Table I-2: Twenty Entrepreneurship Definitions

The Entrepreneur is a maker of history, but his guide in making it is his judgment of possibilities and not a calculation of certainties (Shackle, in Herbert and Link (H&L), p. viii).

Many people set themselves up ... as merchants or entrepreneurs .… They pay a certain price for a product depending on when they purchase it, to resell wholesale or retail at a certain price (Cantillon, in H&L, p. 15).

... He must possess the art of superintendence and administrator (Say, in H&L, p. 32).

The central figure in the productive system is the entrepreneur. (He) buy(s) the factors of production, the use of the land, labor, machinery and work(s) them up into half-manufactured or finished products, where he sells to other entrepreneurs or consumers, at a price covering his expenses and remunerating his working and waiting (Edgeworth, in H&L, p. 55).

The entrepreneur is any legal owner of an enterprise (F. Von Wieser, in H&L, p. 51).

Carrying out of new combinations of firm organization -- new products, new services, new sources of raw material, new methods of production, new markets, new forms of organizations (Schumpeter, 1934, op. cit.).

Uncertainty bearing...coordination of productive resources...introduction of innovations and the provision of capital (Hoselitz, 1952, op. cit.).

Purposeful activity to initiate and develop a profit-oriented business (Cole, 1959, op. cit).

Creation of new organizations (Gartner, 1985, op cit.).

Entrepreneurship, in reality is an approach to general management that begins with the opportunity recognition and culminates with the exploitation of opportunity (D. L. Sexton & N. B. Bowman - Upton, Entrepreneurship: Creativity and Growth, MacMillan, 1991, p. 12).

Entrepreneurship refers to activities involved in creating new resource combinations that did not previously exist (R. A. Burgelman, M. A., Mardique, and S. C.Wheelman, Strategic Management of Technology and Innovation, Irwin, 1988, p. 32).

An Entrepreneur is someone who perceives an opportunity and creates an organization to pursue it (W.D. Bygrane, Editor, The Portable MBA in Entrepreneurship, 2nd Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc, 1997).

Entrepreneurship is a process by which people pursue opportunities, fulfill needs and wants through innovation without regard to the resources they currently control (Stephen Robbins & Mary Coulter, Management, 6th Edition, Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 1999, p. 26).

Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond the resources available today (Howard Stevenson, USASBE/SBIDA Conference, San Antonio, Plenary Speech, 2/17/00).

Emergent, chaotic, and unpredictable character…termed "newstream activities" (R. M. Kanter and L. Richardson, Engines of Progress: Designing and Running Entrepreneurial Vehicles in Established Organizations: The Enter-Prize Program at Ohio Bell, 1983-1989, Journal of Business Venturing, 6 (January 1991): 63-82.

Fundamentally, entrepreneurship is a human creative act. It involves finding personal energy by initiating and building an enterprise or organization, rather than by just watching, analyzing, or describing one. Entrepreneurship usually requires a vision and the passion, commitment, and motivation to transmit this vision to other stakeholders, such as partners, customers, suppliers, employees and financial backers. (J. A. Timmons, New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship in the 1990’s, 3rd ed., Irwin, Homewood Ill, 1990, p. 5).

Entrepreneurship is the launch and/or growth of ventures through the use of innovative risk-assuming management… It is something one does (F. L. Fry, Entrepreneurship: A Planning Approach, West Publishing, St Paul, Minn., 1993, p.27).

Entrepreneurship is an approach to management that we define as follows: The pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled and includes six critical dimensions of business practice: strategic orientation, the commitment to opportunity, the resource commitment, the concept of control over resources, the concept of management, and compensation policy (H. H. Stevenson, M. J. Roberts and H. I. Grousbeck, New Business Ventures and the Entrepreneur, Irwin, 1994, p. 5).

Thus, entrepreneurship is an integrated concept that permeates an individual’s business in an innovative manner (D. F. Karatko and R. M. Hoggets, Entrepreneurship: A Contemporary Approach, 4^th ed., The Dryfus Press, 1998, p.6).

Entrepreneurship is the process of creating something new with value by devoting the necessary time and effort, assuming the accompanying Financial, psychological and social risks and receiving the resulting rewards of monetary and personal satisfaction (R. D. Hisrish and M. P. Peters, Entrepreneurship, 4^th ed, Irwin, McGraw-Hill, 1998, p.9).