THE NATURE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Hello guys,

This article explains the very nature of entrepreneurship, the entrepreneur as a person and his attitude towards entrepreneurship.

As a follow up you can read:

• ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN A DEVELOPING SOCIETY : NIGERIA

WHO IS AN ENTREPRENEUR

An entrepreneur is a person that has possession of an enterprise, or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome of the enterprise. The term is of french origin and was first defined by the Irish economist Richard Cantillon.

Entrepreneur is a term applied to the type of personality who is willing to take upon herself or himself a new venture or enterprise and accept full responsibility for the outcome.

An entrepreneur has also been defined as an independent business individual who efficiently and effectively combines the four factors of production. Those factors are land (natural resources), labour (human input into production using available resources), capital (any type of equipment used in production i.e. machinery) and enterprise (intelligence, knowledge and creativity).

Another definition given by the World Bank is that they are people who perceive profitable opportunities, are willing to take risks in pursuing them and have the ability to organize a business. Entrepreneurs are persons who are ingenious and creative in finding ways that add to their own wealth, power and prestige.

WHAT DOES AN ENTREPRENEUR DO

Following from these definitions, we see that entrepreneurs are likely to engage in a wide range of activities; initiating, launching, and managing businesses. And much more, a willingness to assume all the risks that may arise therefrom. Because the start-up years of an entrepreneur are usually the most trying years of an entrepreneur are usually the most trying years of his business venture, he is usually unknown until he gets a break. Where he is known (certainly by those who leave around him), very few understand him or wants to associate with him. He is regarded as a man that has been abandoned to fate, and the very notion of entrepreneur dreads those around him. But if he weathers the storm, he becomes  Ned Scott, Daniel Larimer, Bill Gate, Jack Ma, Dangote, Strive Masiyuwa, Mark Zuckerberg.

The entrepreneur is more than just an owner-manager of a business enterprise. The entrepreneur does his business in a significantly new and better way than the competitor. Whereas, the owner-manager conducts his business just the way everyone else doesn't, the product of an entrepreneur provides value-added and greater satisfaction to the consumer than an owner-manager could. Also because of innovation introduced by the entrepreneur to provide unique benefits to the target market, the potential for growth and profit of the business of the entrepreneur is significantly more than the owner-manager. Generally, the entrepreneur performs such roles as: re-allocating and re-combining factors of production; articulating the commercial goals of the project (idea or business); identifying and soliciting the necessary resources; coordinating their use; and assuming responsibility for the ultimate success of the project.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The term entrepreneurship is the process  of performing the roles of an entrepreneur. It has been defined as the process of planning, operating and assuming the risk of a business venture. It may also be defined as the process of creating a unique value, of pulling together a unique package of resources to exploit an opportunity. 

Entrepreneurship encompasses various activities which are carried out to ensure the survival and growth of the business. The process has been described as going through at least four phases;

The conception phase (when the would-be entrepreneur  perceives an opportunity),

The gestation phase (when the opportunity is evaluated),

The infancy phase (when the firm is created),

The adolescence phase (where after the firm matures).

CONCLUSION

While several definitions of entrepreneurship abound, the central idea of the concept incorporates uncertainty and risk taking, innovation, perception and change. Entrepreneur and entrepreneurship are more often associated with small and medium-scale enterprises even though not restricted to them. This is because entrepreneurial endeavours are often given expressions through small and medium-scale enterprises.