What is entrepreneurship? And who is an entrepreneur? These two questions are asked more frequently reflecting the increasing demand in the field of entrepreneurship. Offering a specific and unambiguous definition of the term entrepreneurship /entrepreneur presents a challenge. This is not because definitions are not available, but because there are so money. Here let us took in to the historical development of entrepreneurship so as to grasp the meaning of the word entrepreneurship.
During the ancient period the word entrepreneur was used to refer to a person managing large commercial projects through the resources provided to him.
In the 17th Century a person who has signed a contractual agreement with the government to provide stipulated products or to perform service was considered as entrepreneur. In this case the contract price is fixed so any resulting profit or loss reflects the effort of the entrepreneur.
In the 18th Century the first theory of entrepreneur has been developed by Richard Cantillon. He said that an entrepreneur is a risk taker. If we consider the merchant, farmers and /or the professionals they all operate at risk. For example, the merchants buy products at a known price and sell it at unknown price and this shows that they are operating at risk. The other development during the 18th Century is the differentiation of the entrepreneurial role from capital providing role. The later role is the base for today’s venture capitalist.
In the late 19th and early 20th Century an entrepreneur was viewed from economic perspectives. The entrepreneur organizes and operates an enterprise for personal gain.
In the middle of the 20th Century the notion of an entrepreneur as an inventor as established. “The function of the entrepreneur is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention or more generally untried technological possibility for producing new commodities or producing an old one in a new way or opening a new outlet for products by reorganizing a new industry.”
The concept of innovation and newness are at the heart of the above definition. From the historical development it is possible to understand the fact that the perception of the word entrepreneur was evolved from managing commercial project to the application of innovation (creativity) in the business idea.
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