Course work 1 – Case Study on an International Entrepreneur

Technology Entrepreneurship

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Part A – Analyzing the International Entrepreneur

Introduction
An entrepreneur is an individual who takes the initiative to start a venture out of their
idea or proposition to offer products or services and create value for targeted
consumers. Professionals depict entrepreneurs as the risk-taker, organizers, and
administrators of a business. According to McDougall & Oviatt (2011), “international
entrepreneurship is the combination of innovative, proactive, and risk-seeking behavior
that crosses national borders and is intended to create value in the organization”.
Entrepreneurs play important roles in revolutionizing change in history and adding value
to lives. This report aims to demonstrate a case of a technological entrepreneur and the
influences behind her endeavors.

The Case Study Background

The fundamental concept of Kirzner's theory of entrepreneurship is alertness.
Entrepreneurship is demonstrated as the alert response of an individual to unnoticed
opportunities. The study aims to scrutinize entrepreneurship perspectives and
motivations based on observing a technical entrepreneur (Zahra, and George, 2017).
Therefore, the British tech entrepreneur and co-CEO of Decoded, Kathryn Parsons has
been chosen to analyze the study. Her venture, Decoded offers digital literacy. Decoded
provides intense learning programs for employee development and data skill learning.
The organization provides tech education for both professionals and learners. Data
intelligence through coding, AI learning, and cyber security are offered. Kathryn
Pearson is the founder and current co-CEO of the organization. Being founded in 2011,
Decoded brought a revolutionary change in learning coding and data intelligence
internationally throughout the years. The startup of Kathryn has now turned into a global
brand, providing service to more than 2,50,000 people in more than 85 cities. Kathryn’s
dedication and zeal to initiate such a revolutionary idea make her one of the finest
entrepreneurs out there.

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Motivation
Being one of the most influential tech entrepreneurs, Kathryn did not choose to jump
into entrepreneurship out of the blue. Rather than prior experiences familiar
environments and opportunities assisted her to become who she is now. As her linked-
in proposes, to demystify the coding world and to offer digital learning and cyber
expertise, the firm was founded. Certain motivating factors influenced her to establish
the company.

Pull & Push Theories

Pull factor of motivation demonstrates the external arrangement that creates the need to
reach a destination (Petri, and Govern, 2012). Contrarily, the push factor of influence
demonstrates a socio-psychological condition that individual grows in themselves to
satisfy their own need or zeal to achieve something. In the case of Kathryn, both the
push and pull theory of motivation played a distinct role to be an entrepreneur. Kathryn
has been working on improving her communication skill by learning different languages
from an early age. It determines her internal urge to deliver communicative language.
And she considers coding as just another language. Some reports mentioned that her
motivation to remove clichés around coding and technology learning pushed her to
become a technology entrepreneur. Moreover, her surrounding amenities also helped
her to be a technological entrepreneur which works as a pull factor of motivation.

Theories of Motivation

Among several professionally used motivation theories, Vroom Expectancy Theory

demonstrates that motivation is generated from three driving components or conscious
choices – effort, performance, and outcome (Parijat, and Bagga, 2014). Skill, inherent
quality, characteristics, prior experience, and knowledge contribute to driving the three
components. Vroom mentioned that expectancy, instrumentality, and valence inherent
inside individuals drive motivation. In the case of Kathryn, the Vroom motivation theory
can be perfectly applied. Because her motivation and zeal towards removing the clichés
and misunderstanding of technology drove the motivation to Decoded. As well, her
effort to incorporate tech learning as mandatory learning resulted in the campaign the

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launching of mandatory learning of coding in the UK National curriculum. Therefore, her
effort or expectancy started off the movement. Consecutively, her performance carried
off the movement. And Decoded was the outcome of the effort and performance.

Are Entrepreneurs born or made?

The entrepreneur has been defined as a person who habitually creates or innovates to
build something of recognized value around perceived value (Bolton, and Thompson,
2015). The question is an ever-knowing argument for eons. So answering this question
in the rightest manner is not an easy nut to crack. As per the definition and
characteristics of entrepreneurship, it can be realized that entrepreneurship cannot be
stated as either born or made. Rather entrepreneurship can be demonstrated as the
result of consecutive effort and good choices or decisions. Because no one is born with
a certain destination to be something. Moreover, someone who never got a chance to
explore opportunities, may also end up succession at a certain goal accomplishment or
be a potential entrepreneur (Seun et al, 2017). On the other hand, someone with all the
training may not reach the specified goal of being a successful entrepreneur. Therefore,
effort and decisions work together to generate a good entrepreneur.

Trait Theory is one of the common methods of measuring individual traits or behaviors.
It considers five behavioral factors – openness, conscientiousness, extroversion,
agreeableness, and neuroticism (Burns, 2016). All of these dimensions of behavior,
sometimes contribute to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

These big five personalities are observed in Kathryn Parson. Her openness towards
expressing her opinion helped her to stand out and raise her voice to make technology
part of learning. Her determination and organizational capability helped her to be
successful in all of her endeavors. Her extroversion nature cannot be anticipated by just
observing her openness to share her ideas. Similarly, agreeableness depicts
stubbornness versus easygoing nature or trustworthiness, which cannot also be
assumed by observing the external motives. Neuroticism demonstrates emotional
stability which cannot be demonstrated merely by judging her success from a career
perspective.

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Thus, entrepreneurship is neither born nor made. Rather, it is the outcome of
persevered effort and choices amalgamated to reach the desired goal.

Effectuation Theory
The effectuation theory by Saras Sarasvathy, demonstrates an approach for decision making and
performing action in entrepreneurship process that focuses into balancing resource availability
and performing the best manner to reach the next steps to reach desired goal (Andersson, 2011).
It lies in the opposite direction of causal logic, because Sarasvathy argues that entrepreneurship
should be aligned to uncertainties and risks. There are five fundamentals to entrepreneurial
approach. Pilot in the sky, crazy quilt, affordable loss, lemonade and bird in hand. Among these
five principles, the chosen IE, Kathryn confirms to pilot in the plane theory which describes that
future can be influenced by own actions. Because Kathryn demonstrates such personality who
fights to establish her opinion and goes miles to reach her desired goal or makes every possible
effort to reach the ultimate goal.

Lesson Learned from the Case Study

Based on the theories and concepts above applied to Kathryn Parson, entrepreneurship
is merely not fate, rather it is the accumulation of skill, knowledge, patience, and
continuous effort. Being driven by personal desire and zeal is what motivates an
individual. Therefore, finding own interest and application of the motivation and turning it
into recognized value creation is important. Moreover, the urge to make change the
world and make it a better place pushed her to fight against the odds of clichés and
misunderstandings regarding technological learning and thus, making it available and
adaptive for anyone. Therefore, to make the world a better place, producing valuable
inclusion through entrepreneurship is important. Hard work, effort, and making the best
use of opportunities altogether make a successful entrepreneur.

Part B – The Main International Entrepreneurship Themes

Emerging from The Study.
International Entrepreneurship is the implication of entrepreneurial behavior by
opportunity exploitation across national borders. The study refers to exploring the

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available opportunities beyond the country's borders and producing recognizable value
(Jones, Coviello, and Tang, 2011). The theme of international entrepreneurship
revolves around resource factors, network constraints, and entrepreneurial
characteristics. Being an internationally recognized entrepreneur is not an easy nut to
crack. Social, technological, family, serial, finance, and gender all pose certain
hindrances in becoming an entrepreneur.

Gender and technology are two buzzwords of the current world. Gender disparity has
been an issue for so long. Women are expected to confine within walls and be expected
to give birth and rear children. But the current world is changing and offering broader
opportunities for women. Therefore, the International Entrepreneur Kathryn Parson has
been chosen who put a noticeable impact on strengthening women in technology. She
mentions women must be prioritized in the coming fourth industrial revolution and thus,
she prioritizes the importance of learning technology for women.

Another theme to consider is the importance of technology for a brighter future. She
mentions that the future is written in the lines of code. And have mentioned that
leadership and businesses are all involved in technological influence. Prioritizing
technology can help establish a faster and more innovative world. The current world is
constantly being diverted towards change because of the impact of technology (Wach,
2015). Starting from everyday chores to the financial transaction, communication and
everything is dependent on technology. Therefore, businesses are turning around to
technical influences in operational management. Kathryn expects such world that
welcomes technology and endures healthy implications of it. Thus, she believes
everyone must be willing to learn the technological application. One of her signature
courses “Code in a Day”, welcomes anyone from any background to learn coding in a
day.

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References
Andersson, S., 2011. International entrepreneurship, born globals and the theory of
effectuation. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development.

Bolton, B. and Thompson, J., 2015. The entirepreneur: The all-in-one entrepreneur-
leader-manager. Routledge.

Burns, P., 2016. Entrepreneurship and small business. Red Globe Press.

Coviello, N.E., McDougall, P.P. and Oviatt, B.M., 2011. The emergence, advance and
future of international entrepreneurship research—An introduction to the special forum.
Journal of Business Venturing, 26(6), pp.625-631.

Jones, M.V., Coviello, N. and Tang, Y.K., 2011. International entrepreneurship research
(1989–2009): a domain ontology and thematic analysis. Journal of business venturing,
26(6), pp.632-659.

Parijat, P. and Bagga, S., 2014. Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory of motivation–An
evaluation. International Research Journal of Business and Management, 7(9), pp.1-8.

Petri, H.L. and Govern, J.M., 2012. Motivation: Theory, research, and application.
Cengage Learning.

Seun, A.O., Kalsom, A.W., Bilkis, A. and Raheem, A.I., 2017. What motivates youth
enterprenuership? Born or made. Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Wach, K., 2015. Entrepreneurial orientation and business internationalisation process:

The theoretical foundations of international entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial Business
and Economics Review, 3(2), pp.9-24.

Zahra, S.A. and George, G., 2017. International entrepreneurship: The current status of
the field and future research agenda. Strategic entrepreneurship: Creating a new
mindset, pp.253-288.

Chaampions, 2021. KATHRYN PARSONS. [Online]

Available at: https://champions-speakers.co.uk/speaker-agent/kathryn-parsons

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[Accessed 2 April, 2021]

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