Entrepreneur vs. Venturer
All entrepreneurs are venturers, but not all venturers are entrepreneurs. The key is to determine what distinguishes a venture from a business
Antonio Carlos Gomes da Costa

It is interesting to observe that, although the term “ventureship” is used in the administrative and educational literature, it does not appear in the vast written works of Norberto Odebrecht. Why is this so? Does the author simply have a personal preference for the word “entrepreneur,” or are their deeper reasons?

I believe the second to be true. The term “venturer” designates people with characteristics that make them capable of standing out for their ability to transform visions into reality in the business world and other spheres of human activity. In the literature on this subject, a range of qualities always appears to be associated with people who are distinguished by their capacity for ventureship: a positive view of the future (optimism), the courage to take calculated risks, the capacity to analyze contexts and identify opportunities, a proactive stance, consistency in their aims when pursuing their objectives (persistence), creativity, the willingness to learn from adversity, dedication, realism, discernment, the ability to evaluate themselves and others, assertiveness, a passion for what they do, a commitment to quality, willingness to innovate, leadership and focus.

As we can see, the characteristics of a venturer are clearly the same ones required to be a good entrepreneur. In this sense, it can be said that all entrepreneurs are venturers, but not all venturers are entrepreneurs. The key, then, is to clearly define what distinguishes a venture from a business enterprise.

A venture is an activity that has a beginning and end and specific objectives that, once achieved, may not justify its continuance. For example, say that several companies form a joint venture to carry out a given project. Once their common task (venture) has been completed, their partnership no longer makes any sense. On the other hand, a business enterprise is an organization (of people) whose overarching aim is to survive, grow and achieve sustainability – in other words, exist over the course of time. While ventures are primarily defined by their pragmatic objectives, business enterprises are characterized by a mission, a vision of the future, values and principles that constitute their culture and a strategy for traveling the distance between what it is now and what it wants to be.

A crucial difference is the manner in which ventures and business enterprises deal with intangible assets: people, culture, knowledge, brand and social and environmental responsibility. In a venture, the management of intangible assets is handled tactically. In a business enterprise, however, this management must be considered an important component of organizational strategy.

Can enterprises and ventures clash in the business world? I believe they can. On example of this is the work of so-called aggressive investors, venture capitalists who take over companies through hostile bids to drastically and unsustainably raise stock prices for shareholders. There are short-term gains, but the strategic horizon dissolves and the future is permanently compromised. As a result, the dynamic of mergers and acquisitions can sometimes have a dark side in which “ventureship” and the spirit of entrepreneurship clash head-on.

For all these reasons, we can conclude that, as a philosophy of life focused on work and education, the Odebrecht Entrepreneurial Technology (TEO) is much more than a school of ventureship. It is a model for instilling the ability to run a business enterprise with entrepreneurial spirit.

For Norberto Odebrecht, being an entrepreneur is much more significant and complex than simply being a venturer.