In the current boom in entrepreneurship, there are still factors that are not clear when it comes to talking about entrepreneurship. One of the issues still under discussion is the very definition of”entrepreneurial”.
In such a large group of people, who currently fall under this label, it is difficult to agree on characteristics common to all of them. It is common for entrepreneurs to be associated with innovation and revolutionary ideas, but this is not always the case.
In a recent article by The Economist under the title”What is an entrepreneur?” we enter to discuss whether to assess the level of entrepreneurship of a company you must count on all the people who decide to start a business on their own or if the true level is given by those entrepreneurs who have managed to create a large company and/or revolutionize an industry. We encourage you to read the article and the comments on it to learn the details of the debate, but in short, the text points out the difference in profile that exists in entrepreneurship and that it may be necessary to separate the topic of “innovation” from that of “entrepreneurship”, since it does not always have to be united.
The article gives some interesting facts about the high number of entrepreneurs who basically want to create their small business in a field that they know well or that is already established, with no greater aspirations than that of being a reference in their field or society, but without wanting to become a giant like Facebook or Amazon.
Thus, the text states that 3 out of four people who create a company in the US say they want to keep it small enough to remain under their control or that if the parameter for being an entrepreneur is to have your own business, countries like Egypt would come out in the first places.
The article cites a recent Study by Magnus Henrekson and Tino Sanandaji where it is advocated to have the number of great billionaire entrepreneurs such as true benchmark of a country's level of entrepreneurship (ranking according to which Spain would be in 16th place, just in the EU average), but some comments argue that there is no doubt that having a fabric of entrepreneurs who create SMEs and what we call the real economy is also fundamental in the current economic context.
It's an interesting debate that leaves many questions open: to what extent must an entrepreneur be innovative in order to be considered as such? , Should all entrepreneurs hope that their project will one day be a giant and benchmark in their industry or sector? It's clear that an innovative idea can be a competitive advantage, but Should you mark receiving more or less funding? Doesn't innovation also entail greater risk?
