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Entrepreneurship: Definitions & Approaches

The definition of the entrepreneur is one of the most essential as well as challenging aspects of the concept.

There are two most important ways to defining it: the functional approach and the indicative approach.

In the perspective of the entrepreneurship, the functional approach expresses in simple terms that ‘an entrepreneur is precisely what an entrepreneur really does’ .

It specifics a particular function in addition to believes anybody who accomplishes this function to be an entrepreneur.

The indicative approach comes with an outline of the entrepreneur by which usually he or she may very well be acknowledged.

In contrast to a functional description, which in turn may often be quite subjective, an indicative description is very down-to-earth.

The item signifies an entrepreneur in terms of his / her legal standing,  contractual associations with other entities, position in community, and so forth.

The expression ‘entrepreneur’ appears to have been brought into business Economics by Cantillon, however the entrepreneur was initially allowed visibility through Jean-Baptiste Say.

It seemed to be variously interpreted into English as service provider, explorer and employer, even though the appropriate interpretation is the actual undertaker of a venture.

In most cases, economic theorists have implemented a functional approach and economic historians have implemented an indicative approach.

Economic theory comes with a range of principles in addition to methods for examining the portion of scarce resources.

When it comes to the economic historian, however, the beginning point is a set of concepts strongly related to the recording and interpreting of events. These kinds of concepts form a descriptive rather than an analytical structure.

The issue with the theory of entrepreneurship is that the two of these approaches have under no circumstances been integrated.


An entrepreneur is somebody who is an expert in taking judgmental decisions regarding the coordination of scarce resources.