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
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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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