Promoting Entrepreneurship To Boost The Local Economy
There are quite a number of theories about the place of the small business sector in the economy, and many different opinions towards the usefulness of supporting efforts of this sector in order t boost the local economy.Some people feel small business is the best sector to support, because it is this sector which creates most of the new jobs. Others feel that is it the worst sector to support because there is such a huge failure rate, and such support is just pouring good money after bad.
The question of who to back, which types of small businesses to encourage, when to encourage them, and how best to do that makes for lively reading. William Wolman and Anne Colamosca in their book The Judas Economy contend that all this talk of "if you can't get a job go start a business" is simply the cynical rhetoric of an economy which has been hijacked by a small elite clique of people for their own benefit(hence their book title), and that for most people, starting a new business, on or off line, is simply not an option. That is, we could do a lot for any economy simply by stoping the myth.
Gerber, in his The E-Myth (The Entreperneurial Myth) agrees that most of the people actually venturing out into business indeed do not fit the classic personality profile of successful entrepreneurs, and should not venture out at all. He sees the battering people take as a being a huge waste of money, and destruction of people's sense of self worth. However, he found that in his consulting business, designed to assist such people, he could neither persuade such people to go home nor persuade them to stay home. Faced with this reality, he was forced to search for a way to increase their chances of success, and did so.
Many other studies have isolated various factors relating to success or failure by studying individual firms and whole industries, and doing so from a variety of points of view.
Theories of Entrepreneurship
Further Enrichment Sites
Timothy Bates - Author profile