Can business management and entrepreneurship roles be interchangeable, in other words, can every entrepreneur become a business manager?

I've seen it first hand where Entrepreneurs attempt to manage their own business and fail dramatically as the business grows; this is due to their nature as risk takers and mostly dreamers, visionaries, unchained by the weight of day to day requisites of managing a business, which in turn requires analysis and careful study prior to making any risky financial decision.

On the other hand, Business Managers can become good entrepreneurs nevertheless on the long run; Initially, they would be susceptible to losing out due to lengthy analysis and planning. Again, I've seen it first hand where managers start their own businesses and run it to the ground with their lack of vision.

PRECISELY YES. Having said that, stepping into entrepreneurship is nonetheless a business management activity. therefore, the entrepreneurbrings along with him/her a unique idea of a business endeavor. That idea signifies exactly the desires of his/her heart. Before I go further as I am already inspired to write more about this very interesting subject matter, kindly go through Wiley's open library, here, you would find a wide array of entrepreneurship and business management topics. Here's one friendly reminder: Always come up with a research question and then test your hypothesis. Happy reading. 

Thanks for keeping me in your bayt.com circle. 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for your invite. I donot understand in what you really wish to know. However every entrepreneur is a business manager thus the roles are interchangeable.  

Thank you Amani, appreciate your request for my feedback to this question.

My response is dervived by my personal experience as a visionary entrepreneur of 14 global companies to date, including a variation of mentorship and advising assignments. 

I see one particular response to your post which directly generalizes the habits of entrepreneurs, particularly visionaries where this is untrue as individuals who achieve success as entrepreneurs have no choice but to transform into 'Jacks of all trades', simply because in a startup, as the owner and entrepreneur, you are the CEO, CIO, COO, Business Manager, Business Development & Marketing Manager, Accounts, Admin and everything else because you set precident in your company as the leader and as in my case I initially train all of my staff, means I must lead by example until each one of them are efficient and proficient in their designated assignments.

These entire roles and responsibilities are not interchangeable they are all thrown into one big pot and you as the owner must start grinding. It also does not pertain to risk factors, and definiately if you want to be successful daydreaming is out of the context on the job, as authentic successful entrepreneurs daydream anyhow, any moment they get because they are at the helm of the ship, it is their duty to create the reality they dream about and then ensure the people supporting them are also nurtured to authentic leadership.

I am one of the greatest dreamers on planet earth and that has been a key instrument to becoming a visionary, it does not mean I lose focus, else at the end of each month, with me standing at the end of the salary line, I would not be able to survive so we become master dreamers and also, simultaneously, doers.

Then failure in some ventures are sometimes inevitable because of wrong choices, whatever that might be, but they are lessons. So the key is if you fail and you truely still want to taste success, then hold the big picture, dust yourself off and push on with more determination because winners never quit and quitters never win!.

I would much rather learn from a mentor who has failed abysmally, can stop me from falling into pitfalls and who is proud to share their failures firstly, because it shows strength and qualities you must learn from.

For an authentic entrepreneur there is no specific role, we do it all and we don't view it as interchangeable or flavour of the day, because jobs must be done and however it is achieved, there is no fancy term to name it, one just gets on with the job, period.

Your staff can only look up to you, or depend on your knowledge and experience if you can tender sincere mentorship and leadership skills and transpose your very own skill-set onto them to continue developing them as they become your best asset.

There are individuals who blindly go into business and who were not put onto this earth to be an entrepreneur because it's not for everyone, with respect as it takes many different types to make this world. So yes, those kind of people are sometimes delusional and exist in a fallacy world as their only focus is the money, where the latter is energy and if you focus on money only, then you build resistence, so the money cannot come, so there is your answer to failure!

There is an old saying that the people who build companies are not the same people who would make a career in their own companies. However, I would say that the difference is more in the social status and organisational role between a manager and an entrepreneur than in any particular personality traits.

 

In many professional organisations the role of manager is based on narrow expertise on a particular subject or business function. However, a successful entrepreneur must be a generalist who acts independently, prioritises self interests and is ready to take risks.That's why a person who has learned to work as an entrepreneur may not have skills to navigate in existing corporate frameworks and bureaucracies or be willing to compromise with number of stakeholders, as skilful managers do.

 

Luckily enough, life is very seldom cut in black and white. In a right managerial role ( sales, business development, product and service innovation etc. ) a person with an entrepreneurial background can grow up to be a star performer. Also, in some cases moving from management to entrepreneurship can be very liberating experience to people who feel that they can't use their creativity and personality enough in a corporate environment.

As per my understanding, every entrepreneur can become a business manager but every business manager cannot be an entrepreneur.

I am hereby referring to some good lines that I found in this regard:

 

“An Entrepreneur Could Be A Manager But A Manager Cannot Be An Entrepreneur”. An Entrepreneur Is Intensely Dedicated To Develop Business Through Constant Innovation. He May Employ A Manager In Order To Perform Some Of His Functions Such As Setting Objectives, Policies, Rules Etc. A Manager Cannot Replace An Entrepreneur In Spite Of Performing The Allotted Duties Because A Manager Has To Work As Per The Guidelines Laid Down By The Entrepreneur."

I believe that a real entrepreneur will be hard for him to be a successful business manager in his own company. It is better for him to hire a real business manager with enough experience to run the business and solve all obstacles. However, an entrepreneur could be s successful business manager in a company that promote the entrepreneurship and it is part of its culture .. He will have he right environment and tool to do business in Creative and Innovative way

No, business management and entrepreneurship roles are not necessarily interchangeable. We can not generalize here. It really depends on every person, his skill repertoire and the role he desires to play at any given point in time. Some entrepreneurs would make very good business managers. Others would consider it too limiting and feel stifled by office rules and politics.  Likewise, highly motivated business managers who desires more self-expression in their work and are ready to take risks would shift easily to entrepreneurship. Others would consider it too much of a hassle to try and prefer the security of a consistent paycheck.  So you really have to assess the person as whole (his skills, motivation, future aspirations, risk tolerance,... etc) to be able to judge whether he fits into one role or the other.

Yes, to some extent the two roles are interchangeable. Becoming a successful entrepreneur is more difficult as compared to becoming a successful manager. The role of business manager extends to routine work but entrepreneur has to start from scratch and continue with perseverence and persistence. I think it would be correct to say that majrity of entrepreneurs can become a successful manager bt not vice versa.

the question is unappropriated.

In fact there is a complementary between the 'status' of entrepreneur and the business management attitude and pro-activity the entrepreneur have.

Up to your politics and standards in your business system, the fact to act as an entrepreneur can break your system! and the opposite may be right.

The approach cannot be as you mean it in this question. 

Business management and entrepreneurship are interrelated in small businesses. When the busineses grow , it becomes different. The reason is that entreprenuers are risk takers and they have a vision whereas business managers are focussed on day to day tasks and are involved in one particular project/business.    Therefore entrepreneurs can prove to be a an excellent business managers in one small business whereas a good business manager cannot be a good entrepreneur.