Henry Ford: The 1900-1950s Era Entrepreneurial Trait Study

Research and discuss the Life and Work of the Entrepreneurs of your Choice and how she/he demonstrated the Entrepreneur’s Characteristics in her/his Successful Business.

The aim of the paper is to study the traits and characteristics entrepreneurs demonstrate in common while conducting business operations. The assignment takes into account two entrepreneurs from two different eras, one from 1900-1950s era and the second from the 21^st century. The 1900-1950s era is represented by Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company while the 21^st century entrepreneurs are represented by the founder and CEO of Facebook, Mark Elliot Zukerberg. The paper has three sections, the first studies the attribute of the 1900-1950s entrepreneur while the second studies the 21^st century entrepreneur’s life and work. The final section points out three qualities which 21^st century entrepreneurs are required to have to sustain in the ventures.

Life:

Henry Ford was an American industrialist and founder of the Ford Motor Company. He was born in 1863 and died in 1947. Ford introduced modern scientific system of managing resources scientifically that made the car production cheaper and made the motor car affordable to the middle class consumers. A study of the life of Ford shows that he was entrepreneurial in nature even as a young man. He dismantled watches and assembled them which gained him the reputation of a watch repairman (Drucker 2014). Ford started his professional life as an apprentice mechanist in Detroit with James F. Flowers & Brothers and then with Detroit Dry Dock Company. He returned to his family farm and started operating Westinghouse portable steam engine. He also studied booking keeping at Goldsmith, Bryant & Stratton Business College. An analysis of Ford’s life shows that he possessed the entrepreneurial attributes right from his youth.

Henry Ford started his engineering career career with Edison Illuminating Company where he was promoted to the position of the chief engineer. It was at this time that he started experimenting with gasoline engines. He made a self propel vehicle and named it Ford Quadricycle and test drove it. He then brainstormed to bring about innovation in the engine (Bae et al. 2014).

Henry Ford met Thomas Edison in 1896 who approved his quadricycle. This encouraged Ford to design and make another vehicle. He founded Detroit Automobile Company supported by lumber tycoon William H. Murphy.  However, the venture turned out to expense and the company was dissolved.  C Harold Wills helped Ford to design a 26 horse power automobile. Murphy and other stockholders formed Henry Ford Company where Ford was the engineer (Carland, Carland and Stewart 2015). He left the company due to joining of Henry M. Leland. Henry then collaborated with cycle racist Tom Cooper and manufactured 80+ HP racer for Barney Oldfield was to drive in a tournament. Ford partnered with Alexander Y. Malcomson who was a coal dealer to form Ford & Malcomson Limited to manufacture automobiles.  Ford worked towards designing affordable automobile in a leased factory. He contracted with John and Horace E. Dodge to supply him parts. The cost of production was higher compared to the sales turnover and the venture failed to pay Dodge.

Entrepreneurial Attributes Shown in Henry Ford’s Life

The discussion of the life of Henry Ford brings out several entrepreneurial attribute which went on to make him of the most successful entrepreneurs in the 1900s. The first entrepreneurial attribute that Ford showed is innovation and power to manufacture new products. He manufactured several automobile though he was not remarkably successful in them(Acs, Autio and Szerb 2014). This showed his high risk taking propensity as an entrepreneur. The third entrepreneurial attribute revealed is Ford had the leadership quality to lead human resources towards attainment of a predetermined goal, his target of making automobiles. He leased factory with Malcomson and gained financial support from the investors(Carland and Carland 2015). This proved that Ford was an expert in acquiring resources and gaining stakeholder’s support. Thus, this discussion on Ford’s life shows that he had several entrepreneurial attributes which went on to make him a business leader. His main body of work consists of his founding of Ford Motor Company and modernising of automobile manufacturing using Taylorism(Bruni,  Gherardi and Poggio 2014).

Work:

The most remarkable body of work of Henry Ford was the founding out the Ford Company which brought about his entrepreneurial and leadership attributes. The following are the entrepreneurial and leadership attributes which Henry Ford showed through his work at Ford Motor Company(Carland Jr, Carland and Carland III 2015).

Malcomson, Dodge Brothers and several other investors founded the Ford Motor Company with $ 28000 capital (YouTube. 2017). This showed Ford’s capability to gain stakeholders’ support to carry out business ventures. It also showed that Ford was able to amass capital from the investors to carry out business.

Ford throughout his tenure exhibited innovation in car manufacturing which revolutionised automobile manufacturing in the entire world. He introduced the T-Model with steering on the left hand side which is in use even today.  As an entrepreneur, Ford stressed on mass production, lower production costs and low sales prices to earn huge revenue(Chatterji, Glaeser and Kerr 2014).  He introduced assembly line which allowed parts of automobile to pass down conveyer belts and made it possible to produce more cars within less time.  He used Taylorism to manage his human resources to speed up the production process. Henry Ford exhibited innovation and scientific management in the areas of human resource management as well(Colombelli, Krafft and Vivarelli 2016). He instead of paying the prevailing wages at that time, paid his employees with high wages. This innovative human resource management initiative adopted by Ford allowed him to acquire and retain talented engineers from all over the United States of America to achieve higher production that the other automobile companies(Sahut and Peris-Ortiz 2014).

Entrepreneurial and Leadership Attributes in Ford Motor Company

Ford as an entrepreneur and a business leader, put a great emphasis on employee motivation to encourage them to achieve high performance. He was the pioneer of ‘walfare capitalism and increased the wages of his workers to ensure high retention of talent in his factory. This increase in wages helped Ford to reduce high rate of employee turnover which helped him to achieve mass production in Ford Factories. He even reduced the hours each employee worked and thus gained their support. These two steps of him helped to motivate his employees to work to gain high productivity in the workshops(Letaifa and Rabeau 2013).

Life:

Mark Elliot Zukerberg is the cofounder of the internet social networking site, Facebook and one of the most successful entrepreneurs with a market value of $ 1.8 billion as on July 2017. He is the fifth richest man according to the Forbes Magazine while the Time Magazine names him among the hundred wealthiest  and the most influential people since 2010(Forbes.com. 2017). Zukerberg was born in 1984 in New York and both his parents were medical practitioners. His wife is Priscilla Chan and they have a daughter Maxima Chan Zukerberg. He did his schooling from Ardsley High School and Philips Exeter Academy(Zuckerberg 2016).

Zukerberg started software writing and using computers when he was in middle school level. Mark learnt Atari Basic Programming from in 1990s from his father and then from software developer David Newman.  Mark took a graduation course at Mercy College and enjoyed developing computer programmes, especially the tools and games about communication(Choi, Lou and Mukherjee 2016). He built a software programme called ‘Zucknet’ to facilitate exchange of information between the computers in his house and the ones in his father’s clinic. Zucknet is considered a preliminary version of AOL’s Instant Messenger. Mark’s talent was not restricted to computer programming and he led his college in fencing.  He even enjoyed reading Greek and Roman epics(Paez 2017).

Mark Zukerberg developed a programme which helped the college students to organise college events. Mark Zukerberg developed a program called Facemash which allowed the college students to select the most handsome people in contests. He started writing programmes for a new social networking site and developed a social networking site called ‘the Facebook’ which became the predecessor of Facebook.  After this he dropped out of Harvard University in the second year to complete his project of developing Facebook.  Zukerberg later received an honorary degree from the Harvard University(Hoffmann, Proferes and Zimmer 2016).

Mark Zuckerberg: The 21st Century Entrepreneurial Trait Study

The discussion about the life of Mark Zukerberg shows that he had several attributes of an entrepreneur. First, he developed computer programmes which help people to communicate and play games. This shows that Mark had great knowledge about the needs of the people and developed software programmes to meet them. The next entrepreneurial trait Mark possessed is innovativeness. He developed new softwares which showed his innovativeness(Eres et al. 2014). Zukerberg dropped out of Harvard University to develop the social networking site called ‘Facebook’. This showed that Zukerberg had risk taking capabilities, a capability very important to carry out entrepreneurial ventures. Mark was interested  in fencing and was the captain. This showed that Mark as an entrepreneur was a great leader who was confident and had faith in his business venture(Wang and Cole 2016).

The following are the entrepreneurial and leadership traits of Mark Elliot Zukerberg, the founder and CEO of the world’s most used social networking site, Facebook.

Mark Zukerberg launched Facebook from his dormitory room of Harvard University and spread it to help students from other universities connect to their friends. He and his friends hired a room in the Silicon Valley in California and rented a small room that functioned as the office. He met Peter Thiel who decided to finance Facebook.  He refused to sell Facebook to other companies and keep on promoting it. He realised the need of a social networking site which would allow the people to connect to each other. This show Zukerberg as an entrepreneur has the power to recognise market opportunities and use them to start business ventures. As an entrepreneur Mark had a deep knowledge about the market conditions and the changing demands of the people (Aryee et al. 2016).

Mark Zukerberg believed in team work and view his employees as strategic partners. Facebook employs talent from all round the world which shows that Mark Zukerberg as an entrepreneur is capable of leading human resources towards achievement of business goals. He hired business experts like Sheryl Sandberg to form business strategies. This shows that Mark Elliot Zukerberg has the capability of acquiring appropriate talents to execute his entrepreneurial venture.

The following are the three essential characteristics entrepreneurs of 21^st century like Mark Zukerberg ought to have unlike the entrepreneurs of 1950s like Henry Ford:

The entrepreneurs of today like Mark Zukerberg are required to have great knowledge about technology and its applications. Today the companies are knowledge based companies which acquire, assimilate, utilise and share a great body of knowledge with their business partners. The technology like cloud computing and video conferencing help the entrepreneurs like Zukerberg to control and integrate their worldwide operations. This analysis shows that the entrepreneurs of 21^st century require to have great knowledge of technology to control their business.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Early Life and Career

The entrepreneurial ventures of 21^st century like Facebook have evolved to become global companies with offices all over the world. This requires their entrepreneurs like Zukerberg to employ talent from all over the world. The apex management of these companies require mobilising human resources from various cultural and national backgrounds to lead them towards achievement of business objectives. This necessitates them to practice a great degree of diversity management while managing their human resources. The global entrepreneurial companies today serve a global base of customers whose purchase decision is impacted by their cultural backgrounds like nationality, religion and races. The companies need to form product strategies, promotional strategies and other business decisions keeping the diverse mental setup of the consumers. The diversity of the customers’ taste and preferences has a great impact on the products and profitability of the companies. This analysis shows that global entrepreneurs of 21^st century need to show a very high degree of diversity management both during employing human resources and during serving consumers.

The entrepreneurs of the 21^st century like Zukerberg have carry out continuous innovation in their operations to earn economies of scale. The present market scenario and customer preferences are changing very dynamically which is requiring all the entrepreneurs to bring about innovation in their product and pricing strategies. The fast changing environment, growing importance of stakeholders and customer expectations are forcing the entrepreneurs to incorporate these in their business planning. The global companies today face stiff competition from companies of similar categories both domestically and internationally. This stiff competition is necessitating the entrepreneurs to bring about innovation in their existing products and introduce new products to sustain in the stiff competition and earn high profits. The companies like facebook have evolved as platforms where other companies advertise their products. This requires Facebook to bring about innovation in products and pricing to function as a promotional platform and earn huge revenue. This analysis shows that the entrepreneurs of today are required to carry continuous innovation in their products in order to sustain in the global competition.

Conclusion:

It can be concluded that the traits of entrepreneurs develop and evolve over time. The studies about lives of Henry Ford and Mark Elliot Zukerberg show that these entrepreneurs demonstrated various attributes of entrepreneurs even before they embarked on their respective entrepreneurial venture, Ford for Henry Ford and Facebook for Zukerberg. It can also be concluded that entrepreneurs have special characteristics which are responsible for driving them to start entrepreneurial ventures. Lastly, it must be pointed though both old and current entrepreneurs start ventures; the modern entrepreneurs need to have some extra qualities like technological knowledge to sustain in their business.

References:

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