An Enterprise is a Goal-Realisation Device

Chapter 5 considered the different perspectives of the business professional and the business owner. It suggested that although much research into small businesses has taken the business as its unit of analysis, nevertheless the behaviour of many small businesses depends on the characteristics and aims of their founder- owners. Similarly, starting with Cantillon, many explorations of entrepreneurship have developed from the identification of the entrepreneur as the key component in the process of creating a new business venture. This chapter though looks at entrepreneurship from a people perspective and considers the position of new venture creation, or of other forms of enterprise, in the process of a person’s life. It considers how enterprise might fit into the life of the person involved, instead of how the person might fit into the life of the enterprise.