«How Entrepreneurs Can Change the Context of Their Venture» - Free Essay Paper

Entrepreneurs strive to solve the unmet needs by providing unique solutions to the problems faced by people in a certain region. They foster innovation in a manner that helps in changing public awareness in order to stimulate engagement and support of their ventures. They promote new and different ideas that have a sustainable impact. However, it is vital for entrepreneurs to show that their ideas have practical value and are superior to the existing solutions. The innovations of entrepreneurs are disseminated in a manner that ultimately makes them become the ‘new normal.’ However, in the early stages of the innovations, they differ from the cultural mainstream of a certain region (Goss et al. 2011). When the innovations or changes clash with the long-standing cultural traditions, values or routines of a certain community, entrepreneurs use a structured approach to implement the innovations or changes.

Time, scope, preservation, diversity, capability, capacity, and readiness are the major factors that affect the context of an organization. Entrepreneurs should first determine how quickly the context of their ventures need to be changed. This determines how they would implement the changes required. They should also determine the degree of change that the organization needs. Entrepreneurs may either change a part of it or instigate a paradigm change of the organization (Rindova, Barry, & Ketchen 2009). Paradigm change is the most difficult to implement. Entrepreneurs should also determine the assets, characteristics, and practices that they should maintain after the change. Besides, they should ensure that the changes do not lead to a significant alteration in the identity of the venture, so that it would lose its competitiveness (Hjorth 2012).

When changing the context of an organization, it is vital for entrepreneurs to consider diversity of the target groups. They should determine whether the groups that are targeted by the changes are homogenous. This would enable entrepreneurs implement the changes more effectively. Entrepreneurs should also consider the capability of the ventures. This would involve determining whether the ventures have managerial and personal capability of implementing the changes in their context. Entrepreneurs should also consider the proper time when the available resources would help in affecting the change. The resources include people, cash, and time (Paton & McCalman 2008).

Moreover, entrepreneurs should consider readiness of the employees to implement the changes, e.g. ensure that the personnel are aware and motivated. Entrepreneurs should also determine where the power of the ventures is concentrated. They should determine how much power they should give to the parties that would help in implementing the changes.

Kotter (2013) distinguishes eight steps that an organization should take to implement changes. Entrepreneurs should first ensure that they create a sense of urgency. This would help in portraying that the change is vital to the organization. They should then ensure that there is powerful coalition that would help in guiding the change. The coalition would undertake activities that are critical in implementing the change (Cameron & Green 2012). Entrepreneurs should also create a vision that the change would strive to attain. The vision would guide the change process. It would ensure that they are geared towards the achievement of a common goal. These steps would help in mobilizing the organization to implement the change (Gilley 2005).

Entrepreneurs should then communicate the vision that the changes would strive to attain. Communicating the vision would help gain support from reputable stakeholders (Biech 2007). They should then empower the stakeholders to undertake activities that would help in achieving the vision of the changes. Entrepreneurs should then ensure that they plan for and create short-term milestones. The milestones would help in motivating the change agents by showing that they are heading in the right direction (Kotter 2014).

Furthermore, entrepreneurs should consolidate improvements that resulted from changes and strive to implement more changes. Finally, they should institutionalize the changes to make them become the ‘new normal’ (Roth & DiBella 2015).

In conclusion, entrepreneurs formulate solutions to the existing problems. They strive to ensure that people adhere to them. Entrepreneurs should guarantee that they change the context of their organizations in order to remain relevant. Time, scope, preservation, diversity, capability, capacity, and readiness are the major factors that affect the context of an organization. Using Kotter’s 8-step model would enable an organization to implement changes more efficiently.