The already famous entrepreneurial spirit, which comes from the French word entrepreneur to refer to new entrepreneurs, people who create a new company, is encouraged and given great importance.
The earliest use of this term is recorded in French history in the 17th century and referred to people who undertook to lead military expeditions.
Congresses are held in many universities, especially in business schools and management careers, and it is postulated, almost as a goal, that their graduates create their own companies (sometimes producing, for this very reason, frustrated professionals). Government institutions and foundations promote this activity, as the solution to many of the country's economic problems.
Undoubtedly, creating companies is something important, especially as a way of generating employment, however that entrepreneurial spirit is necessary and fundamental also in other areas. Indeed, it is often thought that the entrepreneurial spirit refers only to the creation and start-up of new companies, since there are different kinds of entrepreneurial activity and that this transformer and its spirit can be revealed within or outside of a previously given organizational context.
There are those who create companies, but there are those who transform or improve them. For this reason, entrepreneurial activity has been defined as the management of radical and discontinuous change, or strategic renewal, regardless of whether this strategic renewal occurs inside or outside existing organizations, and regardless of whether or not this renewal gives rise to creation of a new business entity.
From that point of view, we can have two types of people, both essential to drive inescapable innovation:
- The Intrapreneur: who is the entrepreneur within the company, who assumes the active responsibility of producing any type of innovation within the company; the one that introduces and produces new products, processes and services, that allow a company to grow and benefit. The Entrepreneur: who is the independent entrepreneur who seeks to create companies and plays the same role as the previous one, but outside organizations.
But, as we said, the entrepreneur is often associated only as a person who starts his own business; But even not every business is innovative… If a person opens a traditional grocery store, is he an entrepreneur? You take risks, it's true, but you don't develop anything really new. Different would be the case of McDonald's, which also did not invent anything, but by applying management, marketing and production concepts, it creates a new way of marketing. That would be the case of an innovative entrepreneur.
On the other hand, even that grocery store, over the years, can innovate, just as a large company can be innovative, in any field, including manufacturing companies, universities or hospitals. In that case we would be talking about the internal innovator (executives or employees).
This is what Peter Drucker believes, who with his great clarity expresses: the innovative entrepreneur is based on the same principles, even if the entrepreneur is a great institution or an individual who only starts his risky business.
It makes little or no difference whether the company is a commercial or a public service organization; not even if the company is governmental or not. The rules are almost exactly the same; what works and what doesn't, the kinds of innovation and where to look for them. There is a discipline that we could call innovative business management, being clear that in any position you can be an innovative leader or a bureaucrat, be it in goods or services companies, public or private.
Consequently, the economic development of the countries requires enterprising people, both within all types of organizations, public or private, capable of changing and improving products, processes, methods or systems to grow companies, as individuals with an entrepreneurial spirit. that they create their own companies, to shape their visions and generate employment and progress.
In conclusion, we need entrepreneurs, but not only to create companies, but to innovate in established ones, making them more productive and competitive for new social, political and economic scenarios.
