‘Attitudes Changing’

Attitudes towards entrepreneurship are changing.

Director of the Strategic Business Services Department at the Sagicor Cave Hill School of Business and Management (CHSBM), Marjorie Wharton, said this is according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey, which CHSBM has been responsible for co-ordinating.

Wharton shared some of the outcomes of the survey during the media launch for Global Entrepreneurship Week (Barbados) 2017, yesterday.

“It is now more readily acknowledged that it is wrong to believe that starting a business is only pursued by people who failed at finding a job or getting an education. Entrepreneurs today generally are people who have jobs and who have successfully completed professional or tertiary level education and training,” she pointed out.

However, she said that in spite of shifting perspectives of entrepreneurship and the positive images of business owners that are shown in the media, most individuals who are not born into entrepreneurial families are not pursuing it as a primary career.

“So, they see themselves as solo entrepreneurs and not as high growth potential businesses that can create jobs, earn foreign exchange and help to grow the economy. Unfortunately, our research also shows this as a trend.”

Wharton also observed that for CHSBM, Global Entrepreneurship Week represents another pathway to changing the attitude towards entrepreneurship.

“We believe that in order to help the region become and remain globally competitive, we, as a people, must harness the dreams and visions of the inventors among us,” she stressed.

“We must work to release the potential of our collective creativity and we must be willing to forge our ideas into a precise pathway to developing sustainable competitiveness.”

Embracing GEW activities, the Director revealed that the Cave Hill School of Business will again be opening the First Citizens’ Dare to Dream Business Idea Competition. This competition offers youth between the ages of 16 and 21, the opportunity to learn from and interact with entrepreneurs, while building some skills in pitching their ideas and managing the financial side of a business. (TL)