The Entrepreneur and The Manager

       Given the fact that almost all of the traits of an entrepreneur were discussed in my previous post, it still does not utterly terminate the uncertainty between entrepreneur and manager. Many people still tend to interchange the meaning of these two terms. Sometimes, people think that they were the same thing but in reality, entrepreneur and manager bear unalike definitions.

According to S. Surbhi, an author, “entrepreneur is a person with idea, skills and courage and courage to pursue that idea, to turn it into reality.” On the other hand, he said that manager, as the name suggests is the person who manages the operations and functions of the organization. Entrepreneur is a person who founds and operates an innovative business while manager is a person who runs an existing business. In a nutshell, entrepreneurs are the the ones who setup their own business while the managers only manages things such as businesses. (Dubrin, 2013)

Clear Reddy, another author, also explained that business entrepreneurs are the people who transforms an idea into reality by using their available resources. He said that entrepreneurs have the ability to start a business from scratch. They also have full power on their businesses and they tend to focus more on the success and stability of their business. Managers, on the other hand, are more involved in the company if the company was already established and stable. Managers come into the later development of the company. In short, entrepreneurs are the instigators while managers are the overseers.

(Reddy, 2016) This means that the role of a manager in a business only begins after the entrepreneur has done the ground work. Without entrepreneurs, the managers will have no business to manage. (Bikhchandani, 2013)

A study entitled Differences between Entrepreneurs and Managers in Large Organizations: Biases and Heuristics in Strategic Decision-Making conducted by Lowell Busenitz and Jay Barney, proved that entrepreneurs are different from managers because they are more overconfident than the managers. They also confirmed that entrepreneurs show a greater tendency toward representativeness than will managers in large organizations. This shows that managers and entrepreneurs have substantial behavioral differences. (Busenitz and Barney, 2009)

Entrepreneurs and managers are different in many areas. Their key differences are stated in the table below.

	Entrepreneur	Manager
Definition (Investopedia,2017)	An entrepreneur is an individual who, rather than working as an employee, founds and runs a small business, assuming all the risks and rewards of the venture.	An individual who is in charge of a certain group of tasks, or a certain subset of a company. A manager often has a staff of people who report to him or her.
Focus	Business Start-Ups	On-going operations
Motivation	Achievement	Power
Approach to task	Informal	Formal
Standing in a Company	Owner	Employee
Rewards	Profit	Salary
Decision-Making	Intuitive, because decision-making is driven by inductive logic, courage and determination	Calculative, because decision-making is driven by deductive logic, collection of information and advice
Driving force	Creativity and innovation	Preserve existing state of affairs
Risk Orientation	Risk-taker	Risk-averse
Educational Background	Not necessary to be well educated	Well-Educated
Responsibility	All activities of the company	Activities that were only assigned to him
Rights to profit	Have the right to enjoy complete financial freedom	Prefers stability and security over freedom
Loyalty to the company	High	Low

After knowing the differences of managers and entrepreneurs, they cannot be collocated now. It is very clear that entrepreneur and manager are two different actors in an organization. However, despite of their differences, someone can be successful either way. Entrepreneur is not always the one who are successful. Managers can be successful too and the two of them can also be unsuccessful. It is not the style that is better than the other. Instead, it is the style that you think is suitable for you. For some people, being manager is their path to success but for others, being an entrepreneur is the most satisfactory choice. This is about trying your specialty. 

References:

• Surbhi, S. (2016). Difference between entrepreneur and manager. Retrieved from http://keydifferences.com/difference-between-entrepreneur-and-manager.html
•  Dubrin, A. (2013). Fundamentals of management. Pasig City, Philippines: Cengage Learning Asia Pte  Ltd.
•  Reddy, C. (2016). Top 10 differences between entrepreneur and manager. Retrieved from https://content.wisestep.com/difference-entrepreneur-manager/
• Bikhchandani, S. (2014). Entrepreneurs vs managers: what’s the big difference?. Retrieved from https://www.mytopbusinessideas.com/entrepreneurs-vs-managers/
• Busenitz, Lowell W. and Barney, Jay B. (2009) Differences between entrepreneurs and managers in large organizations: Biases and heuristics in strategic decision-making. Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 12, Issue 1, p. 9-30 2009. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1504519
• Sinha, DK. (2014). Difference between an entrepreneur and a manager- explained!. Retrieved from http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/entrepreneurship/difference-between-an-entrepreneur-and-a-man ager-explained/40644