The Word entrepreneur is derived from the 13th century French verb, entreprendre, to undertake. The noun form was introduced into English in the 16th century. An entrepreneur is someone who takes risks and creates new business ventures. The word has come to mean far more than a mere business owner, however.
Who is an entrepreneur in one word?
An entrepreneur is a person who has the ability to identify unmet market needs and work to bring these products to the market. An entrepreneur must also be willing to take financial risk in order to reap the rewards of his or her efforts. Entrepreneurs must be able to make decisions and act quickly, despite the uncertainty that often accompanies their work.
A great entrepreneur is able to take the risk and use scarce resources in innovative ways that produce valuable results. This type of risk-taking is what gives entrepreneurs their unique edge. This is why entrepreneurship has become such an important part of our economy.
Jean-Baptiste Say, an 18th century French economist, gave a broad definition of entrepreneurship in his 1800 Treatise on Political Economy. He described entrepreneurship as the process of shifting economic resources out of areas of lower productivity and higher risk into more productive, more lucrative areas.
In the twentieth century, Joseph Schumpeter and Israel Kirzner refined the academic understanding of entrepreneurship. Schumpeter focused on the idea that entrepreneurs are innovators who implement change in an economy. Kirzner, on the other hand, focused on a process he called creative destruction, wherein the introduction of new products causes the obsolescence and failure of existing ones.