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Meaning of entrepreneurship has evolved over the centuries

  (The following one-page essay is taken from the U.S. Department of State publication, Principles of Entrepreneurship.)

What Is Entrepreneurship?

Essence of Entrepreneurship

What is meant by entrepreneurship? The concept of entrepreneurship was first established in the 1700s, and the meaning has evolved ever since. Many simply equate it with starting one’s own business. Most economists believe it is more than that.

To some economists, the entrepreneur is one who is willing to bear the risk of a new venture if there is a significant chance for profit. Others emphasize the entrepreneur’s role as an innovator who markets his innovation. Still other economists say that entrepreneurs develop new goods or processes that the market demands and are not currently being supplied.

In the 20th century, economist Joseph Schumpeter (1883-1950) focused on how the entrepreneur’s drive for innovation and improvement creates upheaval and change. Schumpeter viewed entrepreneurship as a force of “creative destruction.” The entrepreneur carries out “new combinations,” thereby helping render old industries obsolete. Established ways of doing business are destroyed by the creation of new and better ways to do them.

Business expert Peter Drucker (1909-2005) took this idea further, describing the entrepreneur as someone who actually searches for change, responds to it, and exploits change as an opportunity. A quick look at changes in communications – from typewriters to personal computers to the Internet – illustrates these ideas.

Most economists today agree that entrepreneurship is a necessary ingredient for stimulating economic growth and employment opportunities in all societies. In the developing world, successful small businesses are the primary engines of job creation, income growth, and poverty reduction. Therefore, government support for entrepreneurship is a crucial strategy for economic development.

As the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) said in 2003, “Policies to foster entrepreneurship are essential to job creation and economic growth.” Government officials can provide incentives that encourage entrepreneurs to risk attempting new ventures. Among these are laws to enforce property rights and to encourage a competitive market system.

The culture of a community also may influence how much entrepreneurship there is within it. Different levels of entrepreneurship may stem from cultural differences that make entrepreneurship more or less rewarding personally. A community that accords the highest status to those at the top of hierarchical organizations or those with professional expertise may discourage entrepreneurship. A culture or policy that accords high status to the “self-made” individual is more likely to encourage entrepreneurship.

This overview is the first in a series of one-page essays about the fundamental elements of entrepreneurship. Each paper combines the thinking of mainstream economic theorists with examples of practices that are common to entrepreneurship in many countries. The series attempts to answer: Why and how do people become entrepreneurs? Why is entrepreneurship beneficial to an economy? How can governments encourage entrepreneurship, and, with it, economic growth?

A company’s financial position indicates the amount of resources that they have, and also the claims against those precious resources at any time.  Claims can also be referred as equities. So, a company can be known as a combination of economic resources and equities.  Economic Resource=Equities.

     No matter what type of business you’re in, every type of company has two different types of equities. They are creditor’s equity and owner’s equity.  In another way Economic Resources= Creditors Equities +Owners Equity.  When using accounting language, the economic resources a company has at a particular time is called their assets?  On the other hand the amount of creditor’s equity a company has is known as their liabilities.  So here is the standard equation of accounting or better known as the accounting equation: Assets=Liabilities + Owner’s Equity.  Similar to an algebraic equation, both sides of the equation has to be equal. This equation comes in handy when analyzing the financial effects of your everyday business activities.

Counting your Assets is the beginning of Fun

      Let’s talk about a very important concept of any business. Assets are known as the economic resources that a business has that are expected to generate money for them in the future.  Some examples are real estate and any other property that a business owns so that they can rent out to people.  If a business is owed money then it goes into what is known as accounts receivable which are monetary items. However, there are some assets that are not physical. Some examples are copyrights, trademarks, and patents, but they are still extremely valuable to a business. 

      Next, liabilities are the obligations that a business has such as paying cash, provide future services to individuals, or transferring assets to another entity.  These are known as the debt of a business or the money that they have to owe in the near future. All of these are recorded in the accounts payable.  As I’m sure you know, having a lot of debt is not fun and liabilities/debt are claims that are seen by the law. The law gives creditor (People that money is owed to) the right to push the sale of a company’s assets if they don’t pay their debt on time.  Creditors have a ton of rights over owners and they have to be paid in full even before the owners receive anything.

      It is very possible for a debt to consume up all a company’s resources. Next, owner’s equity refers to the claim that owners of a business make in regards to the assets they have. It is the residual interest or the remaining assets of a company after deducting the amount of entity liabilities.  Here is the equation for owner’s equity. Owner equity=Assets-Liabilities. The owner’s equity within a particular corporation is referred as stockholders equity, so the equation then looks like this. Assets=Liabilities +Stockholder’s Equity. 

     The stockholders equity has two distinct parts which are the contributed capital and retained earnings.  Stockholder’s Equity=Contributed Capital + Retained Earnings. The amount that an individual stockholder puts into a business is known as the contributed capital. Contributed capital is usually divided into two separate parts known as par value and “par value” and “additional paid in capital.”  The retained earnings are the amount of equity that is earned by stockholders from the income generating activities of a business that are kept for future uses by a business.

     Retained earnings are affected by three types of transactions which are revenues, expenses, and dividends.  The increase and decrease in a stock are known as revenues and expenses respectively and these come from operating a business whether online or offline. If you’re online an operating expense that you will have if you have your own website is your domain name and hosting service.

    Another example,  if a customer agrees to pay you in the near future for a service that the company will perform. The money is recorded in the accounts receivable (asset account) which increase the asset value but decrease the stock holder’s equity amount which is an example of revenue. However, if a company promises to provide a service in the future this is known as an expense. When this happens the assets decrease (accounts receivable) and the liabilities (accounts payable) is increased, which makes pretty good sense right? When the revenues exceed the expenses this is known as the net income which is good, and on the other hand when expenses are greater than revenues this is known as net loss which means that you’re losing business or your business costs more to operate than what you make.

     Dividends are the distribution of assets to stockholders which refer to the past earnings.  Do not confuse expenses with dividends, because they both are reducing the retained earnings amount. Retained earnings are the collected net income or revenues minus expenses. 

     The financial statements are the main way for communicating information about a business to those who have some type of interest in it. What helps me is to think of these statements as a type of model for business because they show how a business is doing in financial terms. However, like a variety of methods and models, financial statements are not perfect and have their flaws. There are four main financial statements, and they are income statement, the statement of retained earnings, the balance sheet, and the statement of cash flows. 

     What the income statement does is summarize the revenues earned or the money made, and the expenses or the money that is deducted from a business. Many accountants consider it the most important financial report because it makes it clear whether a business has met its profitability goal. 

In Business see the Progress

 The next one is the statement of retained earnings,  it displays the retained earnings over a period of time.  The time that the retained earnings will be zero is when a company first started out in their accounting period. A lot of companies use the statement of stockholder equity as a substitute of retained earnings. This is a more detailed statement because it displays not only the aspects of retained earnings, but it also shows the changes in the stockholders equity accounts. 

     Next, the financial situation of a business on a particular date, usually on the end of the month or the year is the balance sheet.  The balance sheet displays the value of a business according to their assets and the claims against those assets which are the liabilities and the stockholders equity. 

     Lastly, the statement of cash flows is geared towards a company’s liquidity measures.  They are basically the flow and outflow of cash in a company.  The net cash flow is the subtraction between the inflow and outflow of money.  The statement of cash flows also display the money generated by simply operating a business, and it also displays the investing and financing transactions that occurs during a particular accounting period.

Have you ever noticed that the things you buy every week at the grocery and hardware stores go up a few cents between shopping trips? Not by much…just by a little each week but they continue to creep up and up.

 All it takes for the price to jump up by a lot is a little hiccup in the world wide market, note the price of gasoline as it relates to world affairs.

There is a way that we can keep these price increases from impacting our personal finances so much and that is by buying in quantity and finding the best possible prices for the things we use and will continue to use everyday… things that will keep just as well on the shelves in our homes as it does on the shelves at the grocery store or hardware store.

 For instance, dog food and cat food costs about 10% less when bought by the case than it does when bought at the single can price and if you wait for close out prices you save a lot more than that.

 Set aside some space in your home and make a list of things that you use regularly which will not spoil. Any grain or grain products will need to be stored in airtight containers that rats can’t get into so keep that in mind.

 Then set out to find the best prices you can get on quantity purchases of such things as bathroom items and dry and canned food.

 You will be surprised at how much you can save by buying a twenty pound bag of rice as opposed to a one pound bag but don’t forget that it must be kept in a rat proof container.

 You can buy some clothing items such as men’s socks and underwear because those styles don’t change, avoid buying children’s and women’s clothing, those styles change and sizes change too drastically.

 Try to acquire and keep a two year supply of these items and you can save hundreds of dollars. 

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