Procesos gobernantes

Economic, psychological, and management perspectives from literature point to the fact that entrepreneurship is a process and not a static phenomenon. Entrepreneurship is more than a mechanical economic factor (Pirich 2001). The process of entrepreneurship starts from the generation of business idea through implementation to the realization of output and profit.

Entrepreneurial processes according to Bygrave (1993), involve all functions, activities, and actions associated with the perceiving of opportunities and creation of organizations to pursue them. According to the author, this process possesses the following characteristics:

It is holistic, dynamic process initiated by an act of human violation and occurs at the level of individual firm, it involves a change of state, numerous antecedent variables, and a discontinuity, and its outcomes are extremely sensitive to the initial conditions of these variables -pp 56.

Ronstadt (1984) defines entrepreneurship development as the dynamic processes of creating incremental wealth by individuals who assume the major risks in terms of equity, time, and career commitment or provide value for some product. The product or service may or may not be new, but entrepreneur must infuse value by securing and allocating necessary skills and resources towards business success. Gartner (1988) in like manner, views entrepreneurship development as a wide range of activities that include the creation of an organisation. He considers eight ideas that constitute the nature of entrepreneurship. Such ideas include the entrepreneur, innovation, organisation creation, creating value, growth, uniqueness, profit or non-profit and the owner managers.

Wennekers, (1999) state one operational definition of entrepreneurship that successfully synthesizes the functional roles of entrepreneurs. To them, entrepreneurship is the manifest ability and willingness of individuals, on their own, in teams within and outside existing organizations, to perceive and create new economic opportunities, new products, new production methods, new organizational schemes and new product-market combinations. In addition, ability to introduce their ideas to the market, in the face of uncertainty and other obstacles, by making decisions on location, form and the use of resources and institutions.

ILO (2001) expresses entrepreneurship development as to the qualities and characteristics normally expected of a successful entrepreneur. It includes perception of new economic

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opportunities, taking the initiatives, creativity, and innovation, the ability to turn given resources and situations to practical account and acknowledge that failure is possible.

Kuratko (2004) in another dimension developed an integrated definition that acknowledges the critical factors needed for this phenomenon. He advanced further by defining entrepreneurship development as a dynamic process of vision, change, and creation. To him, entrepreneurship requires an application of energy and passion towards the creation and implementation of new ideas and creative solutions. Essential ingredients, according to him, include the willingness to take calculated risks, formulate an effective venture team, marshal the needed resources, build a solid business plan, and, finally, the vision to recognize opportunity where others see chaos, contradiction, and confusion.

Hisrich, et al (2005) express entrepreneurship development as the process of creating something new with value by devoting the necessary time and effort, assuming the accompanying financial, psychic, and social risk and receiving resulting rewards of money, satisfaction and independence. Suleiman (2006) defines entrepreneurship as the willingness and ability of an individual to seek for investment opportunities to run an enterprise successfully. Aderemi, et al (2008) defines entrepreneurship as exploitation of business idea through owing a private business. However, Ogundele (2008) described entrepreneurship in terms of various behaviours varying from innovation, thrifts, flexibility, dominance, and need for power. It is certain that what entrepreneurship implies, is an exercise of leadership aided by the maturity of character, a sense of security and willingness to undertake risk. It is also backed by the desire to experiment and to be achievement oriented.

The above definitions can continue without any conclusion, but one thing is certain, each of these definitions, adopted a different approach to the definition of entrepreneurship, which suggested that entrepreneurship is more of a process of becoming than a state of being (Bygrave, 1989, and Jones 1997). The perspectives on entrepreneurship as a phenomena in social, business and economics are varied, and ranging from the processes individuals have gone through since becoming ―motivated to discover‖ to an innovating and converting it into something of value to themselves and to society

The key elements which represent the activities of entrepreneurship and which it is used for defining it include: risk taking and innovation (Schumpeter, 1934), need for achievement (McClelland 1962), locus of control (Amit, 1962), process of wealth creation, creation of

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value, identification of an opportunity, market stabilizing force, the ability to start new business and managing it effectively, provision of resources (Ronstadt, 1984). Other key elements include: Profit maximization, ability to recognize un-exploited dis-equilibrium, owning and operating a business (Gartner, 1988) Devoting necessary time and effort (Hisrich, 2003) and Thrifts (Ogundele, 2008).

In conceptualizing entrepreneurship, the study could differentiate between concepts from the definitions 1) entrepreneur= individual actor in the market, 2) entrepreneurial= behaviour in the market, and 3) entrepreneurship development=combines time dimension and different behaviours in the market.

No commonly accepted definition of the entrepreneur or entrepreneurship exists. This study from literature deduced that entrepreneurship development process is not reducible to a monocausal analysis. Rather, a number of factors are needed in understanding the development processes. That is, no single variable or factor can account for the outcome of the entrepreneurial development process. This study suggests the following multi-dimensional definition of entrepreneurship with emphasis on the entrepreneur as the main actor in the process.

This study defines an entrepreneur as a person who identifies an investment opportunity in a market place, who brings required resources and through social relations in the market place, efficiently utilizes the resources for profit, while at the same time adding value to the product in recognition of the associated risks and successes.

Entrepreneurship development is a dynamic process created and managed by an individual (the Entrepreneur), who strives to exploit economic activities in the market place by being innovative, and creating value for the products in the market, while at the same time able to take calculated associated risks and profit.

The fact that entrepreneurship is affected by numerous factors is also related to multiple characteristics that are attributed to it. Therefore, entrepreneurship is multi-dimensional and that‘s why there are so many qualities to be considered when entrepreneurship qualities are referred to.

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