The Copperbelt University

BS 361: Entrepreneurship Skills

Lecture 1D: Roles of

Entrepreneurs in Economic
Development
K. Mulenga
April, 2020
Friday, 08 May 2020 K. Mulenga, April 2020 1
 Forces Driving Entrepreneurship
• Entrepreneurs as heroes.
• Entrepreneurial education.
• Demographic and economic factors
• Shift to a service economy

Friday, 08 May 2020 K. Mulenga, April 2020 2

 Forces Driving Entrepreneurship
Cont.
• Technological advancement/progress.
• Independent lifestyle
• E-Commerce and the World Wide Web
• International opportunities

Friday, 08 May 2020 K. Mulenga, April 2020 3

 Entrepreneurs as Heroes.
• Entrepreneurs the world over have been
raised to hero status.
• Their achievements have been
cerebrated.
• Business founders such as Jeff Bezos
(Amazon) Jack Ma (Alibaba), Bill Gates
(Microsoft), Erick Yuan (Zoom) and Aliko
Dangote (Dangote Industries) are held in
high esteem.
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 Entrepreneurial Education.
• Colleges and universities around the
globe have realised that
entrepreneurship is a popular course of
study.
• In 1970 only 6 institutions offered
entrepreneurship courses in the USA.
• Today more than 3000 institutions do so.

Friday, 08 May 2020 K. Mulenga, April 2020 5

 Demographic and Economic
Factors
• In countries like Nigeria, Ethiopia and
Kenya huge populations have provided
many opportunities for upcoming
entrepreneurs.
• High economic growth has led to more
wealth creation and increases in
entrepreneurial activities.

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 Shift to a Service Economy
• In the USA, the service sector is
responsible for 80% of jobs and 68% of
GDP.
• Service businesses have low start-up
costs.
• They have become very popular among
many entrepreneurs as a result.

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 Technological Advancement.
• Technological advancements have made
it possible for a few individuals to run big
businesses.
• Technology has reduced entry barriers in
many industries including banking,
education and media.
• Service businesses can be run from
homes.
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 Independent Lifestyle
• Entrepreneurship fits the American way
of living- independent and self-
sustaining.
• People want freedom to choose where
they live, the hours they work and what
the do.
• Entrepreneurship facilitates freedom.

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 E-Commerce and the World Wide
Web
• The world wide web has spawned thousands
of entrepreneurial ventures since it inception
in 1993.
• Travel services, books, software, games,
movies, music and consumer electronics are
among the best selling items on the Web.
• Entrepreneurs have learned that they can sell
just about anything on the Internet.

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 International Opportunities
• Businesses are no longer limited to
serving customers within national
boundaries.
• Huge markets exist in China, India,
Indonesia, Brazil and Nigeria which
Zambian entrepreneurs can take
advantage of.

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 Role of Entrepreneurs
• An Entrepreneur uses innovation to
exploit or create change or opportunity
for the purpose of making a profit.
• They do this by shifting economic
resources from an area of lower
productivity to an area of higher
productivity and greater yield, accepting
a high degree of risk and uncertainty in
doing so.
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 Role of Entrepreneurs Cont.
• They are individuals who take a concept
and convert it into a reality- a product,
policy or institution.
• They become the champions of a new
process, and they are engines of change.
• Entrepreneurs shift economic resources
out of an area of lower and into an area
of higher productivity and greater yield.
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 Role of Entrepreneurs Cont.
• The entrepreneur always searches for
change, responds to it, and exploits it as
an opportunity.
• Entrepreneurs are innovative,
opportunity-oriented, resourceful, value-
creating change agents.
• They make things happen.

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 Wealth Creation
• To introduce new ideas/ blood into the
economy.
• To boost GDP through new innovative
industries.
• To provide new competition for large
established companies.

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 Labour Market
• To provide a flexible pool of self-
employed specialists.
• To provide a competing and efficient pool
of suppliers and subcontractors for the
corporate sectors.

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 Welfare
• To create new jobs.
• To substitute other forms of welfare for
the unemployed.
• To alleviate poverty, especially in less
developed economies.

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 Equal Opportunity
• To promote appropriate technology and
rural industrialisation.

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