An Analysis Of Amoruso, Hofstede's Dimensions Of Culture

Originally, the word ‘entrepreneur’ comes from the old French word ‘entreprendre’, meaning ‘to begin something, to undertake’. Though the terms ‘entrepreneur’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ sound alike and are sometimes used interchangeably, they actually mean different things. An entrepreneur can simply be described as a person that starts, operates and assumes risk of running an enterprise. Entrepreneurship, however, is the whole creation process of the enterprise, including originality, capabilities, skills and possible difficulties. An entrepreneur always precedes entrepreneurship. In other words, the entrepreneur is the actor and entrepreneurship is the act (Svoiu, 2014).

2. THE ENTREPRENEUR: SOPHIA AMORUSO

This report investigates Sophia Amoruso,

The country possesses low levels of power distance and uncertainty avoidance. Due to the ‘free-market economy’ and their ‘frontier culture’, most markets are highly competitive. Overall, the country seems to value people that dare to take risks.

5. PROCESS

The previous chapters discussed Amoruso as an entrepreneur. However, starting a successful business needs more than just an entrepreneur with the ‘right’ traits. This chapter will elaborate on the process Amoruso went through starting Nasty Gal, by using Burns’ (2011) framework ‘What you need to start a business’. Figure 5: What you need to start a business (Burns, 2011)

5.1 IDEA

Amoruso never had the idea that her business would turn out to become something great. As she did not know how big the business would become, she was relaxed enough to be spontaneous and creative in her approach (Entrepreneur, 2014).

5.2 PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES

In addition to the character traits as earlier discussed in chapter 4.1, entrepreneurs also need certain personal qualities that overlap these (Burns, 2011). These attributes have been applied to Amoruso and are described in Table

I had never heard of her before, but was very interested in her different and unconventional story. Researching her has taught me that although some entrepreneurs are born with certain skills, such as a flair for creating and a high level of intelligence, they are still ‘entrepreneurs in the making’. They still have to accumulate relevant knowledge and experiences. The process of successfully launching and growing a new venture, which can take either a few years or decades, almost always includes large doses of