A Handbook on Entrepreneurship
$6
Entrepreneurship does not have a universally endorsed definition, but there are several definitions that are generally accepted in the marketplace, in economics and in social development. The word entrepreneur originated from the French word ‘entreprende,” which means to undertake. Richard Cantilon, an Irishman, living in France in the 18th century, is attributed to be the first to use the word to describe the process of taking the risk of moving resources from a place of relative abundance to a place of relative scarcity to meet a need at a profit. According to Peter F. Drucker, globally acknowledged as one of the most celebrated management scholars and teachers of the 20st century, an entrepreneur is someone who searches for change, responds to it and exploits it as an opportunity to meet a need at a profit. In a similar vein, Joseph A Schumpeter, a renowned economist and scholar described entrepreneurship as a process of creative destruction. To him, an entrepreneur sees innovation as the agency of entrepreneurship. This innovation includes: introduction of new goods, new methods of production, opening a new market, discovering a new source of new materials, and carrying out a new source of an organization. To the United Nations, ‘Entrepreneurship encompasses the activities of small, informal, village-based individuals as much as it does that of the managers and innovators in multinational corporations and large local companies.” This handbook reveals why entrepreneurs dominate the Forbes annual report of richest people in the world. It teaches entrepreneurship from different perspectives. It is an indispensible companion of anyone who wants to live on their own terms, anyone who desires financial freedom, and anyone who wants to make a big a difference in the world.