John Kao’s Model on Entrepreneurship

John Kao thinks you need to play on the job. "When people use the word play in a business context, it sounds kind of frivolous, but being playful is very much the source of new ideas," says Kao, author of Innovation Nation and chairman of the global Institute for Large Scale Innovation.

John Kao has developed a conceptual model of entrepreneurship in his article: Entrepreneurship, creativity and organisation in 1989. This model has four main aspects:

1. Entrepreneurial Personality: The overall success of a new venture largely depends upon the skill, qualities, traits and determination of the entrepreneur.

2. Entrepreneurial Task: It is a role played by entrepreneur in an enterprise. The major task of the entrepreneur is to recognize and exploit opportunities.

3. Entrepreneurial Environment: It involves the availability of resources, infrastructure, competitive pressures, social values, rules and regulations, stage of technology etc.

4. Organisational Context: It is the immediate setting in which creative and entrepreneurial work takes place. It involves the structure, rules, policies, culture, human resource system, communication system. 

According to Kao, the most successful entrepreneur is one who adapts himself to the changing needs of the environment and makes it hospitable for the growth of his business enterprise. This ECO (Entrepreneurship, creativity ad organization) analysis frame work developed and conceptualized by John J. Kao contributes a great deal to the emergence as well as sustenance of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial talent in the prevailing business environment.