Untangling the concept of entrepreneurship towards a common perspective

Abstract

There continues to be a lack of a commonly agreed perspective of entrepreneurship despite the concept being studied for a long period of time. Definitions of the concept and constructs of study in the field have depended on the researcher's conceptualisation of what constitutes entrepreneurship and as a result there are variations in the study focus and measurement of entrepreneurship. An analysis of literature was therefore conducted to untangle the concept of entrepreneurship towards a common perspective despite similar failed attempts by scholars in the past. The analysis showed that researchers and theorists trace entrepreneurship through the same early theorists that include Cantillon, Say, Marshall, Walker, von Thunen, Menger, von Mises, Schumpeter, Knight, Kirzner, Shane and Venkataraman etc. That means the background to the concept is the same but with varying interpretations. The underlying perspective however is that entrepreneurship is a human behaviour with identifiable driving motives and it requires definitive competencies; skills, knowledge and abilities. The behaviour is purposively exerted, involves various activities and judgmental decisions that are undertaken through a process of identifying, evaluating and exploiting opportunities to create socioeconomic value under conditions of uncertainty. Although the socioeconomic value manifests in new products or services, new sources of supplies, new methods of production, new markets and/or new organisations, it is the new organisation that is commonly recognised as the output of the entrepreneurship process. This perspective narrows and limits the understanding of the concept of entrepreneurship to new and small business ventures with implications on measurement of entrepreneurship. Our analysis shows that all variations of entrepreneurship such as sole entrepreneurship, corporate entrepreneurship, necessity motivated entrepreneurship, opportunity motivated entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship etc are connected within the broader view of the same concept, thereby presenting a common perspective of entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurial Potential and Gender Effects: The Role of Personality Traits in University Students’ Entrepreneurial Intentions

“…A good way to start this section is by stating that entrepreneurship is not founded on a static profile of people and interests (Kerr et al, 2018; Mwatsika et al, 2018), but it is rather a term attributed to the set of actions that lead to the creation of new products and services, which can vary by, both, interests and opportunity evaluation marked at the individual (Kerr et al, 2018) and group level (Parker, 2018). The latter is an important factor, as literature shows certain differences in the set of business founded by groups, such as gender.…”

Antecedents of entrepreneurial intention: A study on students from the tourism management department

“…The authors observed that the researchers used different questions to measure these factors (Zarefard and Cho, 2018;Robledo et al, 2015;Maes et al, 2014;Fayolle & Liñán, 2014;Krueger et al, 2000;Ajzen, 1991;Mwatsika, 2015;Glanz et al, 2015;Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010;Sahinidis et al,2021). The final questions for attitudes and social norms were based on the following surveys: Sahinidis et al (2021), Mwatsika, (2015, Glanz et al (2015); Mwatsika et al(2018), Shapero (1984), Armitage and Conner (2001), Fishbein and Ajzen (2010), Madden et al(1992), Asimakopoulos et al (2019), andKrueger et al (2000). Table 1 below summarizes the items of the applied measures.…”

“…In order to ensure the validity of the research, the online questionnaire that was constructed was based on previous studies on EI (Ajzen, 2002;Ajzen, 1991;Glanz et al, 2015;Mwatsika et al, 2018;Mwatsika, 2015;Armitage & Conner, 2001;Madden et al, 1992;Shapero, 1984;Fishbein & Ajzen, 2010;Bandura, 1997;Krueger et al, 2000).…”

Entrepreneurship in Tourism Studies in the 21st Century: A Bibliometric Study of Wos and Scopus

“…There is no certainty that all the authors who research about this topic refer to the same thing (Mwatsika et al, 2018), since most of them visualize it as a methodology and not as a situation influenced by the environment (Acs et al, 2016). This is how entrepreneurship is directly related to the response to the environment in a creative and innovative way, and the actions that the entrepreneur commits to carry out at the moment of starting his company (Palanivelu & Manikandan, 2015;Rosero & Molina, 2008).…”