Developmental Imperative

Developmental Imperative

No wonder entrepreneurship has become such a hot topic. Practicing entrepreneurs, public officials and especially educators involved in management training, are more fully partnering in the efforts to change life for the better. Effective application of management knowledge to the organized real world now requires a higher level of coordination among myriad stakeholders who share overlapping or similar responsibilities. Around the world, and especially in America, there is pervasive merging of academic, theoretical and practical interests in pursuit of entrepreneurship and economic growth. Academics in particular are showing leadership in formulating and implementing developmental strategies that they can share and university and other educational institutions are shouldering more and more responsibility for economic development. America, and much of the world, is thus fully involved in what might be called a "Developmental Era" for entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is being studied, analyzed and nurtured systematically at a feverish pace by new partners in diverse venues. Today, officials and policymakers at every level in advancing communities and regions clearly assume that entrepreneurship fuels the engine of economic growth, and any rational growth strategy incorporates a comprehensive network of helpful participants.

The work of David McClelland (1965) on the need to achieve was particularly instrumental in the shifting emphasis away from economic leadership by centralized, bureaucratic and corporate management, and towards the individual entrepreneur as the driving force in high-performance, modern economic systems. McClelland supported a strong connection between the motives and drives inherent in entrepreneurship and community sustainability and growth. McClelland ideology posited that societies need creativity and innovation to be healthy, and that it can be nurtured. McClelland’s developmental perspectives, as well as his necessity and nurturing hypotheses have gained validity and acceptance over the last forty years. Fostering individual entrepreneurship is now a basic component in all progressive approaches to economic development in advancing communities, regions, nations and societies; and it has taken a central role in all mainstream versions of American economic philosophy and policy, even at the extremes. For instance, you’d think that Reganomics of the 80's and Clintonomics of the 90's would have involved quite different perspectives relative to the role of entrepreneurship. However, both the trickle-up (Clinton) and trickle down (Regan) ideologies focused heavily on entrepreneurship development as the key driver of economic growth; albeit from different directions (supply-side versus demand-side). Modern policymakers of all persuasions "assume" we need more entrepreneurs and that entrepreneurs need to be developed to work smarter and better within society at rates far greater than ever before. Policy makers may see different causation forces surrounding the entrepreneurial event, and would therefore influence it differently; but all would endeavor to stimulate it. Very few Americans would argue against the premise that we need more entrepreneurship locally, regionally and nationally if we wish to continue to lead the world economically and militarily. Furthermore, most would agree to develop lots of entrepreneurs, and empower them in wave-after-wave of what Jeffrey Timmons (2000) calls E-generations.

The masked inefficiencies of the past that seem to unearth themselves in sinister ways (pollution, waste, inefficiency and other externalities that permeate across societies), place geometrically greater demands on our sustainability and exacerbated our higher expectations, wants and desires. Only stewardly development can provide the answers to these kinds of problems. The job of the entrepreneur keeps getting tougher as we iteratively solve yesterday’s complex problems with answers that will undoubtedly and insidiously become tomorrow's even more complex problems. Let me offer a personal example that has influenced my sense of the urgency for developmental strategies and tactics that would address our blind spots.

I've faced the dilemma of material excess in modern society first-hand in my role as a practicing researcher and manager in the solid waste field. As Chairman of the Indiana County Solid Waste Authority, it’s my job to be a leader and be at the cutting edge of the waste field, as I help manage landfills, recycling operations, sewage sludge, septic tanks and a variety of materials of similar grandeur that are produced as waste, or by-products, of modern material life in western societies (many people refer to me as a “solid waste”). My experience in the waste field has lead me to somewhat acquire a Malthusian philosophy regarding man's waste problems. The evidence is literally littered everywhere in the litany of industrial and consumer waste that has accompanied man’s material progress. Our wastefulness has often taken on catastrophic proportions and has produced some high-profile waste dramas that have caught the media spotlight (e.g., the waste barge that wandered the east coast in the mid 90’s or the tire fires we see each year or the ravines we find filled with trash in rural Pennsylvania to name just a few). Waste incursions and catastrophes continue to occur with an alarming frequency as we mismanaged waste production and disposal. Environmental problems are becoming the rule; and can’t you sense that their incidence is increasing, with the "big one" around the corner for each of us? It is evident that more people mean more needs, more consumption, more waste and more stress on our natural environment to contain it. I often ponder how much more waste our environment can accept before it dramatically affects nature's ability to support a healthy, collective growth for most communities of this planet. I seriously think our solid and liquid waste habits bear the seeds of environmental and human degradation; and will eventually impede progress unless we wise-up. Certainly, a great deal of waste comes from the sheer numbers of people being more densely packaged geographically, but new kinds of pressure also comes from the sophistication of human needs, the growing complexity of products to meet them and the interactions between them. Complex consumption tends to evolve our waste streams towards more complex, diverse and potentially dangerous states, as we mix and match new molecules in permutations of infinite proportion. Modern product compositions, packaging variations, distribution extensions, communication revolutions and credit availability, just to identify several factors, have further stimulated awareness and expectation in western man to expand the mix; and especially we Americans exemplify consumption behaviors that are nothing less than perverse. At times, the American production and consumption orientation is very much like a shark feeding frenzy. And, it's scary how this frenzy of consumption is spreading across the world, as other nations strive to catch up -- and the waste materials and compounds just keep piling up. I've often asked myself, in disgust, "How much longer can such capricious and wasteful consumption go on?" I take solace in the belief that the answers will emerge from free market mechanisms that will develop champions, who will be well-trained and stewardly entrepreneurs that partner with government and community to address our waste problems. We will develop entrepreneurs who will realistically understand our eco-systems and us, because they are plugged into the developmental process. They will be better partners in the search for the best mechanisms to build sustainable, longer-term progress. America, in particular, will make sure these new organizations and subsystems develop. There will be nothing left to chance.

My experience in the solid waste field has also been an epiphany that reinforces my appreciation for synergies and conflicts between both Mother Nature and human nature. I, therefore, have grown to be a "moderate" ecologist who has tried to lead changes and development in the solid waste field. My ecological orientations temper me to occasionally argue for the idea of austerity, which on the surface seems to be the antithesis of entrepreneurial activity and anti-development. However, I do not ever intend to hinder entrepreneurship, per se; only that which steps over the line of sustainability, is unsystematic, is short-sighted or which exacerbates resource problems and stimulates counter-productive social processes. Don't be confused about my position. Times when I may sound as if I am arguing for austerity and efficiency, I am not arguing against entrepreneurship in free market systems. On the contrary, I believe I am consistent in my support of developing more of the right kinds of entrepreneurship. I'm forever one of entrepreneurship's strongest advocates; albeit a new kind of stewardly entrepreneur. To emphasize this reasoning, I present in Chapter 5 some foundational educational and behavioral events that make the developmental approach quite synergetic with concepts like conservation, recycling and austerity. Educating the consciousness, and learning and practicing the tactics for stewardly entrepreneurship are essential steps in dealing with such contradictions.

Even though I'm intimate with society's unsavory wastes, I personally enjoy the material wealth of America. I buy into a lot of our material, wealth, comfort and a consumption culture. The good things in life are part of the "growth imperative" which underlies the self-evident truths concerning the pursuit of happiness that our founding fathers spoke about, and are a part of God’s gift to us. Mankind simply will not easily go materially backwards and accept less comfort, accomplishment and satisfaction. We are irreversibly on the road to quality products and services at lower costs within the constraints of the generous, but delicate, environment in which we live. I clearly assume a condition where humans are sharing a vision of health, happiness and prosperity, for themselves, their families and their friends. This kind of progress can only be accomplished with more of a partnership between the entrepreneur and the rest of us that develops from some systematic, higher-order truth.

The alternative to real material progress is unthinkable, of course. It is clear to me that a generally better life is the only alternative to mass exploitation, enslavement and war. If you can't give mass enfranchisement and comfort, you must at least give mass hope; otherwise, the desperate masses will eventually revolt. Further, I believe that the imperialism of the modern time is not a nation, but is a concept known as "worldwide economic opportunity," which is epitomized by the enlightened policy-maker and entrepreneur who together co-create "good" and "efficient" economic organizations, more than intolerant ideologies arising from nation-states. These "good and efficient organizations" will be created by the same invisible hand of self interest and necessity that has drawn participants to the market for centuries; but the hand will be moderated more and more by the virtue and joint partnerships associated with stewardship. Societies that have lots of "good and efficient" entrepreneurship will be the ones regularly producing more value and wasting less to improve their quality of life. They will be entrepreneurial societies, as opposed to what might be called backward, Third-world, isolated and static societies. In the new century, I predict that America will lead the way by developing a flurry of home-grown and imported entrepreneurs who are enlightened, progressive and socially conscious -- not unlike the concept of a self-sacrificing society that has been the foundation of utopian visionaries, like Roscher (see Table 1-1).