International Entrepreneurship of Kevin Plank

Introduction

International Entrepreneurship of Kevin Plank, an American businessman and philanthropist who is worth a billion dollars, was born on August 13, 1972, as Kevin Audette Plank, and is the founder and CEO of Plank Industries. Plank, the company’s founder and executive chairman, is in charge of the company’s Baltimore, Maryland-based manufacturing facility, which produces athletic clothes, footwear, and other accessories. His net worth was predicted to be $1.8 billion as of October 2021, according to Forbes magazine.

The American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists has recognized Kevin Plank and Under Armour’s Innovation Team with the Henry E. Milson Award for Invention (AATCC). As a result, the company was founded, and a new type of performance clothes was introduced. The Milson Award recognizes breakthroughs in the textile industry.

The Under Armour Company was founded by Plank in 1996, and he presently serves as the company’s CEO as well as its Chairman of the Board of Directors. He was responsible for the design of Under Armour’s first Heat Gear t-shirt, the #0037. The shirt was created as a compression garment using moisture-wicking synthetic microfibers to keep athletes cool and dry while competing in hot conditions.

The phrase “international entrepreneur” refers to entrepreneurs who want to capitalize on early-stage development opportunities by spreading their company’s operations to other countries or regions.

Read More: Introduction to People at Work?

Motivation

Plank found that compression shorts kept his thighs dry while he was a collegiate football captain at the University of Maryland. Moisture-wicking apparel was a natural progression for him. Under Armour’s beginnings were financed mostly via Plank’s own savings and credit card debt. While in college, Plank earned approximately $20,000 selling t-shirts at concerts. He paid an estimated $40,000 in interest on credit card debt split over five accounts. By 1997, one year after establishing the company, he was out of money.

Following that, he sold his first product to Georgia Tech for $17,000. Nearly two dozen NFL franchises swiftly followed suit. He sold $100,000 worth of items during the second year of his firm. Following that, sales soared, and major teams and retailers began carrying the product, resulting in the creation of a multimillion-dollar corporation with around $2 billion in revenue and over 5,900 employees.

Achievement theory of motivation

Entrepreneurs, in the words of McClelland, “do things in a new and better manner” and “make decisions” when confronted with uncertainty. In order to thrive, entrepreneurs have a strong drive to achieve success, which they refer to as “accomplishment orientation”.

Need for achievement

There is a glaring contrast between an individual’s drive for success and power, as well as his or her need for deep personal bonds. A person’s position of power and affiliation, which can act as beneficial resources, can help them achieve their goals

According to McClelland, family socialization that emphasizes high standards, self-reliance, and less domineering fathers helps children acquire a “achieving orientation”. Problem-solving, seeking feedback, achieving goals, and taking risks are just a few of the behaviors linked with it.

Trait theory

Opportunity-based theory

A theory of opportunity based on entrepreneurial principles: Peter Drucker and Howard Stevenson are two of the most well-known proponents of the opportunity-based philosophy. An opportunity-based approach to entrepreneurship research provides a broad conceptual framework for a wide range of entrepreneurship research questions. Entrepreneurs capitalise on the opportunities created by change, rather than causing it (as the Schumpeterian or Austrian schools of thought would have it) (technological advancement, customer preferences, etc.).

Drucker (1985) defined formalised. According to him, “This is what distinguishes and characterises entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship; the entrepreneur is always on the lookout for change, responding to it, and exploiting it as an opportunity”. Following the opportunity construct, entrepreneurs are more concerned with the opportunities given by change than they are with the obstacles that change brings about.

Stevenson (1990) extends Drucker’s opportunity-based approach by including the concept of resourcefulness. This is what we’ve come up with after conducting research into the differences between administrative and entrepreneurial management styles. Ultimately, he believes that the “pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled” is at the heart of effective entrepreneurial management.

Effectuation theories

When making decisions and doing actions in entrepreneurial processes, Sara’s Sarasvathy (2001) describes a method for identifying and evaluating accessible resources in order to attain your goals, while constantly balancing these objectives with your available resources and activities.

Effectuation is a four-step procedure that consists of the following components:

• You must think outside the box in order to come up with innovative solutions with the resources available.
• Bird-in-Hand: A bird in hand is a bird in hand.
• The “lemonade principle”: Mistakes and surprises are inescapable, but they can be used to provide opportunities for growth and development.
• Entering into new relationships can supply the project with additional funds as well as new and innovative concepts.
• Crazy Quilt, put a cap on your investment, and only invest what you can afford to lose.
• Kevin Plank operates under the guiding notion of “bird in hand”. He came up with a novel approach based on the limited resources he had at his disposal.

Lessons learnt

Accept ‘no’ as an unsatisfactory response

Successful entrepreneurs are constantly willing to dust themselves off and forge a fresh path to the top, regardless of the number of rejections and setbacks they encounter. This level of dedication is required to take a concept from the realms of imagination to the realms of a successful business.

Learn from the best

Even the most successful entrepreneurs throughout history sought counsel from their peers before venturing out on their own. By choosing a qualified mentor, you may learn a great deal about your sector and, more importantly, about running your own firm.

Adapt and evolve with the times; never remain static

The capacity to adapt to new methods, procedures, and technology is critical for every entrepreneur seeking success. It is impossible to forecast what customers and businesses will require in the future, as the corporate and consumer worlds are always changing.

It is critical to maintain long-term commercial relationships

There is no doubting the value of strong business relationships. Numerous businesses will cooperate with just those they trust and admire. One of the most critical factors in your business’s long-term success is your capacity to develop long-term working partnerships with other entrepreneurs in your sector.

Definitions

Ethnic Entrepreneurship

Ethnic (or immigrant) entrepreneurs, as defined by Aldrich and Waldinger, refer to business owners who share a national background, ancestry, culture, and history of migration.

Social Entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is a technique for individuals, groups, or start-up businesses to address social, cultural, and environmental challenges.

Habitual Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is defined in Habitual Entrepreneurs as the experience of owning a business. The distinction between “habitual” and “novice” entrepreneurs has been made due to disparities in business ownership experience.

Features

Ethnic Entrepreneurship

Ethnic entrepreneurship is related to the cultural backgrounds as of Kevin Plank.

Social Entrepreneurship

Social Curiosity

As a social entrepreneur, you must cultivate an interest in people and the issues they are dealing with.

Inspiration

Social entrepreneurs need to be inspired by the people and situations they encounter to build successful solutions.

Resourcefulness

Resources like human and financial capital are typically in short supply in the social entrepreneurship world.

Habitual Entrepreneurship

Human resources are frightened

A person’s ability to be an entrepreneur is extremely rare because it requires a unique set of skills that aren’t present in everyone.

Heterogeneous factor

An entrepreneur’s efficiency, abilities, organizing skills, ability to handle risk, foresight, and creative capacities vary from entrepreneur to entrepreneur. This makes entrepreneurship a heterogeneous element of production.

The most crucial component

Entrepreneurs play a critical role in the production of goods and services in modern companies because they coordinate the other components in an efficient manner.

Current debates

Social entrepreneurship

According to Steve Shara, social entrepreneurship is analogous to social justice activism; nevertheless, the commercial ethos of the notion is not compatible with the social difficulties that teachers and educators encounter daily.

Ethnic entrepreneurship

Uncertainty and risk are tough for first-time business owners to deal with because they are unfamiliar territory. The success or failure of a business initiative can have a substantial impact on the owners of the organization. This excursion also includes a few deviations and changes to the planned itinerary that were not anticipated.

Habitual entrepreneurship

In particular, we’re looking for entrepreneurs who have a track record of success and who will be able to put their PBOE to good use in future endeavors. Serial and portfolio entrepreneurs who have PBOE are compared to new entrepreneurs who do not have a PBOE to draw on, according to the study.

Conclusion

It is possible to conclude from the previous data that literature has some connection to the real world. Despite this, there are a few cases in which fiction and reality do not mix well together. A lot of the things he did had everything to do with his own determination to succeed, just like Kevin Plan’s had everything to do with his. There was a great deal of evidence that entrepreneurs are motivated by a desire to be successful.