| Abstract [eng] |
Relevance of the research and the extent of investigation. Entrepre-neurship penetrates to all spheres of nowadays life starting from personal life, institutions and ending in regional or country development. The importance of entrepreneurship is not argued in the development of nowadays economy. En-trepreneurship helps to make a distinguishing position in the market, increase activity competitiveness and strengthen competitiveness of an enterprise. En-trepreneurship is one of the spheres which development is supported by large amount of financial funds in the European Union (EU). Such a support is very important for less developed countries, their enterprises, especially small and medium-sized, for entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship as business phenomenon is an actual research object in social sciences. Entrepreneurship in management and business practice might be expressed by certain features , which identification is an actual question of the scientific research. In modern management theory the question of the entre-preneurship is important, broadly analysed and discussed in research works. The analysis of the entrepreneurship’s expression and its features, at first, starts from research works on entrepreneurship itself, from classical and neo-classical economic theory initiators such as R. Cantillon, J. B. Say, J. S. Mill, A. Smith, J. Bentham, D. Ricardo, G. Schmoller and their scientific researches, fulfilled in 1730-1900. They analysed different aspects of entrepreneurship phenomenon, but their work was not directly related with an identification of entrepreneurship’s expression in business. Rudiments of entrepreneurship may be found even in early economic theories as well as in analysed works an en-trepreneur and its features were discussed. J. A. Schumpeter was the most distinct representative of the entrepreneur-ship research. In 1911-1934 he has analysed the concept and the essence of innovation as inseparable and important aspect of business. J. A. Schumpeter’s economics was identified as economics of innovation and technological changes. An entrepreneur was understandable as a person, who was implement-ing such economics. Analysing various scientific works, it was found, that during the period of 1921-1949 such researchers as L. Walras, C. Menger, L. von Mises, F. Knight, M. Weber had written about importance of financial capital, economic effec-tiveness of activity, role of entrepreneur in economy, striving for profit, crea-tion of added value, and entrepreneurial motivation. Research works on entrepreneurship became intense after the World War II. As the most important must be mentioned: - D. McClelland (1961) was analysing tendency of entrepreneurial be-haviour in society; - I. M. Kirzner (1973, 1979) has written about an important role of en-trepreneur in economy researching “pure entrepreneur” and “arbitra-geur” concepts; - A. Shapero (1975) researched an entrepreneurial behaviour. Later the important researches were made by: - K. Vesper (1980), who valuated entrepreneurial behaviour from eco-nomic, managerial and political viewpoints; - G. Pinchot (1983) was analysing a content of intrapreneur and entre-preneur concepts; - H. H. Stevenson, D. E. Gumpert (1985) analysed the concept of the en-trepreneur and his activity tasks; - R. Hisrich (1986, 1989), M. P. Peters (1989) analysed entrepreneur-ship as the process, in which the added value was created; - P. Drucker (1989, 1992) analysed entrepreneur as a person who maximizes the possibilities and is acting in information society. More new approaches about entrepreneurship’s expression are presented in works of: - J. Stopford and Ch. Baden – Fuller (1994), where formation periods of organizational entrepreneurship are presented; - Z. Lydeka (1996, 2000, 2001, 2003), where abilities of an entrepreneur are analysed and researched; - H. Mintzberg (1998), where entrepreneurship is related with small and medium-sized business; - R. Jucevičius (1998), where entrepreneurial organizations are analysed distinguishing common marks of these organizations; - R. Swedberg (2000), where phenomenon of entrepreneurship is ana-lysed; - D. B. Audretsch and P. J. J. Welfens (2002), where the role of the en-trepreneurship was analysed from the knowledge-based economy posi-tions; - K. Messeghem (2003), where questions of risk capital investments and organization renewal are discussed; - D. Stokes (2004), where relation between entrepreneurship and small and medium-size business is analysed; - Th. Grebel (2004), where an entrepreneurial activity in the knowledge-based economy is analysed; - G. Bannock (2005), where entrepreneurship and small and medium-size business are tightly related; - K. Kriščiūnas, R. Daugėlienė (2006), where entrepreneurial innovative business is analysed as new knowledge sphere; - B. Janiūnaitė (2007), where the innovativeness, creativeness and en-trepreneurship’s relations are analysed. In analysed research works the other new features of the entrepreneur-ship’s expression in the enterprises are emphasized directly or indirectly, for example, innovation creation and usage, knowledge creation and usage, leader-ship, the features of social responsibility as well as significance and importance of traditional and universal features of entrepreneurship’s expression are em-phasized. Contemporary entrepreneur might be described as an innovative person, who foresees and evaluates possibilities, those possibilities transforms to sell-ing and implied ideas, creates added value, during time putting the appropriate efforts, funds and abilities, and evaluating competitive risk (Stevenson, Gum-pert, 1985). Entrepreneurs act in various spheres of society, in educational sys-tem, in medicine, in law, in architecture or social work as well as in business. Robert Hisrich (1986) says that entrepreneurship is a process when during it the added value is created putting time and efforts, also evaluating financial, psy-chological, and social risk. A result of entrepreneurship is financial and indi-vidual fulfilment. Entrepreneurship is conceptualised as a possessive category of an enter-prise in the dissertation. Entrepreneurship is expressing in activity of an enter-prise. The activity of the enterprise can be entrepreneurial or not. Entrepreneur-ship is a specific concept, different than innovativeness, which is tightly con-cerned with innovation and their appliance. Entrepreneurship in the dissertation is described as relative and changing. Entrepreneurship can be outlined by the features of its expression. The aim is to define these features. Characteristics of an entrepreneurial person are not the object of the research. Entrepreneurship is analysed in an enterprise as a business subject. A lot of research works are analysing entrepreneurship’s expression and its features in the enterprise, but only few of them define full context of entrepre-neurship. The analysis of the earlier mentioned scientific works has not re-vealed an evolution of consistently identified features of entrepreneurship‘s expression in the economy and management sciences’ development. The first task of the dissertation is to analyse the evolution of the features of entrepre-neurship’s expression. The concept of the entrepreneurship in an enterprise changes as evolution of society, economy and its conditions proceeds. Entrepreneurs, small and me-dium-sized enterprises (SMEs) need new knowledge, new technologies, new managerial methods in their activity realising their aims. Realisation of an en-trepreneurial idea by rude measures is difficult in complicated economic condi-tions, especially then striving to distinguish itself in the market and be competi-tive. The identification of the modern features of entrepreneurship‘s expres-sion makes possible interpretation of nature, evolution and content of compli-cated entrepreneurship’s concept in conditions of forming knowledge-based economy, and when the empirical research concentrates in innovative SMEs. Innovative SMEs are such enterprises which are implementing in their activity innovation , new technologies, new managerial methods and etc. Features of entrepreneurship‘s expression could be identified not only in theoretical works, which are conceptual, entire. The features can be found and identified analysing the projects financially supported by the European Com-mission (EC). The aim of these projects is to promote, create, and apply inno-vation in business as well as the exposure of the features of entrepreneurship’s expression is enabled in them. Even conceptual works are a good background for defining the features; the evaluation of experts is worth executing also. It would be difficult to explore only theoretical works. The research made analys-ing the projects financially supported by EC and identifying the features of en-trepreneurship’s expression enables a theoretical conceptual research. It is pos-sible to compare theoretical provisions with promoted ones by the EC. Espe-cially it is important because a huge amount of financial support is devoted for business, especially SMEs and entrepreneurship by projects. Competitiveness of enterprises is raised, and competitive position becomes better. Finding of additional features of entrepreneurship’s expression could extend the research results. The other important task of the dissertation is to research empirically how the identified features of the entrepreneurship‘s expression forming a modern entrepreneurship’s concept are exposing in practical activity of innovative Lithuanian SMEs. In knowledge-based economy entrepreneurial enterprises, at first, are acting in such institutional structures as technological parks, business incubators, innovation centres and etc. In such institutions the favourable con-ditions exist for innovative business; administrative costs are minimal. Devel-opment of enterprises is supported, also entrepreneurship is strengthened. The ways how to i. |
