International entrepreneurship
Not only the future of entrepreneurship is international; we are already there, and global entrepreneurship is the reality. This provides challenges as well as opportunities. The rapidly growing economies of China and India are stimulating and benefiting from the entrepreneurship of their own populations, as well as becoming increasingly attractive to external investors and partners. They are moving up the 'value chain' and producing products and services with higher value-added in knowledge and technology which increasingly challenge US and European producers in their domestic markets.
This economic growth is providing challenges at both national and international levels which can be expected to increase. The modernisation of the Chinese economy is creating massive growth in demand for resources such as electricity, coal, oil, steel and other commodities. It is already clear that as China continues to grow, accompanied by other Southeast Asian economies, the US model of consumption capitalism will not be sustainable
because resources such as oil are finite and cannot be discovered and pumped fast enough to meet demand, the peak of oil production has been reached, and the environmental conse-quences, especially climate change, are not sustainable. The projected increase in the world population of 50 per cent or 3 billion extra people by 2050, primarily in developing economies, will place huge strain on the world economy and on resources to feed, house, employ and support this population.
This is the nub of the problem for entrepreneurship, and one that researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs must focus on to find new approaches and solutions. In principle, the entire population of the world is entitled to develop entrepreneurial skills and opportunities and cannot be denied that right, but this has major consequences. The way to achieve wide¬spread participation in enterprise in changing economies is a vital topic for exploration. The case of 'free market' reforms in the post-Soviet Russia in the early 1990s quickly resulted in a kind of 'robber baron' capitalism as major industries and rights to natural resources such as gas were captured by a self-enriching oligarchy. This shows how simplistically applying the US model of enterprise in a different context can have unexpected social and economic consequences.
For the majority of potential entrepreneurs in the developing world, enterprise will mean moving initially into some form of 'necessity entrepreneurship' as a route out of poverty. For those in failed or despotic states without free markets or support for new businesses or trading activities, such as Myanmar, North Korea and Zimbabwe, that is probably impossible without a change in government. But for millions of others it is clear that neither state intervention, multinational investment or other solutions are to hand and enterprise is one of the few options available; therefore the challenge to develop inclusive models of enterprise is imperative.
However, economic growth increases resource use, which can quickly become unsustain¬able, especially in combination with population growth. This is not only about oil and carbon-based energy sources, serious though that situation is. The changing world climate, resulting from the carbon-based economy, also increases demand for water as a resource, with the effects being felt worldwide, from Nevada and California to Africa and India. So whilst one strategy to assist in African development is to improve agricultural practices and increase food production, this is impossible without water. There is already severe tension between Egypt and other African countries about access to and use of Nile water. These are geopolitical questions which cannot be dodged by entrepreneurship researchers and practitioners, for they arise from entrepreneurial activity, and present challenges which entrepreneurs and innovators have the responsibility and opportunity to try to overcome.