MGB1010 · Introduction To Management
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity to create value — usually through a new venture, innovation and a tolerance for risk. The subject's key move is to treat opportunity-spotting as a discipline you can train, not luck: Peter Drucker's seven sources of innovation are the checklist (the unexpected, the incongruous, process need, industry/market structure, demographics, changes in perception, new knowledge). It then widens the lens from the lone founder to the social enterprise — a mission with a margin, held to a double or triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) — distinguished from both a charity and an ordinary firm. Two more ideas round it out: the tri-sector leader fluent across business, government and the social sector, and the intrapreneur who acts entrepreneurially inside an existing firm. Named real examples in the unit are STREAT and Who Gives A Crap.
What this chapter covers
- 014.1 What is an entrepreneur? Definition & characteristics
- 02Entrepreneur vs manager, and the delegation paradox
- 03Drucker's seven sources of innovation & opportunity
- 04Inside vs outside the firm (and the link back to PESTLE)
- 05Social enterprise — a mission with a margin
- 06The double / triple bottom line; charity vs enterprise vs firm
- 074.2 The tri-sector leader; 4.3 intrapreneurship
Worked example: match the scenario to a Drucker source, then classify the venture
- +1(a) Drucker source. A predictable population shift — age, size, location — is demographics, source #5 (one of the three outer, society-level sources).
- +1(b) PESTLE mapping. Demographics sits in PESTLE's Sociocultural bucket — the opportunity radar and the macro scan are the same habit pointed at different ends.
- +1(c) Test #1 — where does the money come from? Mostly trading revenue (not donations) → it is not a charity.
- +2(c) Test #2 — where does surplus go? Back into the mission (not to owners) → it is not an ordinary firm. So it is a social enterprise.
- +1(c) Bottom line. It holds a double / triple bottom line (people + profit, or people, planet, profit) — commercial viability is the engine, not the goal.
Key terms
- Entrepreneurship
- The pursuit of opportunity to create value — commonly by founding a new venture — through innovation while bearing risk. The hallmark is innovation: creating something new (product, service, process or business model) that customers or society value.
- Drucker's seven sources
- Peter Drucker's checklist of where innovation opportunity is found systematically, not by luck: the unexpected, the incongruous, process need, industry & market structure (the four inside the firm/industry), then demographics, changes in perception and new knowledge (the three out in society). New knowledge is the rarest and slowest.
- Social enterprise
- A business that trades to fund a social or environmental mission, reinvesting surplus into that mission rather than paying it to owners. The hybrid middle ground between a charity (mission, donor-funded) and an ordinary firm (profit, owner-funded). Unit examples: STREAT and Who Gives A Crap.
- Triple bottom line
- Holding a venture to three measures at once — people, planet, profit (social, environmental, economic) — rather than the single financial bottom line of an ordinary firm. The double bottom line is people + profit. Commercial viability is the engine that keeps the mission sustainable.
- Intrapreneurship
- Entrepreneurship practised inside an existing organisation: employees who spot opportunities and champion innovation without leaving to found a separate venture. Enabled by empowerment and autonomy, tolerance of failure, an organic / learning structure, and slack with a senior sponsor.
Entrepreneurship FAQ
What are Drucker's seven sources of innovation?
The unexpected (a surprise success, failure or outside event), the incongruous (a gap between what is and what ought to be), process need (a weak link in how something is made or delivered), industry & market structure (shifts that reshape an industry), demographics (predictable population change), changes in perception (a shift in what people believe or value), and new knowledge (genuinely new know-how — the riskiest and slowest). The first four are inside the firm/industry; the last three are out in society.
How do I tell a social enterprise from a charity and an ordinary firm?
Ask two questions. (1) Where does the money come from? Mostly donations and grants → charity; mostly trading revenue → social enterprise or ordinary firm. (2) Where does surplus go? Back into the mission → social enterprise; to shareholders → ordinary firm. A social enterprise is the hybrid: it trades like a business but exists for a mission, holding a double or triple bottom line.
Is innovation the same as invention?
No — that is a common quiz distractor. Drucker's point is the opposite: most opportunities are mundane (a process gap, a demographic trend), not lab breakthroughs. New knowledge is the rarest and slowest of his seven sources. Spotting the boring opportunity first — the surprise, the gap, the shifting crowd — is the skill, and it is why innovation can be trained rather than waited for.
What is a tri-sector leader and why does the unit care?
A tri-sector leader is the highly employable “triple threat” who has worked across the private (business), public (government) and social / not-for-profit sectors. Because today's biggest problems — sustainability, inequality, public health — cut across all three, such a leader can broker solutions no single-sector specialist can. It maps directly onto the unit's 35% sustainability artefact, which is, almost by definition, tri-sector work.
Exam move
This is a recall-and-recognise topic, so build fast recognition. Memorise Drucker's seven sources as a checklist and practise matching a scenario to one — underline what changed (an event → unexpected; a clunky step → process need; who the customers are → demographics; what they believe → perception), and reserve new knowledge for genuinely novel science because it is the least-often-correct answer. Drill the two-question test for social enterprise (money in / surplus out) and the double-vs-triple bottom line. Hold the named examples (STREAT, Who Gives A Crap) ready. Finally, link the outer Drucker sources back to PESTLE — demographics is Sociocultural, new knowledge is Technological — and note the structure link: organic / learning organisations grow intrapreneurs; mechanistic ones kill them.
