ABSTRACT
One of the main reasons for searching for entrepreneurship has been that it was assumed to be a specific phenomenon which somehow produces more and/or better entrepreneurs who would start and/or grow more businesses. The search for entrepreneurship can be seen as a search for what makes people behave entrepreneurially – in effect a search for its source. Entrepreneurship policy is supposed to have been informed by the findings of that research but, as Bridge and O’Neill indicate, there seems to be little evidence that it has successfully achieved its aims anywhere and raised the level of entrepreneurial activity in a target group:
It seems reasonable to conclude, from the evidence overall, that the methods so far applied have not worked in that they have not had the effect intended in improving rates of entrepreneurship. 1
Here, then, is further evidence that the search for ‘entrepreneurship’ has not been productive and that a deterministic model does not exist to guide policy. But what, if anything, does encourage people to become productive entrepreneurs? Entrepreneurship may not be a valid concept, but entrepreneurs in various forms still exist and do still contribute to the economy and/or to society. So, even if our conceptions of entrepreneurship have not been helpful, we still want people who are enterprising and engage in entrepreneurial activity – and we have been trying to encourage that.
