What is Entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurship is the process of creating or seizing an opportunity, and pursuing it regardless of the resources currently controlled. The American Heritage Dictionary defines an entrepreneur to be “a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for business ventures.”  These are rather abstract concepts for a person just beginning to consider whether they ought to start a business rather than take a job, or leave a secure job for a chance at greater self-fulfillment. Let us try to refine our understanding of entrepreneurship by asking some more specific questions.
Is everyone who runs a business an entrepreneur? Many would not consider the newspaper carrier, shoeshine person, and grass cutter entrepreneurs, though these are often the youthful pursuits of those with an entrepreneurial bent of mind.
Does it matter whether the business is merely part-time? Whereas some part-time activities are basically hobbies, or undertaken to supplement income, some entrepreneurial ventures can be tested in the marketplace on a part-time basis.
The path to an entrepreneurial venture might begin by earning a salary in the business one expects to enter, while learning more about it, and waiting for the opportune time to go out on one’s own. This time can be used to develop a support network, professional and personal, and generating ideas to “bounce off” people whose opinion one respects.
At what scope does self-employment become a venture? The primary objective of many self-employed people is merely to employ themselves (and others if necessary) at a moderate to good salary; some are even willing to eke out a living to do what they enjoy. This approach is often referred to as a “lifestyle” business, and is generally accompanied by little, if any, plan for growth. These questions are intended, not to develop a precise definition of entrepreneurship, but to help us understand our attitude toward its many forms of expression. We may each answer these questions differently, yet all answer appropriately within our own frame of reference.
Entrepreneurship is more an attitude than a skill or a profession. Some of us may prefer a corporate or public service career path, but many would choose an entrepreneurial opportunity that “feels right.”
Would you consider a person, who inherits a business, an entrepreneur? From the point of inheritance on, it is their own money and financial security at risk. They could possibly sell the business, invest the proceeds in blue-chip stocks, and live off dividends. Some might consider managing a personal stock portfolio for a living as an entrepreneurial venture.
Would a person who inherited a small or marginal business, then took it to new dimensions, be considered an entrepreneur? The inheritor could have tried merely to keep it going, or even to pace the business’ decline to just carry them to retirement. In a family-held business, long-term success is often a central goal.
Are franchise owners entrepreneurs? Many feel that, for those who have access to the large up-front investment, franchises are sure things. For many, operating a franchise is similar to investing in “blue chips,” a relatively sure thing with generally unexciting returns.
Entrepreneurship is generally characterized by some type of innovation, a significant investment, and a strategy that values expansion. The entrepreneur is often quite different in mindset from a manager, who is generally charged with using existing resources to make an existing business run well. The roles of entrepreneur and manager are not necessarily incompatible, but entrepreneurs are seldom patient enough to be good managers.
It is often instructive to analyze the experiences that have formed our attitudes toward entrepreneurship. A recent study showed that 70% of business startups were by a person who had an entrepreneurial parent.
The U.S. Small Business Administration has developed a Checklist for Going into Business that leads the prospective entrepreneur through a skills inventory that includes supervisory and/or managerial experience, business education, knowledge about the specific business of interest, and willingness to acquire the missing necessary skills. A commitment to filling any knowledge or experience gap is a very positive indicator of success.
Personal characteristics required here may include leadership, decisiveness, and competitiveness. Important factors in personal style include will power, and self-discipline, comfort with the planning process, and with working with others. Can you objectively rate yourself in these dimensions?
Peter F. Drucker, author of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, says that anybody from any organization can learn how to be an entrepreneur, that it is “systematic work.” But there is a difference between learning how to be, and succeeding as an entrepreneur. “When a person earns a degree in physics, he becomes a physicist,” says Morton Kamien, a professor of entrepreneurship at Northwestern University. “But if you were to earn a degree in entrepreneurship, that wouldn’t make you an entrepreneur.”
The reasons commonly given for people going into business for themselves are: Freedom from a work routine; being your own boss; doing what you want when you want; boredom with the current job; financial desires, and a perceived opportunity. Which of these might be sufficient to get you to take the risk?
Several “yardsticks” have been proposed for measuring whether a person is a likely candidate to be a successful entrepreneur, but the real challenge is in accurately applying them to ourselves!!!!!!
HOW DOES EDUCATION CHANNELIZE DEVELOPMENT OF ENTREPRENEUR?
Education in this direction can be imparted in various ways:
Education about enterprise in which the role of education is in raising awareness of enterprise and entrepreneurship as a key change agent in economic process.
Education through enterprise in which the education process itself can be enhanced by using pedagogic styles which work in and makes use of enterprising situations including the student concerned and real world project driven approaches.
Education for enterprise which is aimed at entrepreneurship development and includes training for existing entrepreneurs as well as for new business start-ups.
The present education system in India has not been able to promote independent thinking, creativity, a spirit of innovation and motivation for setting a challenging and achievable goal. The environment and policy, however, offer diverse opportunities for sustainable self-employment to ensure contribution of workforce to industrial economy. There is thus a need to inculcate the spirit of enterprise into the psyche of the present generation. Entrepreneurship, self-employment and enterprise creation provide a solution to the crisis of both unemployment and economic growth.
PROPOSITIONS TO DEVELOP ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT DIFFERENT EDUCATION LEVELS
Basic education (Compulsory Primary and Secondary Education) and Non-Compulsory Secondary Education

Entrepreneurship is a basic ability that students can acquire by learning about enterprising know-how, attitudes and capabilities. The Law of Education should focus on entrepreneurship and initiative as key abilities for lifelong learning.

University Education
Economic activity should focus more on intensive knowledge-based activities. This means reconsidering the role played by universities, especially public ones, in developing our competitiveness. Special emphasis should be given to the following two aspects:
• Placing economic value of the knowledge developed in universities.
• Enhancing the knowledge of companies and the enterprise initiative
POINTS TO BE CONSIDERED WHILE IMPARTING EDUCATION TO NEO-ENTERPRENEURS
• Teachers’ in-service should be mandatory. This in-service training includes the core curriculum and thereby also entrepreneurship education.
• The core curriculum as such should be included in initial teacher training. This would incorporate entrepreneurship education into this training.
• Self-motivated continuing professional education relating to entrepreneurship education should be motivating.
• Teachers’ continuing professional education should relate to national, regional and local development projects.
• Knowledge of working life and business and industry should be enhanced among the education personnel.
• Training in entrepreneurship education should:
• use pupil-centered methods specific to        entrepreneurship education.
• enhance the community planning and   learning process.
• give guidance in the use of various entrepreneurial work methods in teaching.
• give guidance in the teaching of entrepreneurship education to pupils of different age groups.
• give guidance in regional, local and institutional planning.
• Training in entrepreneurship education should be supported by public authorities. Teacher trainers also need public support.
• Reflection on the interrelation of research, curricula and pedagogy should be intensified.
• The importance of entrepreneurship education for local development should also be emphasized to persons and boards responsible for local business and industry, boards responsible for education and entrepreneurs.
• In future, curriculum reforms should also focus on promoting teachers’, professional development, streamlining local curriculum work and developing core components in entrepreneurship education, such as entrepreneurial and enterprising readiness.