The Role and Success of Entrepreneurship Essay Example

Introduction

Human beings have been practicing entrepreneurship throughout their history since it is an inherent undertaking (Garcia, Ward, Hernandez,& Florez, 2017). Entrepreneurship is the initiation of economic activity in the form of a legal enterprise (Valerio, Parton, & Robb, 2014). An increase in economic problems in recent decades has made entrepreneurship a vital concept to many investors and learners. The importance of entrepreneurship is well-documented since it can act as a catalyst for social and economic development (Valerio et al., 2014). Entrepreneurship can improve the economy by inspiring growth, innovation, equity, and employment among other things. These potential benefits have led to increased attention in entrepreneurship, and how it can be harnessed in society. Research has indicated that some entrepreneurial skills, knowledge, and mindsets could be learned. Therefore, entrepreneurial education and training have emerged as key roles in bringing up entrepreneurs of the future. Entrepreneurial education is the process of enabling individuals to recognize commercial opportunities and have the insight, skills, self-esteem, and knowledge to execute the ideas (Jones & English, 2004). Entrepreneurship is a crucial approach to creating job opportunities, social and economic growth. However, the success of an entrepreneur is determined by personal factors, education, training, and external factors such as policies.

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Entrepreneurship Creates Employment Opportunities

Entrepreneurship has shown that it can play a critical role in boosting the levels of employment in society. Numerous higher learning institutions around the world have not lagged in developing ways of teaching this phenomenon. Education in entrepreneurship is crucial because it helps the learners to gain various competencies and adapt to the new labor markets (Garcia et al., 2017). The labor market is characterized by an abundance of supply, which leaves a surplus of people without employment opportunities. The advancement in education enrolment and participation has led to a glut of graduates in many areas around the world. In China, the expansion of higher education is blighted by the structural unemployment of graduates. China has been increasing the levels of enrolment into its higher education institutions from 1999 to 2009, where they went from 9.8% to 24.2% (Zhou & Xu, 2012). This massive growth rate of 240% has made student employment a challenging prospect. The declining rate of employment, due to heightened competition in the job market, has led to the emergence of entrepreneurship as a viable solution. Small-sized businesses have emerged as the primary economic drivers as well as providing the majority of jobs in many economies. In China, jobs in state-run enterprises fell by 91,700 while 269,000 new opportunities were created in the small businesses sector (Zhou & Xu, 2012). It shows that entrepreneurship will lead to the rise of small and medium enterprises, which will employ the many available graduates and reduce the overreliance on the major corporations for job opportunities.

Personal Factors Enhance Entrepreneurship

Success in entrepreneurship is linked with the personal habits and psychology of an individual. The study of entrepreneurship will help in identifying and developing future entrepreneurs since certain personal factors set them apart from non-entrepreneurs (Garcia et al., 2017). A key part of entrepreneurship is the psychology of the entrepreneur. Psychology, in this case, considers the reasons, cognitions, values, attitudes, and the other underlying economic behaviors of the entrepreneur that make them suitable for the role (Garcia et al., 2017). All aspects of psychology are involved in the study of entrepreneurship. According to the theory of planned behavior, researchers have found that certain personality traits like an internal locus of control, proactivity, and high levels of self-efficacy have a significant influence on the taking of entrepreneurial action. Understanding the psychological characteristics of entrepreneurs gives insight into the kind of people and traits that can propel an individual into a future of entrepreneurship. According to the theory of personality traits, entrepreneurs have unique values and personalities that set them apart from non-entrepreneurs (Garcia et al., 2017). The current research on entrepreneurship indicates that biologically-based personality traits, such as extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and agreeableness are vital in determining the profile of a future entrepreneur (Obschonka & Stuetzer, 2017). These traits remain stable over the lifespan, and they have a genetic basis, which indicates the importance of these biological factors in determining successful entrepreneurs (Obschonka & Stuetzer, 2017). Personal characteristics are like predictors of entrepreneurial capacity, and they can be the difference between successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship Improves the Economy

Entrepreneurship can help to improve the economy by boosting the performance of rural enterprises. The entrepreneurship emerging from the rural areas is a symbol of rural industrialization (Sharma, Chaudhary, Bala, & Chauhan, 2013). When rural enterprises grow, they can become a source of employment for local communities, and they also make use of the available raw materials to generate value. This rural industrialization leads to infrastructure development to support the new industries and reduces the rate of rural-to-urban migration (Sharma et al., 2013). However, many developing countries are grappling with failing or non-existent rural enterprises due to various problems, such as isolation due to geographic distance, poor marketing, and lack of information (Sharma et al., 2013). The lack of access to finances and modern technology in rural areas, especially in developing countries, has hindered the growth of enterprises. One of the facets of competent entrepreneurs includes understanding how to marshal resources needed in the execution of a business plan, and hence it can help people to operate successful businesses in rural areas (Jones & English, 2004). When rural enterprises start performing well, they will lead to the development of these areas, which will strengthen the overall economy in the country.

Entrepreneurship Ensures Social Growth and Development

Entrepreneurship is an excellent way of ensuring social growth in a country. Entrepreneurial education is not biased according to gender or any other demographics, and hence it is naturally designed to target vulnerable groups in society. Anyone, as long as they have the skills necessary to thrive in entrepreneurship, can study and end up as a successful entrepreneur. Considering the demographic statistics of the entrepreneurial attitude, it is clear that men are twice as likely as women to start a business (Garcia et al., 2017). Minorities and women face significant barriers to entrepreneurial development, such as few mentors, limited resources, and inadequate experience (Garcia et al., 2017). The entrepreneurship training is sometimes inclusive of a broad support program to assist the vulnerable members of society. Services like grants intensive follow-ups, and conditional cash transfers are offered alongside the entrepreneurial training to support and motivate women (Valerio et al., 2014). The support programs are concerned with improving aspects like financial literacy, marketing, general management skills, accounting, and overall life skills. Studying entrepreneurship can, therefore, reduce discrimination by paving the way for more women, and other vulnerable members of society, to get involved in entrepreneurial activities.

Quality of Education Enhances Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship improves the economy, but success will be determined by the quality of education and training received by an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship involves more than a business start-up since it also includes the development of skills and personal competencies to achieve success. The entrepreneurial role could be acquired either experimentally or culturally, but the most effective approach has emerged as training and education (Cooney, 2012). The traditional entrepreneurship education approach that emphasizes business start-ups, literature reviews, readings, and exams is ineffective in activating entrepreneurship in learners (Garcia et al., 2017). The traditional educational approach of most business school programs emphasizes the large established corporations over start-up ventures, which are a key driver of today's global economy (Jones & English, 2004). The new learning methodology utilizes group work and mentoring to ensure maximum effectiveness. Students using this new method will understand the entrepreneurial space well since they are combining theory and experiential learning to get the full picture of the business landscape. This new approach is more hands-on than the traditional method, and hence it is a more effective way of imparting vital skills like problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, risk-taking, and innovation among others. Education also depends on the type of teachers, and their level of skill. Teaching entrepreneurship ought to be interactive, including games, simulations, peer evaluations, internships, projects, and other hands-on activities that improve the quality of learning for entrepreneurship students (Cooney, 2012). Teachers are the learning facilitators, and they play a vital role in helping students to achieve results in their entrepreneurial learning (Garcia et al., 2017). Therefore, the teachers must be well-trained in key topics relating to entrepreneurial learning to enable them to transfer the same to the students. It is evident that the quality of entrepreneurs in a country will improve over time as more students gain entrepreneurial education.

Entrepreneurial Universities Enhance Entrepreneurship

Education can determine the success of entrepreneurship by helping to fast track the transition of learners into entrepreneurs. Young adults between the ages of 25 and 34 are increasingly interested in the creation of business enterprises, and hence they are highly likely to engage in entrepreneurial activities (Garcia et al., 2017). One of the critical factors favoring entrepreneurial learning is the support offered by most major universities and learning institutions. Some universities are increasingly assisting their students to set up their business ventures through the introduction of business incubation centers and seed money to launch the start-ups. These entrepreneurial universities give future and current entrepreneurs a chance to network and learn. Tsinghua University in China utilizes an 'Innovation Loop' approach in conducting entrepreneurship education (Zhou & Xu, 2012). The loop has a support system that ensures a smooth transition from a state of awareness, to practice, and then to the outcome (Zhou & Xu, 2012). The components of the support system include financial support (in the form of seed money to start the venture), consultancy support from faculty members, and access to domestic and international exchanges (Zhou & Xu, 2012). Entrepreneurs who receive seed money can begin to execute their ideas from an early stage, and this is motivational. Access to funding and support is often a challenge for many upcoming entrepreneurs, and hence if the learning institutions step in to support, such businesses will quickly move from concept to execution. Massachusetts Institute of Technology has directly contributed to the creation of over 4000 companies with earnings of about $232 billion (Garcia et al., 2017). Therefore, entrepr...