1.1.3—Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is the process of spotting an opportunity and organising resources to pursue it under uncertainty. An entrepreneur is not defined merely by owning a business or taking any risk.

The entrepreneur combines an idea with finance, people, knowledge and a decision about risk. The opportunity may create a new product, process or market; success depends on whether customers value the offer and whether the resources can be coordinated.

Look for three linked actions: identify a plausible opportunity, commit or obtain resources, and accept uncertainty while making decisions. Intrapreneurship applies the same behaviour inside an existing organisation.

A café employee notices that commuters want pre-ordered breakfast, tests the idea with a small menu and asks the firm to fund a mobile ordering trial. The employee is acting entrepreneurially because the opportunity, resource commitment and uncertainty are connected—even though the café already exists.

Risk-taking alone is not entrepreneurship. A careless gamble has no identified opportunity or organised resource plan; the analysis must show what problem is being solved and how the decision creates value.