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Entrepreneurship is regarded as one of the
important determinants of industrial
growth in the country. Entrepreneurial
and managerial skills need to be promoted to help alleviate the problem of unemployment,
overcome the problem of stagnation and increase
the competitiveness and growth of business and industries.
In order to meet the global demand and the new challenges being faced by the Indian
industry and also to generate employment, entrepreneurship development has to be
given higher priority. Entrepreneurs should possess the
required skills, the ability to grasp
opportunities which offer economic advantages,
orientation towards applying knowledge to maximize
gains, business skills, leadership qualities and, above
all, confidence that one can make things happen.
In this context, a trained entrepreneur has a
number of advantages. In order to accelerate the growth
of industries, help generate employment and tap
the national human resource, there is a need to mobilize the youth and women of the
country. There is also a need to motivate and guide
the youth into making them take a step forward and become self-employed by setting up small or
micro enterprises.
Enterprises and entrepreneurs have been at the center stage of modernization since the days of
the Industrial Revolution. Economists,
sociologists, psychologists and anthropologists have
studied this concept, usually within the
confines of
their respective disciplines.
A dynamic theory of entrepreneurship was first advocated by Schumpeter (1949),
who considered entrepreneurship as the catalyst
that disrupts the circular flow of the economy and thereby initiates and sustains the process
of development. Embarking upon "new combinations" of the factors of
production— which he succinctly terms
innovation—the entrepreneur activates the economy to a new
level of development. The concept of innovation and
its corollary development embraces five functions:
(1) introduction of a new good; (2) introduction
of a new method of production; (3) opening of a
new market; (4) capturing a new source of supply
of raw materials; and (5) carrying out of a new organization of any industry.
Schumpeter represents a synthesis of different notions
of entrepreneurship. His concept of innovation included the elements of risk
taking, superintendence and coordination. |
