THE PLACE OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN NIGERIA ECONOMY

CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Entrepreneur and Entrepreneurship are concepts that continue to generate both national and international interest today. This interest is predicated upon the realization of the massive, positive impact entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship have on a nation’s economy and by extension, the global economy, since the world today is exponentially becoming a globe village, a development which is being fostered by giant strides in information and technological advancement.

More also, according to (Henrich and Smoter 1986): The word “entrepreneur” emanates from a French background and it literary means “between taker” or “go between”. Although from this original meaning, the concept has undergone different though restrictive meanings overtime. Its “entrepreneur” an actor and person in charge of a large scale production projects (in the middle ages), a person who bore risks of profit or loss by entering into a ‘contractual agreement with the government to execute a service or supply stipulated products in a fixed-price situation (17th century), a person who needed funds for his operations (18th century), a person who organizes and operates a business for his personal gain, and an innovator (19th and 20th century), but today, the concept is used in an extremely inclusive sense which is generally associated with a person who does all the above and even beyond.

Thus, entrepreneurs are the people that drive the development of an economy. They make things happen and without them nothing actually happens. Entrepreneurship is the drives of economic social, cultural and political change, although they are most often commonly thought of in connection with the creation of economic enterprises.

On the other hand, entrepreneurship is the process of identifying, marshalling of people and resources to create, develop, and implement solutions to problems to meet people’s needs. Today these two concept “entrepreneur and entrepreneurship” dominates the overall business activities in a country’s economy and it is pertinent to note that most great countries of the world today have experienced and suffered depression (decline) at one time or the other, which gave birth to industrial revolution and market expansion that ushered a greater level of development and better standard of living, as “entrepreneur and entrepreneurship” acting as a tool for curbing depression (decline) in an economy.