Work is a process, and any process needs to be controlled. To make work productive, therefore, requires building the appropriate controls into the pr… - Peter Drucker

The husband and wife who open another delicatessen store or another Mexican restaurant in the American suburb surely take a risk. But are they entrepreneurs? All they do is what has been done many times before. They gamble on the increasing popularity of eating out in their area, but create neither a new satisfaction nor new consumer demand. Seen under this perspective they are surely not entrepreneurs even though theirs is a new venture. McDonald’s, however, was entrepreneurship. It did not invent anything, to be sure. Its final product was what any decent American restaurant had produced years ago. But by applying management concepts and management techniques (asking, What is “value” to the customer?), standardizing the “product,” designing process and tools, and by basing training on the analysis of the work to be done and then setting the standards it required, McDonald’s both drastically upgraded the yield from resources, and created a new market and a new customer. This is entrepreneurship.

There is a definite trend in Italy and Germany to eliminate profit participation and the ownership rights of nonmanaging partners and shareholders.

It is as important to decide when to abandon an innovative effort as it is to know which one to start. In fact, it may be more important. Successful laboratory directors know when to abandon a line of research which does not yield the expected results. The less successful ones keep hoping against hope, are dazzled by the “scientific challenge” of a project, or are fooled by the scientists’ repeated promise of a “breakthrough next year.” And the unsuccessful ones cannot abandon a project and cannot admit that what seemed like a good idea has turned into a waste of men, time, and money.