful entrepreneurs, they should be persons who like
working with others possessing the much needed quality of interpersonal skill to deal
with people.
15. Need to influence others: Once the entrepreneurs set their goals, they have to
play the roles of manager too. For influencing others (n Power), a low need to establish
emotional relationship (low n Affiliation), and a high need to discipline one’s own self (to
inhibit over expression of their personality) are essential.

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16. Stress takers: Entrepreneurs are capable of working for long hours and solving
different complexities at the same time. As the captain of an industry or an enterprise,
an entrepreneur faces a number of problems and in right moment he takes right
decisions which may involve physical as well as mental stress. He can face these
challenges if he has the capability to work for long hours and keep himself cool under
monotony.
17. Time orientation: Entrepreneurs anticipate future trends basing upon their past
experience and exposure. They stick to the time pragmatically while doing their jobs.
18. Innovators: Successful entrepreneurs are innovators. They constantly put their
efforts in introducing new products, new method of production, opening new markets
and recognizing the enterprise.
19. Business communication skill: In order to motivate others in the business
entrepreneurs must possess good communication skill. Both written and oral
communication skills are necessary for the entrepreneurs for running enterprise
efficiently.
20. Telescopic faculty: Successful entrepreneurs always tend to think ahead. They
have got telescopic faculties which make them think for the future. Future orientation
makes them quite alert to the changing conditions of the time and they tend to produce
goods and commodities as per the changing demands.
21. Leadership: Entrepreneurs should possess the quality of leadership. Leadership
is the ability to exert interpersonal influence by means of communication towards the
achievement of goals. Entrepreneurs as the leaders should provide the necessary
spark to motivation by guiding, inspiring, assisting and directing the members of the
group for achievement of unity of action, efforts and purpose. Hence, entrepreneurs by
their own leadership styles and behaviour reduce the problems by proper handling of
situations. Good administrative work depends upon effective leadership of the
entrepreneur.
22. Business planning: Planning implies deciding in advance what, when and how to
do a thing. Entrepreneurs should be equipped with skill and knowledge to prepare their
business plan. A successful entrepreneur always follows the principles of management
while planning for his business. The planning can act as a bridge between the present
position and expected future shape of the enterprise. It provides a sense of vision to
the entrepreneurs to cope with risky and uncertain situation.
23. Decision making: Decision-making skill is a fundamental characteristic of an
entrepreneur. This implies the function of choosing a particular course of action at
every stage of creation of an enterprise out of several alternative courses for the
purpose of achieving specified goals. Hence, decision making is necessary at all times
and mostly at conditions of uncertainty and risk.
24. Ability to mobilize resources: Entrepreneurs must have the ability to marshal all
the inputs to obtain the end product. They have to mobilize 6Ms, i.e. Man, Money,
Material, Machinery, Market and Method effectively to realize the final product as
entrepreneurship is a function of gap filling and input completing.

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25. Self-confidence: Entrepreneurs must have self-confidence to accomplish the task
effectively and efficiently. They must take decisions on their own in uncertain and risky
situation and should stick to it confidently even if there occurs initial setbacks.

DISTINCTION BETWEEN AN ENTREPRENEUR AND A MANAGER

Point for Entrepreneur Manager
Distinction
1. Goal An entrepreneur starts a venture But the main aim of a manager is
Management by setting up a new enterprise to render his service in an
for his personal gratification enterprise already set up by
someone.
2. Status Entrepreneur is the owner of A manager is the servant in the
enterprise. enterprise.
3. Risk An entrepreneur bears all risks A manager being a servant does
and uncertainty involved in the not bear ay risk involved in the
enterprise. enterprise.
4. Rewards Entrepreneur for his risk bearing A manager receives salary as
role he receives profits. It is not reward for service rendered which
only uncertain and irregular but is fixed and regular can never be
can at times be negative. negative.
5. Innovation As an innovator he is called as A manager executes the plans of
change agent who introduces the entrepreneur. Thus a manager
goods and services to meet translates the ideas into practice.
changing needs of the customer

AGRI – ENTREPRENEURSHIP CONCEPT, NEED AND SCOPE

Amidst the changing paradigms and demanding global structure, India, In order
to remain a front-runner needs to primarily focus on the agriculture sector, the backbone
of the economy. This specialization will develop agri-preneurs with distinct traits and
skills to exploit opportunities galore in the field of agriculture. Among the various
strategies to promote planned growth in this sector, focus on promoting viable
enterprises will certainly help exploit its operational efficiency to the hilt.
Agriculture is the mainstay of the Indian economy because of its high share in
employment and livelihood creation. It supports more than half a billion people providing
employment to 52 per cent of the workforce. Its contribution to the nation's GDP is about
18.5 per cent in 2006-07. It is also an important source of raw material and demand for
many industrial products, particularly fertilizers, pesticides, agricultural implements and
a variety of consumer goods.
Agripreneurship: It is defined as generally sustainable, community oriented,
directly marketed agriculture. Sustainable agriculture denotes a holistic, systems
oriented approach to farming that focuses on the interrelationships of social, economic
and environmental process.

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Need for Agripreneurship:
 Increasing demand of organic and quality food both in India and abroad
 Competitive advantages for many primary production activities in agriculture. Ex:
Rainfed farming, livestock and wild craft production is through low cost
production technologies only.
 Private sector is willing to enter in to agribusiness at all levels of operation.
 To reduce mall nutrition as majority of women and children in the country are
mall nourished.
Scope for entrepreneurship development in Agriculture:
 Technologies those reduce the cost of production and increase the benefit of the
farmers will open new opportunities for Agri-entrepreneurship.
 New technologies that are simple and time saving and keep away farmers from
drudgery of labour will also provide opportunity for entrepreneurship in
agriculture.
 Technologies that provide social and psychological benefits to farmers will also
provide opportunity for entrepreneurship in agriculture.

On farm Activities:
Depending upon the geographical situation and resources availability, the possible
areas of entrepreneurship in agriculture are:
(1) Agro produce processing units: These units do not manufacture any new
product. They merely process the agriculture produce.
e.g., Rice mills, Dal mills, Decorticating mills etc.
(2) Agro produce manufacturing units: These units produce entirely new products
based on the agricultural produce as the main raw material.
e.g., Sugar factories, Bakery, Strawboard units etc.
(3) Agro-inputs manufacturing units: These units produce goods either for
mechanization of agriculture or for increasing productivity. E.g., Fertilizer manufacturing
plants, insecticides production units, food processing units, agricultural implements etc.
(4) Agro-service centers: These include the workshops and service centers for
repairing and serving the agricultural implements used in agriculture.
Off-Farm Vocations:
Entrepreneurship development is also profitable in different off-farm activities like
cloth stitching, knitting, embroidery, cloth printing (tie and dye), carpet making, dari
making, envelope and plastic bag making, agarbatti making, candle making, rope
making, basket making, bamboo-work, distilled water making, oil extraction, chalk
making, biogas mechanic, electric wiring, mason, carpentry, black smithy, solar
mechanic, electrician, auto mechanic, welding, pottery, and other rural crafts.
The possible areas of entrepreneurship in allied activities of agriculture
This includes the activities like, Dairying, Sericulture, Goat rearing, Rabbit
rearing, Floriculture, Fisheries, Shrimp farming, Poultry farming, Sheep rearing,
Vegetable cultivation, Nursery farming, Grafting/budding, Farm forestry, etc...