Self-Employment Essay -- Jobs Businesses Papers

Self-Employment Today large companies are downsizing and reengineering with much more frequency, and it would appear that the trend has become one of people starting their own business. An interesting statistic stated that in the United States a new small business is started every 11 seconds; (of course many do fail, but they are started all the same). (Sullivan) We must also keep in mind that starting a business and being self-employed are not always one in the same-as this paper will examine in more detail. People can be, and often are, simultaneously owners, self-employed producers, and capitalists. It was stated that, In traditional economics a basic principle is that economic resources-the means of producing goods and services-are limited or scarce. Economic resources are defined as property resources-land or raw materials and capital-and human resources-labor and entrepreneurial ability. Therefore, entrepreneurial ability is one of the four cornerstones of our economy. (Kautz, "Entrepreneurial Issues.") The availability of all of these resources in turn, determines the vitality of the economy and its growth. Although to be an entrepreneur does not require that one be self-employed, being self-employed does require that one, at least to some extent, be an entrepreneur. Therefore it is important to understand what it "is" to be an entrepreneur as well as what it "takes" to be an entrepreneur. The basic components of entrepreneurial ability can be reduced to four basic components. First, the entrepreneur is the one who takes the first step, and thus the initiative, to combine the individual parts of land, capital, and labor to produc... ...ary/weekly/1999/aa051799.htm Kautz, Judith. "Entrepreneurs Add Vitality to the Economy." July 2, 1999." wysiwyg://24/http://entrepreneurs†¦.s/library/weekly/1999/aa070299.htm Kautz, Judith. "Entrepreneurship Beyond 2000." wysiwyg://29/http://entrepreneurs†¦.s/library/weekly/1999/aa112599.htm Martin, Ed. "Entrepreneurs and Small Business. What's the Difference?" wysiwyg://53/http://sbinformation†¦.ation/library/weekly/aa082800a.htm Pettersson, Edvard. "Countering View of Immigrants as Entrepreneurs." Los Angeles Business Journal. January 24, 2000. The Gale Group (CBJ, L.P.). Sullivan, Robert. "Nine Steps to Success." The Small Business Start-up Guide. wysiwyg://17/http://www.bizproweb.com/features/9_steps_to_success.html "Top 10 Reasons Small Businesses Fail." wysiwyg://14/http://about.allbusin†¦ormation/general.jhtml?fname=10207