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The State of Entrepreneurship in Canada

2. What is Entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurship is a process that starts with someone — the entrepreneur — recognizing an opportunity to create something new. More formally the definition used in this report follows that of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD):

Entrepreneurial activity is "enterprising human action in pursuit of the generation of value, through the creation or expansion of economic activity, by identifying and exploiting new products, processes or markets."^{Footnote 4}

As shown in Figure 1, opportunities emerge from changing conditions, such as:

• Demographic change — opportunities have emerged because of Canada's aging population;
• Social change — opportunities have emerged because Canadians are becoming more environmentally conscious;
• Economic change — opportunities have emerged from economic downturns, which have resulted in Canadians becoming more interested in do-it-yourself projects;
• Regulatory change — opportunities have emerged from deregulation of the Canadian telecommunications industry; and
• Technological change — opportunities have emerged because of the ability to digitize music and video.

Figure 1: Changing Conditions Lead to Entrepreneurial Opportunities

[Description of Figure 1]

Entrepreneurial opportunities involve the creation of something new, and can range from a new:

• product or service;
• market;
• production process;
• raw material; or
• way of organizing processes or technologies.

Canadian entrepreneurs have been involved in all of these types of opportunities, as shown in Table 1.

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