The Small Business Forum
What is Entrepreneurship
- The term entrepreneurship is derived from the French word “entreprendre“, which means to undertake. It has no direct equivalent in English and is different things to different people. In the earliest times, it was defined as risk-taking and associated with people who traded: buying and selling goods. Because prices could change between the time of purchase and that of sale, the traders took risk, and this taking risk was seen as the defining feature of entrepreneurs.
- Entrepreneurship has also been described as innovation, defined to include:
- Introduction of new products
- Opening new markets
- New ways of production or technology
- The process is further described as creative destruction — old products and ways replaced with improved new ones — and is said to be what drives economic development.
- In economics, entrepreneurship is defined as the fourth factor of production, which organises the other three — land, labour, and capital — and without which these others cannot be productive.
- More frequently, entrepreneurship is identified with profit and growth, and associated with a small group of exceptionally ambitious people, captains of industry, who create highly successful enterprises and who seem to have a Midas touch: Everything they touch turns to gold.
Comments, Questions and Suggestions welcome.
drkibuka@thesmallbusinessforum.co.ke
+254-729524219
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