СТАНОВЛЕННЯ ТА РОЗВИТОК ТЕОРЕТИЧНИХ ПІДХОДІВ ДО ВИЗНАЧЕННЯ ЗМІСТУ КАТЕГОРІЇ «ПІДПРИЄМНИЦТВО»

Abstract

The article is devoted to a review of modern scientific approaches to the definition of the category “entrepreneurship”. Interrelation between the categories of “entrepreneur”, “entrepreneurial function” and “entrepreneurship” is characterized and determined based on the building of an associative-semantic chain, which clearly demonstrates the historical evolution and role of entrepreneurship. It is justified that in historical terms, before defining the category “entrepreneurship”, the development of the concept was shifted from a fixation on the identification of entrepreneurship with an option to carry a risk to the desire of the entrepreneur to use a new combination of factors of production – innovation. A time continuum of content evolution is built, which clearly demonstrates the continuity of the processes of improving the properties of business on the formation of a specific contribution to all spheres of socio-economic life of society. The research specifies structure-forming factors of the category “entrepreneurship”: independent, system, at one’s own risk activity, targeted, consistency, interdependence, legal and social responsibility, initiative. Based on a critical analysis of the interpretations of the category “entrepreneurship” in the modern scientific literature, as well as the results of the study of holistic knowledge about the genesis and given the practical achievements in the theory of entrepreneurship, the author identifies the main scientific approaches to detail the category of “entrepreneurship”, namely economic, personal, innovative, regional, social and institutional. Particular attention is drawn to the separation of key aspects in the identified approaches. The article argues that in defining the term “entrepreneurship”, scientists, on the one hand, focus on it as the process of searching for new opportunities, implementing new production ways, overcoming previous restrains; on the other hand, scientists focus on the riskiness of actions, creative activity and the availability of entrepreneur’s specific qualities, organization of new potential, profitable business, and creative activity in economy that requires specific personal qualities. It is put forward the author’s approach to interpreting the category “entrepreneurship” under which entrepreneurship is a set of ongoing and active processes operating in conditions of economic freedom, risk and uncertainty due to which the entrepreneur takes full responsibility for commercial success, profit generation and meeting social needs.