Open PRAIRIE: Open Public Research Access Institutional Repository and Information Exchange
Abstract
From where springs forth entrepreneurs? The United States is experiencing an unprecedented increase of entrepreneurs. They have emerged in growing numbers during the past ten to fifteen years (Drucker, 1985), reaching a crescendo in what American Demographics has called the Entrepreneurial Eighties (Russell, 1985). Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley recently recognized this occurrence by declaring an Entrepreneur Day for his city at the annual meeting of the Young Entrepreneurs Organization (Givens and Goldberg, 1986). What is an entrepreneur? There have been many definitions since the term was coined by French economist J. B. Say in about 1800 (Drucker, 1985). According to Say, an entrepreneur shifts economic resources out of an area of lower and into an area of higher productivity and greater yield. Drucker says that they exhibit purposeful innovation as their principle tool, when making these resource shifts. Yet, in these definitions, as W. J. Baumol contends, this apex figure of the free enterprise society remains one of the most elusive characters in the cast (Kanbur, 1980)
