Entrepreneurship’s Contribution
The apparent realization of entrepreneurship’s contribution to the economies of different nations has been observed.
These nations are boasting of a sustainable economy with an increased Gross Domestic Product (GDP) attributed to their people’s massive venture into the entrepreneurial business. For example, the United State’s economy happens to be the biggest economy in the world and which is illustrated by substantial investment in the small as well as the medium scale industries. It has also been observed that these small and medium scale business enterprises have a significant contribution to a nation’s economy when noteworthy investments and contributions are directed towards their maintenance.It is in this regard that efforts are being channeled towards public awareness campaigns in the United Kingdom to educate people on the value of entrepreneurship. By so doing, the government and other finance affiliated organization intend to maximize on business ventures so as to improve the economy of the nation as well as keeping up to date with the changing economic world. Moreover, it had been discovered that the levels of entrepreneurial activities in the United Kingdom were rapidly falling hence there was a need for sanitization and revitalization of this business sector.
Nonetheless, the government has embarked on a number of activities so as to improve the level of small and medium scale business ventures. This has been achieved through offering of incentives, business grants for aspiring entrepreneurs as well as massive public awareness campaigns. The government ha also identified the youth as worthy contributors in terms of innovation and creativity hence banking on youth empowerment and development strategies. It believes that by so doing, it will also be reducing the levels of unemployment and dependencies. In this regard, this paper has set out to identify the role of entrepreneurship as well as identifying some of the ways through which the levels of entrepreneurial activities could be heightened.
Shane, Scott (2003), defined entrepreneurship as the process through which innovations and business insights are carried out with the aim of transforming them into economic goods. This means that entrepreneurship begins with an idea of particular business venture and when implemented, it becomes an entrepreneurial activity. This in turn gives rise to companies, organizations or industries that respond to a certain opportunity. Schumpeter and Joseph A. (1942), described an entrepreneur as a person who transforms a new idea into a successful innovation. He further describes it as “the gale of creative destruction that seeks to replace inferior innovations in the business community with creative and up to date products and services coupled with new business models.
This was illustrated by Israel Kirzner’s idea of the replacement of paper with plastic in the construction of a drinking straw. The use of plastic in happens to be a better and more convenient way of making a straw hence this enhances Schumpeter and Joseph’s view of entrepreneurship.Schumpeter further added that with entrepreneurship, it did not necessarily mean that new business had to be created but would also entail the expansion of the existing businesses, “…entrepreneurship resulted in new industries but also in new combinations of currently existing inputs”, (1942).
He gave the example of the incorporation of steam engines in the wagon creation technologies to come up with a horseless carriage. This means that cars were not necessarily a new business and technological invention but rather transformational and development of an existing technology. This view brings into picture another form of entrepreneurship that does not require the creation of new business premises or enterprises. In this regard, entrepreneurship can be said to not only come up with a new business plan but also developing and modifying an existing business plan to come up with a new product.The essence of entrepreneurship is to come up with a new product that would meet the needs of the end consumers. This may be through the discovery of a totally new product or the modification of an existing product to meet the requirements of the current situation.
It is evident that the business world is ever changing with rising needs and demands buy consumers hence a good entrepreneur should be in a position of meeting these standards.Entrepreneurship is all about taking risks and this was well described by Frank H. Knight (1921) and Peter Drucker (1970). They stated that entrepreneurship exhibited some willingness by the entrepreneur to put their careers and financial security at risk with the aim of exploring into a business idea. In this regard, Knight identified three types of incertitude related to entrepreneurship such as: Risk, Ambiguity and True Uncertainty. In terms of the risks, there were chances that the business venture would fail hence the entrepreneur may not only lose his/her capital but may plunge into an economic disaster.
Ambiguity comes into play with the probability of the business venture being counter productive. This may happen when the re may not be clearly outlined goals and objectives hence may end up serving a cause that it was not intended. True uncertainty (also known as Knightian Uncertainty) on the other hand may refer to a business venture that doesn’t have an ultimate goal or objective hence the entrepreneur him/herself may not be in a better position to define his/her objectives. In leman’s language, it may be described as “a mission without a vision”.Robert Sobel (1974) observed that an entrepreneur plays an important part of in the business world through the creation of jobs and general economic growth.
Zoltan Acs and David Audretsch also applauded this view by Robert Sobel by stating the significance of entrepreneurship to the establishment of many economies. Moreover, they observed that most of the world’s economies are driven by great business venture and they went ahead and sited the United States as one of the leading economies whose credit lies in the business world.Having discussed the different views by different scholars concerning entrepreneurship, its definition and contribution to the economy, entrepreneurship may be defined as the process through which business ideas, innovations and excogitations are put into practice with the ultimate goal of realizing a financial value. These activities may not necessarily entail the creation of a new job avenue but may also involve the incorporation of a new business idea to an existing one so as to create a new product or improve on the current product or service.The significance of entrepreneurship, especially in the United Kingdom, has been realized hence many efforts have been directed towards the creation of more entrepreneurial opportunities.
It has been discovered that entrepreneurial activities have helped reduce the levels of unemployment. Furthermore, people are able to sustain their own personal lives hence reducing the levels of dependencies. This in turn has reduced to the reduction in unemployment related crimes as many people, especially the youth, are getting employed or setting up their own businesses.In the UK, entrepreneurs are however confined to high income earners from different demographic backgrounds with the number of women entrepreneurs being at its all time low. According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (2003), people aged between 25 and 34 are the most likely persons to get involved with entrepreneurship as compared to their older counterparts.
Furthermore, there was a drop in the number of individuals with professional degrees venturing into entrepreneurship as those with vocational training increased. 0.9% represented the percentage of student entrepreneurs and 8.1% representing individuals in the highest third quarter who are most likely to venture into entrepreneurship. This is a sharp contrast to 3.0% which represents those on the lower half.
Data contained in this paper was mainly obtained through literature review. These facts and statistics were reviews from journals, newspapers, websites as well as magazines and books. Statistical data was retrieved from government and institutional websites as well as documentations of their annual reports. Online journals, especially from EBSCO, Business Journal, Academic Search Complete and Emerald, provided reviewed and reliable information from people who had already conducted a similar research.
