Entrepreneurship - The Productive Ingenuity of the Human Factor in an Ambiguous Environment

Abstract

Land, Labour and Capital are regarded as factors necessary for production to occur. In this frame, entrepreneurship is seen as that part of labour which combines other production factors to create goods and services that satisfy society’s needs whilst making profit, bearing all the associated risks. Naturally, risk implies ambiguity with the reverse also true. Ambiguity is therefore a permanent feature of the entrepreneurship environment. That entrepreneurs are able to recognize and exploit opportunities in an ambiguous environment is a sign of ingenuity. Based on the interpretivist approach, we conducted a qualitative (desk) research by reviewing the literature on entrepreneurship and its associated themes. Drawing from insights and patterns of meanings provided by these prior works, we identify those special attributes of entrepreneurs that make them so ingenious. We are of the view that generally speaking, the ingenuity of entrepreneurs or enterprising individuals (the human factor) lies in cognitive; fear-conquering; and self-reliance characteristics of individuals. This is in line with the assertion that entrepreneurs’ personal characteristics are the most important factors for business success. In our view, these three broad characteristics enable entrepreneurs to: create or discover opportunities; identify real opportunities that are less obvious to the general population; identify geographical locations that are endowed with social and economic resources conducive for a particular venture; and chose the organizational arrangement that best serve as a vehicle to exploit the opportunity – the hallmarks of ingenuity.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n23p11