Martha Stewart Research Paper
In 1976, when she started her first business as a caterer in the small town of Westport Connecticut, nobody would have been able to predict the entrepreneurial success of Martha Stewart to this day. Martha transitioned from being a model, to a stockbroker, to a small town caterer, and finally to being the proprietor of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. (MSLO), a multimedia and merchandizing company that is still thriving and expanding today. Looking back on Martha’s life from today, one can gain valuable insight into the factors that contributed to her becoming an entrepreneur. Among those contributing factors are the cultures of America and New York in the 1970s, the opportunity presented by the “Do-It-Yourself” industry, and Martha’s
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personal characteristics and life experiences. Although Martha was slated to become an entrepreneur through a unique combination of culture, opportunity, personality and life experiences, personality and life experiences contributed most to Martha Stewart becoming an entrepreneur.
One factor contributing to Martha Stewart’s emergence as an entrepreneur was the culture of New York in the 1970s. As agreed upon by several social and economic theorists such as Jane Jacobs, AnnaLee Saxenian, and Richard Florida, one aspect of culture that contributes to the formation of creativity is frequent and informal socializing; and that frequent and informal socializing usually come in the form of a city. Through the means of interaction cities provide such as bars, nightclubs, cafes, busy streets, restaurants, and other social gathering places, one “can be more than be a spectator, [one] can be part of the scene” and partake in the constant and diverse exchange of information and ideas (Florida 232). Martha Stewart was able to experience this culture of exchange in New York City. When Martha lived in New York City, major cities across the United States, including New York City, were experiencing a “wealth of creativity and freedom flourishing amidst the dilapidated buildings and mean streets” because “art, music, theatre, dance, and cinema had a chance to blossom in this environment” (Tannenbaum 1). Martha Stewart, having lived in New York City until 1973, experienced this contemporary New York City culture of frequent and informal socializing firsthand. In fact, it was through working for a couple of ladies “on Fifth Avenue that Martha became acquainted with Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a book that changed her life” (Allen 49). Without the ability to frequently interact with others, Martha may have never realized her passion for creativity in the kitchen and around the household. Furthermore, she certainly would not have been able exchange ideas and have her ideas critiqued without a culture that encouraged informal interactions such as pleasant chat at a coffee shop, clubbing, or, in the case of Martha Stewart, a hotdog at the Papaya King. Despite that fact that New York City culture contributed to Martha Stewart’s becoming an entrepreneur, it is not to be solely credited for her entrepreneurship.
American culture as a whole in the 1970s was another contributor to Martha’s entrepreneurship.
In 1970s America, “social norms and laws were increasingly framed in favor of women,” and “the role of women in nuclear families took radical shift from those of earlier generations” (1970s 1). Women working outside of the household became an acceptable social norm, and the number of career fields in which women were able to work drastically increased. This new aspect of American culture contributed to Martha Stewart becoming an entrepreneur by setting up a background in which she could flourish and succeed with little resistance from social and gender norms. Although both New York City culture and American culture advanced Martha’s predisposition towards becoming an entrepreneur, the importance of culture is not able to supersede the importance personality and life experience in the case of Martha Stewart. The benefits American and New York culture added to Martha’s entrepreneurial predisposition were furthered by Martha’s personal traits and life …show more content…
experiences.
Another determinant of Martha Stewart’s metamorphosis into an entrepreneur was the presentation of an entrepreneurial opportunity. “Aided by a down economy,” the Do-It-Yourself industry was rapidly expanding during the recession of the 1970s (“Propelled by Recession”). As the pre-existing Do-It-Yourself market flourished, Martha found her opening into the business world. Both Martha’s first gourmet food business and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. exhibited her recognition of the business opportunity the growing Do-It-Yourself sector presented. The opportunity the Do-It-Yourself industry provided was the opportunity to participate in field of business that promised growth and prosperity for anybody possessing creativity and a willingness to invest time and effort into the industry. The purpose of Martha’s gourmet food business, which later served as the foundation for MSLO, was “to teach-first children and then adults-in her own home” how to cook (“Martha Stewart” 41), and to this day, part of MSLO’s mission statement is that “knowledge inspires confidence and a can-do attitude” (“Mission Statement”). Martha Stewart’s business appeals to the Do-It-Yourself practicality and the desire for know-how of people everywhere which can be observed as she is “‘looked to by millions of American women for guidance about everything from weddings to weeding’” (“Martha Stewart” 41). It can almost unarguably be stated that an existing industry and economic downturn presented an opportunity for Martha Stewart to become an entrepreneur, but in the individual case of Martha Stewart, her ability to identify the business opportunity that was presented to her is of more importance.
Martha Stewart was able to recognize the opportunity to partake in the Do-It-Yourself industry because of her personal characteristics and life experiences. In the words of Scott Shane, a Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, “individual differences influence the opportunities that people discover” (Shane 448). For Martha Stewart, these individual differences, referred to by Scott Shane, came in the form of life experiences and personality. Having grown up in a home where she learned to “cook, bake, and sew with her mother,” and her father “taught her about planting, garden design, and flower arranging” (“Martha Stewart” 41), the knowledge of how to perform household tasks herself was instilled in her, and her creative character was given free range to develop. Martha Stewart was pre-conditioned by her life experiences, and the personal characteristics they incubated, to recognize the opportunity to form a Do-It-Yourself business when the opportunity arose. Although opportunity provided an important aspect of Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial predisposition, the most important of factors that contributed to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurship were her personality and life experiences. But before the importance of Stewart’s personality and life experiences can be explained, they must first be identified.
The first of Martha Stewart’s defining characteristics is her aggressiveness. Referring to aggression in the context of “making an all-out effort to win or succeed” (Dictionary.com), Martha’s aggression can be recognized in several of her actions. Lloyd Allen, a personal friend of Martha Stewart, captures Martha’s aggression in his book “Being Martha: The Inside Story of Martha Stewart and Her Amazing Life” by quoting Martha’s mother in saying that “‘Martha was so busy with school that she didn’t have too many dates’” (46). As demonstrated even in her adolescent years, Martha Stewart let nothing interrupt her progress towards successfully achieving her goals, not even romance. Once Martha determined she was going to excel academically in high school, and she dedicated her life to her studies. Her steadfast resolve can be seen in the fact that she spent so much time in the library that “‘they were going to name a room after her’” (Allen 46). Martha’s full commitment to academic achievement in high school even led to a post-secondary education at Barnard College. There exist several more empirical examples of Martha’s aggression following her academic career; however, aggression is not the only personal trait that contributed towards Stewart’s entrepreneurial disposition.
Martha’s creativity was an additional personal characteristic that pointed Martha in the direction of becoming an entrepreneur. Early in her youth, Martha’s ability to be creative surfaced. For example, “she plucked fig leaves from [her family’s] tree, arranged them against a white cardboard background, and entered her design in a contest at school,” which, of course, she won (Allen 42). Though a combination of life experiences, such as when her father “devoted time to teaching Martha and her brothers and sisters how to arrange flowers and how to appreciate the vivid and varied colors and shapes growing in their backyard” (Allen 42), Martha’s creativity was given the opportunity to establish its roots and grow within her. The flourishing of Martha’s creativity can be exemplified by the more recent example of Martha “paint[ing] her entire pool black” because “she had a vision of her pool as one of those shimmering, depthless rectangles you see in front of a museum” (Allen 15). Once again, the conclusion can almost unarguably be drawn that creativity is one of Martha Stewart’s most prominent personal characteristics that led to her future in business; but, it is not the final trait of importance.
The final characteristic of importance is Martha’s independence.
Independence, being defined as the “freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others” (Dictionary.com), paints an accurate portrait of Martha Stewart. Despite the innumerable amount of support, influence, and aid from others she has received, Martha has formed no sort of reliance on those fleeting sources. Martha’s independence can once again be exhibited by Martha’s very own mother “‘[hesitating] to give [Martha] any advice because [Martha] thought she knew it all’” (50). Having grown up in a home where the cliché “if you want something done, do it yourself” was a cardinal rule, and Martha became completely self-sufficient and self-reliant. After divorcing her husband and loosing several of friends in the divorce, Martha was “‘forced to seek home and comfort elsewhere’” (Allen 31), and she did just that when she removed herself to Long Island and continued with her increasingly successful enterprise.
Returning to the relevance of Martha’s personality and life experiences in slating her towards becoming an entrepreneur, Stewart’s aggressiveness, creativity, and independence offer an explanation for Martha’s founding of a business. Martha was inclined, above all other individuals, to become an entrepreneur because of a unique combination of her personal characteristics, aggression, creativity, and independence, and her life
experiences.
Using her creativity, Martha was able to produce a commodity that was original and highly prized by the market it appealed to. Martha Stewart brought a creative element to everyday household tasks. In other words, Martha Stewart found a way to sell creativity. However, creativity alone did not make Stewart more likely than any other person to become an entrepreneur. Additionally, Martha possessed, and still possesses, aggressiveness. Martha aggression drove her to showcase her creativity. In addition to being in possession of something that she wanted other people to also possess, Martha Stewart wanted to win attract people towards her product, and capture consumers. Without the ambition aggression entails, Martha would not have been willing to sacrifice as much time, effort, and money in order to grab the attention of her targeted market. When independence enters the mix and is combined with aggression and creativity, Martha Stewart is produced as an entrepreneur. Because Martha Stewart was independent, she did not need others to take control and exhibit for her what she had to offer, she did not need to sell her ideas to others, she was completely self-sufficient, she alone could sustain and promote her own brain-child. Independence, creativity, and aggression, as well as the personal experiences that contributed to the development of those traits, above culture and opportunity, slated Martha Stewart towards becoming an entrepreneur; but that is not to say that opportunity and culture did not play an important role in Martha Stewart becoming an entrepreneur. At this point in the essay, the question arises as to how exactly personal characteristics and life experiences trump opportunity and culture. To address this question, the role personal traits and life experiences play in the furtherance of the contributions of culture and opportunity will be elaborated. To commence this process of explanation, we will return to the assertion made at the end of the third paragraph of this essay.
At the end of the third paragraph, a statement was made declaring that the provisions culture afforded to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial predisposition were augmented by her personality and life experiences. The first contribution made to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial inclination came from New York City’s culture. The culture of New York City promoted the exchange and modification of ideas through the facilitating of frequent and informal socialization. It was also through life experiences that Martha Stewart’s frequent and informal socialization was facilitated and that she was able to exchange and modify her ideas. As one of six children, it can be assumed that Martha Stewart became an expert at finding a way to voice herself in the din of her household. In fact, Martha learned to express herself so well that in high school she “took public speaking and debate and did very well in both” (Allen 36). Later in life, Martha’s academic ambitions led her to pursue a modeling job in order to pay for college which lured her to the famous New York City from her hometown in Nutley, New Jersey. Martha Stewart’s life experiences gave her the know-how to exchange her ideas in form of frequent and informal socialization, and her aforementioned personal characteristic of aggression led her to the means of frequent and informal socialization, New York City.
The second contribution made to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial inclination came from America’s culture in the 1970s. The culture of America in the 1970s contributed to Martha’s entrepreneurial disposition by promoting the acceptability and professional of growth of working women in that era. This cultural contribution came in the form of public policies increasingly in favor of furthering the rights of women. However, Martha’s personal traits and life experiences also encouraged her to pursue the professional career of her choice, and professional growth. Even before the 1970s, Martha Stewart was a working woman, and she excelled at each and every one of her occupations. Having been a working mother from the very start of the 1970s and having dominated a career on the male-dominated Wall Street, Martha Stewart already possessed the drive and capability to be a successful working woman. With the cultural backdrop of social acceptance emerged in the 1970s, as an already aggressive and independent woman by default of her personal characteristics fostered by life experiences, the only logical next step for Martha to take in this new culture with minimal gender distinctions was to start her own business. Although this new American culture of the 1970s definitely predisposed Martha to become an entrepreneur by giving her the environment in which she could start and grow her business with little social resistance and conflict and which she find an open and accepting market, in the absence of such a culture, Martha Stewart might still have become the business women she is today. True, Martha would have met with less encouragement and more resistance, but as exhibited by her life experiences previous to her entrepreneurship, her personal aggression and independence would have driven her towards entrepreneurship regardless of the obstacles.
The final contribution made to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial inclination, other than personality and life experience came from the opportunity the Do-It-Yourself industry presented to Martha Stewart. As previously detailed, a downturn economy promoted the expansion of the Do-It-Yourself industry, which in turn opened up the opportunity for Martha to take part in a promising business field. However, it was through her personality and life experiences that Martha Stewart was able to recognize this opportunity. For precisely this reason, personality and life experiences superseded the contribution opportunity presented to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial. If the same opportunity had existed but Martha Stewart did not possess the previous life experiences regarding the knowledge of how to perform common household tasks and the personality traits those life experiences fostered, she would have never been able to identify her position in the business world and form Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
I would like to reaffirm that without the opportunity the Do-It-Yourself industry presented, Martha Stewart’s present place in the business world would have never existed. Also, I would like to stress that the culture of America and New York in the 1970s incentivized Martha Stewart to jump into the world of business at the exact moment that Do-It-Yourself industry presented its opportunity. Finally, it is of the utmost importance that it is realized that without the combination of culture, opportunity, and personal characteristics and life experiences that Martha Stewart’s chances of becoming and entrepreneur would have been nonexistent. However, the purpose of this essay is not to determine what made Martha Stewart an entrepreneur, but rather what factor most predisposed her towards becoming an entrepreneur.
The factor that contributed most towards Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial lean was her personal characteristics and life experiences. In addition to the role they played in predisposing her to become an entrepreneur as was earlier discussed, Martha Stewart’s life experiences and personal traits enhanced the effects culture and opportunity also had on her entrepreneurial predisposition. Martha’s aggressiveness led her to New York City, and her personal life experience in a large family led to her quick and easy introduction into the frequent and informal culture of socializing in New York City. Martha’s aggression and independence as a woman added to the new era of women’s rights in America in the 1970s. Finally, Martha’s life experiences, and the aggressiveness, independence, and creativity those life experiences fostered, contributed towards Martha’s recognition of opportunity the Do-It-Yourself industry provided her. Because personal characteristics and life experiences improved the outcomes opportunity and culture had on Martha Stewart becoming a successful entrepreneur when she did, they are the factors that contributed most towards Martha’s predisposition to become an entrepreneur.
The implications of this essay are not that all entrepreneurs possess similar qualities and life experiences to Martha Stewart, or even that policies can be implemented to produce more Martha Stewart-like entrepreneurs. The implication of this essay is that even though all entrepreneurs are predisposed towards entrepreneurship by culture, opportunity, personal experience, and life experiences, the role each of these factors plays varies significantly from individual to individual. Personal character and life experiences played the most important role in Martha Stewart becoming an entrepreneur. Spanish culture played the most important role in Ferran Adriá becoming an entrepreneur. Opportunity played the most important role in Richard Branson becoming an entrepreneur. The only reasonable policies that I can foresee aggrandizing entrepreneurship in the future are policies that encourage and individuals personal development by providing them with an education, the ability to move about as they please, and by giving them an open-minded culture in which they can develop. Entrepreneurship is not a phenomenon that can be attributed to one factor; therefore, if entrepreneurship is to be roused, all factors must be targeted by policy.
Works Cited
1970s. The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia, 12 Aug. 2010. Web. 4 Dec. 2010.
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"Aggressive." Entry 2, Def. 2. Dictionary.com. n.d. N. pag. Web. 29 Sept. 2010.
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Allen, Lloyd. Being Martha: The Inside Story of Martha Stewart and Her Amazing Life. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. Print.
Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class. New York: Basic Books, 2002. Print.
"Independence." Entry 1, Def. 2. Dictionary.com. n.d. N. pag. Web. 29 Sept. 2010.
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"Martha Stewart." Biography Reference Center. Bloomsbury Business Library –
Business Thinkers , 2007. Ebsco Host. Web. 1 Nov. 2010. p 41-41.
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"Mission Statement." Martha Stewart Living. Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, 2010.
Web. 6 Dec. 2010. .
"Propelled by Recession, Do-It-Yourself Market Slated for Growth." Supermarket News.
N.p., 29 May 2009. Web. 1 Nov. 2010.
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Shane, Scott. 2000. “Prior Knowledge and the Discovery of Entrepreneurial
Opportunities.” Organization Science, 11: 448-
469.http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2640414.pdf
Tannenbaum, Allan. New York in the 70s: A Remembrance. The Digital Journalist, Feb.
2004. Web. 4 Dec. 2010.
personal characteristics and life experiences. Although Martha was slated to become an entrepreneur through a unique combination of culture, opportunity, personality and life experiences, personality and life experiences contributed most to Martha Stewart becoming an entrepreneur.
One factor contributing to Martha Stewart’s emergence as an entrepreneur was the culture of New York in the 1970s. As agreed upon by several social and economic theorists such as Jane Jacobs, AnnaLee Saxenian, and Richard Florida, one aspect of culture that contributes to the formation of creativity is frequent and informal socializing; and that frequent and informal socializing usually come in the form of a city. Through the means of interaction cities provide such as bars, nightclubs, cafes, busy streets, restaurants, and other social gathering places, one “can be more than be a spectator, [one] can be part of the scene” and partake in the constant and diverse exchange of information and ideas (Florida 232). Martha Stewart was able to experience this culture of exchange in New York City. When Martha lived in New York City, major cities across the United States, including New York City, were experiencing a “wealth of creativity and freedom flourishing amidst the dilapidated buildings and mean streets” because “art, music, theatre, dance, and cinema had a chance to blossom in this environment” (Tannenbaum 1). Martha Stewart, having lived in New York City until 1973, experienced this contemporary New York City culture of frequent and informal socializing firsthand. In fact, it was through working for a couple of ladies “on Fifth Avenue that Martha became acquainted with Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, a book that changed her life” (Allen 49). Without the ability to frequently interact with others, Martha may have never realized her passion for creativity in the kitchen and around the household. Furthermore, she certainly would not have been able exchange ideas and have her ideas critiqued without a culture that encouraged informal interactions such as pleasant chat at a coffee shop, clubbing, or, in the case of Martha Stewart, a hotdog at the Papaya King. Despite that fact that New York City culture contributed to Martha Stewart’s becoming an entrepreneur, it is not to be solely credited for her entrepreneurship.
American culture as a whole in the 1970s was another contributor to Martha’s entrepreneurship.
In 1970s America, “social norms and laws were increasingly framed in favor of women,” and “the role of women in nuclear families took radical shift from those of earlier generations” (1970s 1). Women working outside of the household became an acceptable social norm, and the number of career fields in which women were able to work drastically increased. This new aspect of American culture contributed to Martha Stewart becoming an entrepreneur by setting up a background in which she could flourish and succeed with little resistance from social and gender norms. Although both New York City culture and American culture advanced Martha’s predisposition towards becoming an entrepreneur, the importance of culture is not able to supersede the importance personality and life experience in the case of Martha Stewart. The benefits American and New York culture added to Martha’s entrepreneurial predisposition were furthered by Martha’s personal traits and life …show more content…
experiences.
Another determinant of Martha Stewart’s metamorphosis into an entrepreneur was the presentation of an entrepreneurial opportunity. “Aided by a down economy,” the Do-It-Yourself industry was rapidly expanding during the recession of the 1970s (“Propelled by Recession”). As the pre-existing Do-It-Yourself market flourished, Martha found her opening into the business world. Both Martha’s first gourmet food business and Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia Inc. exhibited her recognition of the business opportunity the growing Do-It-Yourself sector presented. The opportunity the Do-It-Yourself industry provided was the opportunity to participate in field of business that promised growth and prosperity for anybody possessing creativity and a willingness to invest time and effort into the industry. The purpose of Martha’s gourmet food business, which later served as the foundation for MSLO, was “to teach-first children and then adults-in her own home” how to cook (“Martha Stewart” 41), and to this day, part of MSLO’s mission statement is that “knowledge inspires confidence and a can-do attitude” (“Mission Statement”). Martha Stewart’s business appeals to the Do-It-Yourself practicality and the desire for know-how of people everywhere which can be observed as she is “‘looked to by millions of American women for guidance about everything from weddings to weeding’” (“Martha Stewart” 41). It can almost unarguably be stated that an existing industry and economic downturn presented an opportunity for Martha Stewart to become an entrepreneur, but in the individual case of Martha Stewart, her ability to identify the business opportunity that was presented to her is of more importance.
Martha Stewart was able to recognize the opportunity to partake in the Do-It-Yourself industry because of her personal characteristics and life experiences. In the words of Scott Shane, a Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, “individual differences influence the opportunities that people discover” (Shane 448). For Martha Stewart, these individual differences, referred to by Scott Shane, came in the form of life experiences and personality. Having grown up in a home where she learned to “cook, bake, and sew with her mother,” and her father “taught her about planting, garden design, and flower arranging” (“Martha Stewart” 41), the knowledge of how to perform household tasks herself was instilled in her, and her creative character was given free range to develop. Martha Stewart was pre-conditioned by her life experiences, and the personal characteristics they incubated, to recognize the opportunity to form a Do-It-Yourself business when the opportunity arose. Although opportunity provided an important aspect of Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial predisposition, the most important of factors that contributed to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurship were her personality and life experiences. But before the importance of Stewart’s personality and life experiences can be explained, they must first be identified.
The first of Martha Stewart’s defining characteristics is her aggressiveness. Referring to aggression in the context of “making an all-out effort to win or succeed” (Dictionary.com), Martha’s aggression can be recognized in several of her actions. Lloyd Allen, a personal friend of Martha Stewart, captures Martha’s aggression in his book “Being Martha: The Inside Story of Martha Stewart and Her Amazing Life” by quoting Martha’s mother in saying that “‘Martha was so busy with school that she didn’t have too many dates’” (46). As demonstrated even in her adolescent years, Martha Stewart let nothing interrupt her progress towards successfully achieving her goals, not even romance. Once Martha determined she was going to excel academically in high school, and she dedicated her life to her studies. Her steadfast resolve can be seen in the fact that she spent so much time in the library that “‘they were going to name a room after her’” (Allen 46). Martha’s full commitment to academic achievement in high school even led to a post-secondary education at Barnard College. There exist several more empirical examples of Martha’s aggression following her academic career; however, aggression is not the only personal trait that contributed towards Stewart’s entrepreneurial disposition.
Martha’s creativity was an additional personal characteristic that pointed Martha in the direction of becoming an entrepreneur. Early in her youth, Martha’s ability to be creative surfaced. For example, “she plucked fig leaves from [her family’s] tree, arranged them against a white cardboard background, and entered her design in a contest at school,” which, of course, she won (Allen 42). Though a combination of life experiences, such as when her father “devoted time to teaching Martha and her brothers and sisters how to arrange flowers and how to appreciate the vivid and varied colors and shapes growing in their backyard” (Allen 42), Martha’s creativity was given the opportunity to establish its roots and grow within her. The flourishing of Martha’s creativity can be exemplified by the more recent example of Martha “paint[ing] her entire pool black” because “she had a vision of her pool as one of those shimmering, depthless rectangles you see in front of a museum” (Allen 15). Once again, the conclusion can almost unarguably be drawn that creativity is one of Martha Stewart’s most prominent personal characteristics that led to her future in business; but, it is not the final trait of importance.
The final characteristic of importance is Martha’s independence.
Independence, being defined as the “freedom from the control, influence, support, aid, or the like, of others” (Dictionary.com), paints an accurate portrait of Martha Stewart. Despite the innumerable amount of support, influence, and aid from others she has received, Martha has formed no sort of reliance on those fleeting sources. Martha’s independence can once again be exhibited by Martha’s very own mother “‘[hesitating] to give [Martha] any advice because [Martha] thought she knew it all’” (50). Having grown up in a home where the cliché “if you want something done, do it yourself” was a cardinal rule, and Martha became completely self-sufficient and self-reliant. After divorcing her husband and loosing several of friends in the divorce, Martha was “‘forced to seek home and comfort elsewhere’” (Allen 31), and she did just that when she removed herself to Long Island and continued with her increasingly successful enterprise.
Returning to the relevance of Martha’s personality and life experiences in slating her towards becoming an entrepreneur, Stewart’s aggressiveness, creativity, and independence offer an explanation for Martha’s founding of a business. Martha was inclined, above all other individuals, to become an entrepreneur because of a unique combination of her personal characteristics, aggression, creativity, and independence, and her life
experiences.
Using her creativity, Martha was able to produce a commodity that was original and highly prized by the market it appealed to. Martha Stewart brought a creative element to everyday household tasks. In other words, Martha Stewart found a way to sell creativity. However, creativity alone did not make Stewart more likely than any other person to become an entrepreneur. Additionally, Martha possessed, and still possesses, aggressiveness. Martha aggression drove her to showcase her creativity. In addition to being in possession of something that she wanted other people to also possess, Martha Stewart wanted to win attract people towards her product, and capture consumers. Without the ambition aggression entails, Martha would not have been willing to sacrifice as much time, effort, and money in order to grab the attention of her targeted market. When independence enters the mix and is combined with aggression and creativity, Martha Stewart is produced as an entrepreneur. Because Martha Stewart was independent, she did not need others to take control and exhibit for her what she had to offer, she did not need to sell her ideas to others, she was completely self-sufficient, she alone could sustain and promote her own brain-child. Independence, creativity, and aggression, as well as the personal experiences that contributed to the development of those traits, above culture and opportunity, slated Martha Stewart towards becoming an entrepreneur; but that is not to say that opportunity and culture did not play an important role in Martha Stewart becoming an entrepreneur. At this point in the essay, the question arises as to how exactly personal characteristics and life experiences trump opportunity and culture. To address this question, the role personal traits and life experiences play in the furtherance of the contributions of culture and opportunity will be elaborated. To commence this process of explanation, we will return to the assertion made at the end of the third paragraph of this essay.
At the end of the third paragraph, a statement was made declaring that the provisions culture afforded to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial predisposition were augmented by her personality and life experiences. The first contribution made to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial inclination came from New York City’s culture. The culture of New York City promoted the exchange and modification of ideas through the facilitating of frequent and informal socialization. It was also through life experiences that Martha Stewart’s frequent and informal socialization was facilitated and that she was able to exchange and modify her ideas. As one of six children, it can be assumed that Martha Stewart became an expert at finding a way to voice herself in the din of her household. In fact, Martha learned to express herself so well that in high school she “took public speaking and debate and did very well in both” (Allen 36). Later in life, Martha’s academic ambitions led her to pursue a modeling job in order to pay for college which lured her to the famous New York City from her hometown in Nutley, New Jersey. Martha Stewart’s life experiences gave her the know-how to exchange her ideas in form of frequent and informal socialization, and her aforementioned personal characteristic of aggression led her to the means of frequent and informal socialization, New York City.
The second contribution made to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial inclination came from America’s culture in the 1970s. The culture of America in the 1970s contributed to Martha’s entrepreneurial disposition by promoting the acceptability and professional of growth of working women in that era. This cultural contribution came in the form of public policies increasingly in favor of furthering the rights of women. However, Martha’s personal traits and life experiences also encouraged her to pursue the professional career of her choice, and professional growth. Even before the 1970s, Martha Stewart was a working woman, and she excelled at each and every one of her occupations. Having been a working mother from the very start of the 1970s and having dominated a career on the male-dominated Wall Street, Martha Stewart already possessed the drive and capability to be a successful working woman. With the cultural backdrop of social acceptance emerged in the 1970s, as an already aggressive and independent woman by default of her personal characteristics fostered by life experiences, the only logical next step for Martha to take in this new culture with minimal gender distinctions was to start her own business. Although this new American culture of the 1970s definitely predisposed Martha to become an entrepreneur by giving her the environment in which she could start and grow her business with little social resistance and conflict and which she find an open and accepting market, in the absence of such a culture, Martha Stewart might still have become the business women she is today. True, Martha would have met with less encouragement and more resistance, but as exhibited by her life experiences previous to her entrepreneurship, her personal aggression and independence would have driven her towards entrepreneurship regardless of the obstacles.
The final contribution made to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial inclination, other than personality and life experience came from the opportunity the Do-It-Yourself industry presented to Martha Stewart. As previously detailed, a downturn economy promoted the expansion of the Do-It-Yourself industry, which in turn opened up the opportunity for Martha to take part in a promising business field. However, it was through her personality and life experiences that Martha Stewart was able to recognize this opportunity. For precisely this reason, personality and life experiences superseded the contribution opportunity presented to Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial. If the same opportunity had existed but Martha Stewart did not possess the previous life experiences regarding the knowledge of how to perform common household tasks and the personality traits those life experiences fostered, she would have never been able to identify her position in the business world and form Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia.
I would like to reaffirm that without the opportunity the Do-It-Yourself industry presented, Martha Stewart’s present place in the business world would have never existed. Also, I would like to stress that the culture of America and New York in the 1970s incentivized Martha Stewart to jump into the world of business at the exact moment that Do-It-Yourself industry presented its opportunity. Finally, it is of the utmost importance that it is realized that without the combination of culture, opportunity, and personal characteristics and life experiences that Martha Stewart’s chances of becoming and entrepreneur would have been nonexistent. However, the purpose of this essay is not to determine what made Martha Stewart an entrepreneur, but rather what factor most predisposed her towards becoming an entrepreneur.
The factor that contributed most towards Martha Stewart’s entrepreneurial lean was her personal characteristics and life experiences. In addition to the role they played in predisposing her to become an entrepreneur as was earlier discussed, Martha Stewart’s life experiences and personal traits enhanced the effects culture and opportunity also had on her entrepreneurial predisposition. Martha’s aggressiveness led her to New York City, and her personal life experience in a large family led to her quick and easy introduction into the frequent and informal culture of socializing in New York City. Martha’s aggression and independence as a woman added to the new era of women’s rights in America in the 1970s. Finally, Martha’s life experiences, and the aggressiveness, independence, and creativity those life experiences fostered, contributed towards Martha’s recognition of opportunity the Do-It-Yourself industry provided her. Because personal characteristics and life experiences improved the outcomes opportunity and culture had on Martha Stewart becoming a successful entrepreneur when she did, they are the factors that contributed most towards Martha’s predisposition to become an entrepreneur.
The implications of this essay are not that all entrepreneurs possess similar qualities and life experiences to Martha Stewart, or even that policies can be implemented to produce more Martha Stewart-like entrepreneurs. The implication of this essay is that even though all entrepreneurs are predisposed towards entrepreneurship by culture, opportunity, personal experience, and life experiences, the role each of these factors plays varies significantly from individual to individual. Personal character and life experiences played the most important role in Martha Stewart becoming an entrepreneur. Spanish culture played the most important role in Ferran Adriá becoming an entrepreneur. Opportunity played the most important role in Richard Branson becoming an entrepreneur. The only reasonable policies that I can foresee aggrandizing entrepreneurship in the future are policies that encourage and individuals personal development by providing them with an education, the ability to move about as they please, and by giving them an open-minded culture in which they can develop. Entrepreneurship is not a phenomenon that can be attributed to one factor; therefore, if entrepreneurship is to be roused, all factors must be targeted by policy.
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