asked to feel an object and say what they thought it was.
It was actually an elephant but the person who felt its trunk identified it as a hose, the one who felt the tail identified it as a brush, and the third who felt a leg identified it as tree.
Despite their having been identified as different things, these are all related parts of the same object which became clear once the blindfolds were removed.
Further, once it was clear that they were all parts of an elephant, then how each part would behave could be predicted from an understanding of elephants and how they move and operate.
However a different analogy is provided by artichokes. Apparently on the basis of taste, globe artichokes, Jerusalem artichokes and Chinese artichokes are all called artichokes – although the bits that are eaten are the base of the flower bud of a globe artichoke, the tubers growing on the roots of a Jerusalem artichoke and the tuberous underground stems of a Chinese artichoke.
Despite the similarity in taste, they are not related. Globe artichokes are a variety of thistle, Jerusalem artichokes are related to sunflowers( and are called‘ Jerusalem’ supposedly as a corruption of‘ girasole’ – the Italian word for sunflower) and Chinese artichokes are a perennial herb of the mint family. Tasting the same and being called artichokes does not make them the same thing.
Which analogy best fits our perceptions of entrepreneurship?
Although people may perceive it in different ways, does entrepreneurship exist as a single, objectively distinguishable behaviour – or are the things to which different people have become accustomed to apply the label‘ entrepreneurship’ sometimes different activities, albeit with some similar aspects?
If it is the latter, then trying to agree, or impose, a single definition will not be helpful and continuing to insist that entrepreneurship as variously defined is all the same thing will be counterproductive.
This differing use of the same label also leads to false parallels being drawn. An obvious manifestation of the wish to embrace entrepreneurship in academia is the large number‘ entrepreneurship’ courses now being provided, not just in the USA as reported above, but also in many other countries.
However these courses do not all cover the same thing. One study divided them into three categories: those which were about
QUOTABLEQUOTE
Although people may perceive it in different ways, does entrepreneurship exist as a single, objectively distinguishable behaviour – or are the things to which different people have become accustomed to apply the label‘ entrepreneurship’ sometimes different activities, albeit with some similar aspects?
entrepreneurship – aiming to study it objectively; those that were about becoming an entrepreneur – which were essentially aimed at helping participants to start a business; and those that were about becoming entrepreneurial – where the aim was to prepare people to be enterprising in any activity.
Clearly the second and third of these are different things, despite having the same label, but a further review found that the syllabus for‘ becoming an entrepreneur’ courses, which was typically based on the key components of a business plan, was often borrowed for‘ becoming entrepreneurial’ courses.
It appeared that, even when the difference in aim was acknowledged, the continuing use of the label‘ entrepreneurship education’ still implied that they had something in common and therefore excused the lazy approach of borrowing an existing syllabus instead of having to develop a new one.
The conclusion suggested here is that what we have labelled as‘ entrepreneurship’ is more like artichokes than an elephant. Because we can’ t define entrepreneurship uniquely and consistently and because we have not been able to identify any‘ rules’ for how it operates( which is not surprising if we can’ t actually agree what it is), we are faced with the conclusion that it doesn’ t exist as the specific phenomenon we have supposed it to be.
Is the suffix‘ ship’ the cause of at least part of the confusion. Does it suggest a commonality and some sort of shared condition like leadership or friendship which is not in this case justified?
Take running: unlike entrepreneurship we can objectively define the act of running – but people run for many different reasons. Athletes may run to win medals, joggers may run to keep fit and commuters may run to catch trains – but, while we call their activity‘ running’, we have not adopted the term‘ runnership’ for a sort of unifying factor – because there isn’ t one.
They run for different reasons and, while some of their running may be predictable – we can for instance predict that the qualifying sprinters will run in Olympic Games – that reason does not apply to other runners.
Has the addition of the suffix‘ ship’ to‘ entrepreneur’ been an act, not of observation, but of wishful thinking? Have we invented and used the word entrepreneurship because we wanted there to be such a condition.
Therefore, if the reality is that the condition doesn’ t exist, should we now drop the use of the word as it leads to confusion, false parallels and unrealistic expectations? And it is not the case that everyone has to do this for it to be effective.
Anyone who stops using the word will instead have to think what they actually want say and try to express it in appropriate words – and should thus be clearer in their communication.
But if instead we continue to use it then, the more we try to expound on it, the more its meaning will seem to evaporate.
“ He had softly and suddenly vanished away for the Snark was a Boojum, you see.” Lewis Carroll
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