5: Entrepreneurs and leaders in the UK car market

Entrepreneur

A person who sets up a business, take on risks with the aim of gaining a reward  

Key roles of an entrepreneur

* Creating and setting up a business  
* Running and developing a business 
* Innovation within a business (intrapreneurship) 
* Overcoming barriers (lack of money, lack of confidence, inadequate training, entrepreneurial capacity)  
* Anticipating risks and uncertainties  

Characteristics required for an entrepreneur  

* Initiative          - Hard-working  
* Creative          - Self-confident 
* Risk-taker       - Resilient 

Skills required for an entrepreneur

* Communication skills         - Team-working skills 
* Problem-solving skills        - Numeracy skills  
* Organisation skills              - IT skills 

Financial motives for setting up a business  

* Profit maximisation: making as much profit as possible 
* Profit satisficing: making enough profit (lifestyle) 

Non-financial motives for setting up a business  

* Ethical stance 
* Social entrepreneurship: making a difference to a social problem  
* Independence: no boss, freedom, work-life balance 
* home working: not having a commute  

The difficulties in developing from an entrepreneur to a leader

* learning to delegate  
* trust and verify  
* learning to listen  
* developing emotional intelligence 
* having an open mind  
* being less reactive  

Strong culture

Employees agree with the corporate values of the business

Strengths of a strong culture

Employees need less supervision

Staff more loyal, turnover is lower

Increases motivation, more productive

Weak culture

Employees don’t share the firm’s corporate values

Weaknesses of a weak culture

Demotivated staff

High staff turnover

Can breed toxic cultures

Power culture

Have centralised structure where decision making authority is limited to a small number of people

Strength of power culture

\-Quick decisions

Role culture

Authority is defined by job title. Decisions come from senior managers

Weakness of power

Employees more resistant to change, didn’t have a say, don’t trust managers

Strength of role

Everyone knows their position of power in the company

Weakness of role

Poor communication between department, respond slowly to change

Task culture

Emphasis on getting tasks done by small teams working on projects

Strengths of task

Respond well to management objectives

Less resistant to change – seen as normal

Weakness of task

May be conflict between teams for resources and budgets

Person culture

People think that they are superior to the business

Strength of person

Decisions made jointly, so likely to be comfortable and accepting of changes

Weakness of person

Decisions on change difficult to make – think of themselves

How is corporate culture formed?

\-Leadership style/strength

\-Type of ownership

\-Recruitment policies

Difficulties in changing an established culture

\-Employees who have worked for long time likely to resist

\-Changing attitudes and behaviours is difficult

\-Expensive, extra training

Business objectives

* Survival  
* Profit maximisation  
* Sales maximisation 
* Market share  
* Cost efficiency  
* Employee welfare  
* Customer satisfaction  
* Social objective