Can Entrepreneurship Improve Africa’s Wellbeing Development?
Introduction
Africa is one of the poorest areas in the world. Data shows that in some countries, poverty reaches unbelievable rates and people live with less than $1 a day (Ngwane 2003). In contrast, in some countries like USA bankers and CEOs earn up to 400 million dollars a year in bonuses and salaries (Enron 2005). On the other hand, entrepreneurship has significantly increased developed countries’ wellbeing in the last century. In this research paper I am going to examine the possible outcomes with the implication of entrepreneurship in the poorest areas of Africa and try to conclude whether it would be beneficial or not.
Entrepreneurship definition
In the last century, entrepreneurship has proven to be one of the driving forces in the world economy and has improved many business areas. Just as an example, Steve Jobs has changed four industries (computers, music, phones and animated videos) using his entrepreneurial insight and creativity. However, can entrepreneurship work in all geographic areas and social conditions? I would first try to define the word entrepreneurship, while seeking its roots and examining its definition.
The term “entrepreneur” is a French word for risk taking. One of the first people that used that term was Richard Cantillon, who clearly made a distinction between a capitalist and an entrepreneur. Later Jean-Baptiste Say developed the term “entrepreneur” to mark a change from a low productivity usage to a higher productivity usage activity (McDaniel 2002). Soon after, the British economist Adam Smith again discussed the entrepreneur but this time he combined his activities with the capitalist. McDaniel separates entrepreneur and capitali...
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The world is filled with many ambitious people looking to make a product to help the world and make a living for themselves and their families. These people are known as entrepreneurs. An entrepreneur is someone who organizes and operates a business or businesses while running the risk of losing everything to make money. One might ask why there is a risk ...
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In a comparative light there seems to be significant problems, or obstacles, for African-American entrepreneurs. These problems are categorized by environmental factors, opportunity factors, and issues related to capital. The purpose of this paper is to provide sociological, and economical insight to the plight of African-American entrepreneurs. There is an effort to trace the development of African-American entrepreneurship throughout American history, in the post-reconstruction era to the present, in relationship to social conditions of discrimination. Uniquely, African-American entrepreneurs are involved in the affirmation of a paradox of American ideology. African-American entrepreneurs, in pursuit of the American dream, have been taught to stress individual success where what is needed is communal solidarity to foster access to the things that they have been categorically denied.
Morris and Lewis (1991) offered a model to examine the effects of entrepreneurship on the quality of life in seven domains: economic, health, social, technological, work, institutional, and ecological. This paper will use Morris and Lewis’ framework to present a discussion of Drucker’s views on the broad societal impact of entrepreneurial activities.
ABSTRACT African economy is discussed greatly in today’s world. The African continent is rich in resources but the most of the population is poor. Decade after decade, politicians and international organizations have failed to reduce poverty. Nor have they been able to help Africa generate growth or build basic infrastructure.
There has been a large amount of attention paid to the subject of entrepreneurship in the last few years; mainly because most people have chosen to go from working for somebody else, to be their own bosses and work for their dreams. Nevertheless, many still wonder what is entrepreneurship and what is that sets entrepreneurs apart from other regular business owners. At first, it seems both concepts do not differ much from each other since they both start up and run businesses and assume risks to pursue opportunities; however, there are certain traits that difference them.
"Entrepreneurs who start and build new businesses are more celebrated than studied. They embody, in the popular imagination and in the eyes of some scholars, the virtues of "boldness, ingenuity, leadership, persistence and determination." Policymakers see them as a crucial source of employment and productivity growth. Yet our systematic knowledge of how entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses is limited. The activity does not occupy a prominent place in the study of business and economics.
Africa is one of the world’s most endowed continents with abundant human and natural resources. She is the second-largest and second most populous continent on earth with an estimated population of 1.033 billion people. There are practically vital mineral deposits and abundant workforce in all the nations of the continent. Despite all these enviable endowments, most African countries languish at the bottom of the World Bank’s “Doing Business” index. Its reason being the low level of economic liberalization within the continent.
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Nowadays, entrepreneurship becomes most popular career, where our government encourages our graduated student to involve in business so that unemployment will not happen in our country. Policymakers, academics, and researcher agree that entrepreneurship is a vital route to economic advancement for both developed and developing economics (Zelealem et al., 2004). Entrepreneurship has many types for example small business and others. Today small business, particularly the new ones, is the main vehicle for entrepreneurship, contributing not just to employment, social and political stability, but also to innovation and competitive power (Thurik & Wennekers, 2004).
The success of a business is greatly dependent on its entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is someone who takes the financial risk of starting and managing a new business venture. In order to be a successful entrepreneur, one must be ready to take a risk and invest one’s own savings into a business. The job requires that the individual be ambitious and committed to working hard in order to achieve the set targets. A successful entrepreneur is able to multi-task and communicates effectively with people, possessing leadership qualities such as confidence and motivation. The individual must play the role of constant motivator and inspire employees to improve their work performance, whilst ensuring a comfortable environment for the employees to work in. According to Schumpeter (1982), an entrepreneur is more of a ‘heroic’ than an ‘economic’ figure; his motivation should not solely be monetary, rather stemming more from inspiration and ambition.
50). The book also states that instances such as entrepreneurship leads to a struggling growth because these entrepreneurs will risk money investments where corrupt officials interfere, leaving their investments to struggle. Corrupt officials are also less likely to initiate projects that will help the greater good and public welfare of some of these African countries, but instead only interfere in ones that will benefit them as a leader. They deal with bribes and diverting funds, resulting in the countries inability to grow. If this corruption furthers on, then this will continually be a consistent struggle for Africa as it lessens their progression to a stronger
Entrepreneurship promotion and development have been identified as one of the key components of the nation’s economic development strategy. Entrepreneurial resource has been considered a crucial input in the process of this economic development. Micro-entrepreneurial ventures are considered the most critical factor that would lay the foundation in an economically struggling third world developing country . These entrepreneurial ventures will help both the urban and rural population through creation of jobs, a rescue out of unemployment and poverty and thereby impact upon developing skills, self-esteem and self sufficiency. In this way, this will certainly contribute to the overall development of the economy. Entrepreneurship among women is a recent phenomenon. In a developing country like India, a favourable socio-economic environment could help in exploiting the latent entrepreneurial talents among women. There are certain unfavourable conditions that often hinder the emergence of such entrepreneurial talents. However, despite of these situational constraints, more and more women are today entering the field of entrepreneurship in India.
Entrepreneurship is an important aspect of social, economic and community life. It can be viewed as a critical factor to economic growth as well as a way of addressing unemployment (Nolan, 2003).Entrepreneurs are people who are persistently focused on identifying opportunities, they seek to create something worthwhile while taking into account foreseeable risk and rewards associated with the efforts (Nolan, 2003). Furthermore, entrepreneurs are frequently understood to be individuals who discover market needs and establish new business to meet those identified opportunities. The following assignment will firstly discuss the types of entrepreneurship, secondly it will discuss the reasons people become entrepreneurs, and thirdly it will discuss the importance of entrepreneurship.