Entrepreneurial Leadership and Public Policy

Abstract

Since the days of industrial revolution innovation and entrepreneurship have been closely associated. While innovation is the search for, and the discovery, development, improvement adoption and commercialisation of new processes, new products and new organisational structuring entrepreneurship is wider in scope. In addition to innovation it concerns itself with procuring of finance, marketing etc. Innovation involves uncertainty and risk sharing, probing and experimenting, testing and the like. Innovation constitutes one area of the whole lot of activities to be performed by the entrepreneur. If a person does not innovate but simply assimilates technological information relating to a particular process or product and lays the foundation of a production process he is an entrepreneur. Similarly an individual who starts manufacturing an existing product, generates employment, finds sources of financing by himself is definitely called to be an entrepreneur. While talking about the nature of innovation question of technology automatically comes in. Viewed from the perspective of science, technology is a public good which can be. used to increase the wealth 'of nations. Individual producers of technology, on the other hand, look upon it as a private good. Secrecy, prevention of information from leaking out by various methods bear testimony to that. Creation of additional wealth is no doubt the major objective of technology improvement irrespective of it being of public or private good. A community of scientists would always like to discuss all inventions threadbare. The more openly it is discussed, the better whereas Rand D personnel in a corporate firm are always secretive about a new product and process are being developed. Application of the new technology in the actual sphere of production which is the characteristic of an entrepreneur results in an outward shifting of society's production possibility frontier. Given the amount of resources at the disposal of the society an upward shift of the production possibility frontier implies higher productivity and that probably explains the wealth creating aspect of technology. An entrepreneur who is actively engaged in generating additional wealth for the society has technology by his side as the main tool. The paper begins by discussing the nature of innovation in regard to technology and finance comes later. The third section dwells on the basic requirement of a public policy to foster entrepreneurship.