THE VARIOUS DEFINITIONS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
The various definitions of entrepreneurship will not be complete without some important words or their synonyms which differentiates an entrepreneur from others. These words include creativity, innovation, development, seizing opportunities, and converting opportunities to marketable ideas, and bearing the risk of competition.
Entrepreneurship is a process by which a new business idea is hatched, synthesized, and operationalized, in order to meet new service/product needs of society. The business idea must be put into practice through the coordination of key resources to supply the service/product. Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlledā (as per Harvard Business School professor Howard Stevensonās definition). It is the process of designing a new business. The entrepreneur perceives a (new) business opportunity and gathers the resources to implement it, ideally successfully.
These definitions of entrepreneurship simplify the traits which qualifies an entrepreneur which is the person in theĀ centerĀ of Entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur isĀ distinguished from others by his or her ability to apply these traits which are inherent in most, if not all human, but is dormant in many people because they do not deep down within themselves to utilize these traits.
An entrepreneur is one (usually a person) who begets a business idea, and aligns it with the current/future demands of society, undertakes risks, to organize resources to produce and distribute the service/ product to the identified āmarketsā and orĀ their segments.
The entrepreneurial qualities are not restricted to people as individuals. They can also be attributed to institutions (enterprising businesses or organizations). Entrepreneurs do not have to restrict themselves to commercial/economic concerns. Social entrepreneurs also do exist.
Read more on entrepreneurial qualities or enterprising tendencies here.
Social entrepreneursĀ are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressingĀ socialĀ problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling majorĀ social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change. This concept may be applied to a variety of organizations with different sizes, aims, and beliefs.
Groups focused on social entrepreneurship may be divided into several categories:
- Community-based enterprises, socially responsible enterprises,Ā social servicesĀ industry professionals, and socio-economic enterprises.
- Community-based enterprises are based on the social ventures of an entire community that uses its culture and capital to empower itself as an entire enterprise.
- Socially responsible enterprises focus on creating sustainable development through their initiatives that focus mostly on societal gains.
- In addition, there are organizations dedicated to empowering social entrepreneurs, connecting them with mentors, strengthening their enterprise models, and preparing them for capital investments.
One well-known contemporary social entrepreneur isĀ Muhammad Yunus, who founded the Grameen Bank in 1976. He is known as the “father of micro-credit,” and established theĀ microfinanceĀ movement, which aims to help millions of people rural communities access small loans. For his work, he was awarded aĀ Nobel Peace PrizeĀ in 2006. The work that Yunus did through Grameen Bank has been described as a major influence on later social entrepreneurs.
An entrepreneur is one who shifts economic resources out of an area of lower, and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield/return. In the process, however, they must create new satisfaction and new consumer demand (new value, new customers, new markets). Entrepreneurial orientation is a function of 3 elements namely; risk taking, innovation and pro-activeness.
An entrepreneur is someone who can use his creative mind to make out something out of nothing or transform something that is already in existence into something better. He is able to study his external societal environment, immediate environment, and internal environment and recognize the opportunities available and those he can seize, develop, and convert into goods and services which others can buy.
An entrepreneur must have the spirit of innovation to enable him bring such ideas to light and at same time he bears the risk involved in the decisions he took and the risk of competition by other entrepreneur. It is because of this trait that these words are included in the various definitions of Entrepreneurship.