Entrepreneurship

The word 'entrepreneur' is being batted around quite a bit nowadays, in fact it is being used in so many situations and to describe so many people that I actually had to look the definition up to get my bearings.

Entrepreneurs, like the self employed and or business owner share some very important traits, they are all people who have possession of a new enterprise, venture, or idea, and are accountable for the inherent risks and the outcome of a product.  That does not mean that every entrepreneur is necessarily a business owner or self employed, nor does it mean that every owner is an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs are leaders and team builders, but that does not mean that they will be "a founder," "CEO/President," or "owner" of a company or organization.  An entrepreneur characteristically innovates, introduces new technologies, increases efficiency, productivity, or generates new products or services. An entrepreneur acts as a catalyst for economic change and are highly creative individuals who imagine new solutions by generating opportunities for profit or reward.

True entrepreneurs put passion before profits; the vision, the dream, is what they live for not the money.  A true creative passion to change, to improve, to see things others do not see, can actually be hindered by greed, by a desire to get rich.  

Can entrepreneurship be taught?  No, not really.  Environments can be created where entrepreneurship can flourish, and I would argue that the key issue with our economy right now is that we, as a nation, have killed entrepreneurship and it is probably the number one reason we find ourselves in the situation we are in.  Now, I realize that numerous readers will react negatively to what I just said, but outside of technology, outside of the internet, we have absolutely no environment for entrepreneurship.

If we want to foster entrepreneurship then we need to return to the concept of "critical thinking" or:

"...knowing how to sift fact from opinion, make a clear written argument or objectively review conflicting reports of a situation or event..."

In a recently published study,  Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, Richard Arum notes that:

Forty-five percent of students made no significant improvement in their critical thinking, reasoning or writing skills during the first two years of college, according to the study. After four years, 36 percent showed no significant gains in these so-called “higher order” thinking skills.Students who majored in the traditional liberal arts — including the social sciences, humanities, natural sciences and mathematics — showed significantly greater gains over time than other students in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing skills.  Students majoring in business, education, social work and communications showed the least gains in learning. However, the authors note that their findings don’t preclude the possibility that such students “are developing subject-specific or occupationally relevant skills.”

Entrepreneurship is not an occupation but rather a way of thinking and seeing the world.  It is more a Weltanschauung than a 'subject' of study.  


I think we also need to realize that there is "opportunity driven" entrepreneurs and "necessity driven" entrepreneurs;  The world of internet based start ups is an example of opportunity driven entrepreneurs, while the rest of our economy fosters entrepreneurship as necessity driven, or people striking out on their own due to financial necessity.  There is an emerging body of work that shows that entrepreneurial behavior is dependent on social and economic factors:  For example, countries which have healthy and diversified labor markets or stronger safety nets show a more favorable ratio of opportunity-driven rather than necessity-driven entrepreneurs.


Necessity-driven entrepreneurs work out of their home, become insurance salesmen, or open up cupcake shops, while opportunity-driven entrepreneurs create new products, new ways of doing things, and eventually jobs for others.