What is Entrepreneurship?

What is Entrepreneurship?

According to Knight (1921), entrepreneurship as a profit from bearing uncertainty and risk. Schumpeter (1934), define as carrying out of new combinations of firm organization – new products, new services, new sources of raw material, new methods of production, new markets, new form of organization.

Cole (1959) defines as purposefu

l activity to initiate and develop a profit-oriented business and McClelland (1961) entrepreneurship just the moderate risk taking. Stevenson, Roberts, and Grousbeck (1989) defined as the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled and in 1995, Hart, Stevenson and Dial were improve this definition to be entrepreneurship as the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled, but constrained by the founders’ previous choices and industry-related experiences.

According to Histrich and Peter (1998), entrepreneurship is the dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. The wealth is created by individuals who assume major risks in terms of equity, time, and career commitment or provide value for some product or service. It is the process of creating something new with value by devoting the necessary time and effort, assuming the accompanying financial, psychological, and social risks, and receiving the resulting rewards of monetary, personal satisfaction and independences.

In the 21st century, Kuratko and Hodgetts (2004) have define entrepreneurship is a dynamic process of vision, change, and creation. It requires an application of energy and passion towards the creation and implementation of new ideas and creative solutions. Essential ingredients include the willingness to take calculated risks in term of time, equity, or career; the ability to formulate an effective venture team; the creative skill to marshal needed resources; the fundamental skill of building a solid business plan; and finally, the vision to recognize opportunity where others see chaos, contradiction, and confusion.

Now, what conclusion can we draw from the definitions of entrepreneur above? Although each of these definitions views entrepreneurs from a slight different perspective, they all contain similar notions. If we examine the common elements from all definitions, we might find the following characteristics:

o Creativity and innovation
o Resource gathering and the founding of an economic organization (wealth)
o The chance for gain (or increase) under risk and uncertainty.