“This report reviews recent South African and international research on entrepreneurship. The research confirms that entrepreneurship plays a key role in economic development. In line with this, many government planners, journalists, academics, civil society players, and business people agree that entrepreneurship, and smaller aspirant entrepreneurs in particular, should be vigorously encouraged. The government has adopted numerous
policies aimed at achieving this goal, and programmes introduced to implement those
policies have been well-funded and widely publicised. However, this consensus lacks focus and a concentration of purpose, and displays several conceptions of the meaning and purpose of entrepreneurship. Notably, the government has sought to promote entrepreneurship in order to achieve a variety of hoped-for benefits, including black empowerment; providing a ‘survivalist’ cushion for people who have lost their jobs in the formal sector as a result of restructuring exercises;and driving economic growth and job creation.This report contains a number of accounts of successful entrepreneurs, mainly historically disadvantaged South Africans. They illustrate a thriving spirit of entrepreneurship that contradicts the disappointing comparative figures with which this section began.”
