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What Is the Role of an Entrepreneur in Economy and Society

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What Is the Role of an Entrepreneur in Economy and Society
What is the role of an entrepreneur in economy and society

Introduction

Entrepreneur is a hot topic for both academic scholars and people ambitious for business success. They are a group of persons who can significantly influence many aspects of economy and society. This paper will critically discuss the role of entrepreneurs by examining their contributions to the economy and society, using examples from various articles on the topic.

Starting by defining the entrepreneurs to be discussed, this paper examines the contributions to economy from the aspects of employment, innovation, productivity and growth, utility; certain costs or drawbacks are also considered. Though the business activities of entrepreneurs produce social benefits as well, some entrepreneurs have begun to put social issues in priority. Labeled as social entrepreneurs, they are devoted to solving social problems. In fact all the entrepreneurs have the potential to contribute to social benefits and are expected to achieve these goals, for example to implement sustainable development.

In the wake of the appearance of many problems in our societies and communities, and the awareness of the emergence, the public have raised the expectations of CSR (corporate social responsibility) not only on large companies, but also increasingly more on entrepreneurial ones. In the context of the current society and economy, especially in developed economies, entrepreneurs are expected to have higher commitment to social responsibilities.

Before this topic can be discussed in depth, the first question to be answered is "Who is an entrepreneur?" The definition varies between different groups of scholars. The definitions of entrepreneurship currently being discussed by scholars are focusing on the functional level, after shifting from the analysis of individuals. Here are the three main definitions: Gartner's (1988) "Entrepreneurship is the creation of new organization", Venkataraman's (1997)



References: Baumol, W., 1990. Entrepreneurship: productive, unproductive, and destructive. Journal of Political Economy, 98 (5), pp.893–921. Brouwer, P., De Kok, J., Fris, P., 2005. Can firm age account for productivity differences? EIM SCALES-paper N200421, Zoetermeer, Netherlands. Burgess, S., Lane, J., and Stevens, D., 2000. Job flows, worker flows, and churching. Journal of Labor Economics, 18(3), pp.473-502. Fölster, S., 2008. 'Do entrepreneurs creat jobs? '. Small Business Economics, 4(2), pp.137-148. Frey, B. S., Benz, M., 2003. Being independent is a great thing: Subjective evaluations of self-employment and hierarchy. CESifo Working Paper #959, Munich, Germany. Gartner, W. B., 1988. 'Who is an entrepreneur? ' is the wrong question. American Journal of Small Business, 12(4), pp.11-32. Hall, J. K., Daneke, G. A., Lenox, M. J., 2010. Sustainable development and entrepreneurship: Past contributions and future directions, Journal of Business Venturing, 25, pp.439–448. McKenzie, B., Ugbah, S. D., Smothers, N., 2007. 'Who is an entrepreneur? ' Is it still the wrong question? Academy of Entrepreneurship Journal, 13(1). Mitra, C. S., Borza, A., 2011. Social entrepreneurship and social personality: comparative study. Management & Marketing, 6(2), pp. 243-254. Mueller, P., Stel, A. V., Storey, D., 2008. The effects of new firm formation on regional development over time: The case of Great Britain. Small Business Economics, 30, pp.59-71. Murillo, D., Lozano, J. M., 2006. SMEs and CSR: An approach to CSR in their own words. Journal of Business Ethics, 67 (3), pp.227 - 240. Praag, C. M. and Versloot, P. H., 2008. The Economic Benefits and Costs of Entrepreneurship: A Review of the Research. Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship, 4(2). Rodríguez, A. C., Molina, M. A., Pérez, A. L. G., and Hernández, U. M., 2003. Size, age and activity sector on the growth of the small and medium firm size. Small Business Economics, 21(3), pp.289-307. Seelos, C., Mair, J., 2005. Social entrepreneurship: Creating new business models to serve the poor. Business Horizons, 48, pp.241-246. Short, J. C., Moss, T. W., Lumpkin, G. T., 2009. Research in social entrepreneurship: past contributions and future opportunities. Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal, 3, pp.161-194. Spence, L., Schmidpeter, R. and Habisch, A., 2003, Assessing Social Capital: Small and Medium Sized Enterprises in Germany and the UK. Journal of Business Ethics 47(1), pp.17–29. The Body Shop official website, http://www.thebodyshop.co.uk/services/aboutus_company.aspx [accessed 10th December, 2012] Thompson, J Van Ryzin, G. G., Grossman, S., DiPadova-Stocks, L., Bergrud, E., 2009. Portrait of the social entrepreneur: statistical evidence from a US panel. Voluntas, 20, pp.129-140. Venkataraman, S., 1997. The distinctive domain of entrepreneurship research. In J. Katz (Ed.), Advances in Entrepreneurship, Firm Emergence and Growth, 3, pp. 119-138. Wennekers, S., Van Stel, A., Thrurik, R., and Reynolds, P., 2005. Nascent entrepreneurship and the level of economic development. Small Business Economics, 24(3), pp.293-309.

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